Chapter 7 – The One Who Leads the Hunt

Kael's POV

The forest went almost silent when we crossed the tree line.

Not the peaceful kind of quiet—the kind that warned. The kind that watched and waited. Every instinct I had sharpened immediately, pulling tight beneath my skin. The tension in the air was palpable.

I moved first, following Ayla's scent deeper into the trees. It was fresh and overwhelming, clinging to the air in layers that made it difficult to think straight. Berries—rich and alive—wrapping around my senses and twisting something deep inside me that I wasn't ready to name yet. For a moment it felt like I was losing control, like the bond was pulling me forward faster than I wanted to go.

Ryker followed close behind. Soren took the rear.

Formation. Instinct. The only thing keeping this from falling apart.

Fenrir was awake—not pacing, not restless. Focused in a way he rarely was. He'd caught one breath of her scent back in the hallway and hadn't let it go since.

I'd tried reasoning with him before we left. Tried explaining that we needed a strong Luna. That a mute, timid girl who had never once stood up for herself couldn't lead beside an Alpha. That the Goddess would provide a second chance if I rejected this bond.

Fenrir had listened to every word.

Then ignored all of it.

"She's not weak," he'd said, with a certainty that had caught me completely off guard. "She's more than you've ever bothered to see."

The words had landed somewhere uncomfortable, and I hadn't been able to shake them since. Because the longer I sat with it, the harder it became to argue. Ayla had endured years of cruelty—from us, from the pack, from a life that had given her absolutely nothing—and she had never once cracked under it. Never reacted. Never broken in front of us.

That wasn't weakness.

I just hadn't wanted to see it for what it actually was.

Then something slowly clicked into place: Ayla had always been strong—not in the obvious way, but quietly. She'd endured our torments daily without cracking under the pressure. Maybe that was precisely what the pack needed. Someone who could hold steady in silence.

The moment that thought crossed my mind, the need to find her and hold her close grew into something harder to ignore. I fought it the way I fought everything—deliberately, methodically. It didn't help.

We moved deeper. Slower now, the scent thickening with every step.

Then it shifted—not randomly, but deliberately.

"She's moving," I said quietly, narrowing my eyes.

"She's not panicking," Soren said from behind me. "She's thinking."

Ryker scoffed. "Oh, brilliant—"

"She's not running blindly anymore," Soren continued, ignoring him. "Her wolf is—"

"This is so stupid," Ryker cut in, his voice dropping low but sharp. "You do realize that, right? We're out here in the freezing cold, before sunrise, chasing a mute girl through the forest."

The words landed like a stone dropped into still water.

I stopped walking.

Soren stopped a half-step behind me.

Neither of us said anything immediately, and the silence that followed was the kind that had weight.

Then I turned around slowly.

Ryker read my expression, and his jaw tightened, something flickering behind his eyes that looked almost like regret—but he held his ground, shoulders squared, chin up.

"Ryker," Soren said, his voice quiet and absolutely lethal. "Shut your mouth."

"She is our mate," I said. Low. Final. The kind of tone that didn't invite a response. "The next time you speak about her like that, you'll regret it."

Ryker's jaw worked. A muscle jumped in his cheek. For a moment it looked like he might push back—and then something in him deflated, just slightly. It wasn't enough for him to be graceful about it, but it was sufficient.

He looked away first.

His ears went red at the tips.

"I didn't mean—" he started.

"You did," Soren said. "That's the problem."

Ryker fell silent. He dragged a hand roughly through his hair and stared at a point somewhere past my shoulder, jaw tight, shoulders rigid. The embarrassment was written all over him—not the clean kind, but the messy kind that came from knowing you'd said the wrong thing and not quite knowing how to sit inside that knowledge.

Duke was surfacing—I could see it in the way Ryker's eyes had darkened slightly at the edges. Restless. Volatile. Struggling against something.

That was the thing about Ryker. He'd never been patient with Ayla. His short fuse had always gotten in the way. He didn't know what to do with emotions that weren't anger or adrenaline. Everything else just came out wrong. He would have to work the hardest to earn her trust—and somewhere beneath all that restlessness, I thought he already knew it.

I turned back to the trees.

"Slow down," I ordered, and started moving again. "We're not hunting her."

Ryker exhaled through his nose, sharp and frustrated, but fell back into formation without another word.

We spread out slightly as we moved deeper, the trees thinning ahead where the light pushed through in pale winter strips.

Fenrir pushed forward, pulling my attention with him.

"She's close," he said.

"I know," I replied.

Her scent was everywhere now—on the bark of the trees, pressed into the snow underfoot. The bond hummed under my skin, low and insistent, and I kept my grip on it deliberately loose. Not pulling. Not pushing.

"She's not an omega," Ryker said suddenly, his voice different now. Quieter. Like he was only just putting it together.

"I suspected as much," Soren replied.

I glanced back. "You knew?"

"I suspected," he said. "She's an Alpha's daughter. The way she carries herself—even the way she endures things. Omegas don't hold themselves like that."

I remembered something—hushed voices between my parents the night she arrived, years ago. I'd been too young to fully understand it, and over time I'd convinced myself I'd misread it. I had thought that she was too quiet, too small, and too invisible to be what my parents had implied. I'd figured she'd been banished by an Alpha instead.

I'd been wrong about that, too.

Fenrir's ears twitched sharply.

"There," he said. "Behind the large birch. She's watching us."

I lifted my gaze slowly and spotted her almost immediately—just visible, pressed against the far side of the trunk. Still. Watching.

Not running.

"Step out, Ayla," I called. Steady. Measured. Nothing like the way I used to speak to her—no edge, no dismissal. That version of us was done now. It had to be. Everything had changed.

She didn't move.

"Stubborn," Fenrir muttered, though there was something almost fond underneath it. "She heard us. She's just being difficult."

"She heard you," Soren said quietly. "She's deciding."

Ryker shifted beside me, tension rolling off him in waves. He was holding himself together through what looked like genuine effort, hands curled at his sides, and jaw locked. He wasn't good at this—the waiting, the stillness, the deliberate restraint. It went against everything he was wired to do.

"She's still not moving," he muttered under his breath.

"She will," Soren said. "She won't be able to resist the bond too long."

"Come out," I said again, keeping my voice even. "We're not here to hurt you."

The trees held their quiet.

Fenrir went completely still inside me, his attention fixed entirely on that birch tree and the girl behind it.

She was deciding. Soren was right about that. And whatever she decided in the next few moments was going to set the tone for everything that came after.

I didn't move. Didn't push.

We'd given her enough reasons to run already.

The least I could do now was give her a reason to stay.

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