All Chapters of They Both Wanted Me: Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

The dream came without warning, as dreams often do, pulling Kael from the shallow sleep he had fallen into after another long day of training. One moment he was lying in his cot, staring at the ceiling, and the next he was standing in a place he had never seen before—a small room with walls lined with books and a window that looked out onto a busy city street. The air smelled of paper and dust and something else, something warm and familiar that he couldn't quite name. His feet were bare on the worn wooden floor, and the late afternoon sun streamed through the glass, casting golden patterns across the scattered papers on a small desk. And there she was. 

The city was louder than Kael expected, a constant hum of voices and engines and footsteps that seemed to press against his ears from every direction. He had spent his entire life in the forest, surrounded by the quiet of trees and the howl of wolves, and the noise of human civilization grated against his senses like sandpaper on raw skin. He moved through the streets with his head down, avoiding eye contact, trying to blend in with the crowds that flowed around him like water around a stone. The library where the lights had been spotted was a small building on a quiet street, nestled between a bakery and a shop that sold old furniture. Kael stood across the street, watching the entrance, waiting for any sign of Lena. 

The forest was cold and dark, the trees pressing close on either side, their branches forming a canopy that blocked out most of the moonlight. Kael stood at the edge of the human city, watching the lights flicker in the distance, feeling the weight of the years pressing down on his shoulders. Lena was somewhere in that sprawl of buildings and streets, living a life she didn't understand, waiting for a future she couldn't imagine. He had been watching her for weeks now, ever since the rogue attack, ever since Selene had helped him bring her to the pack's territory. Lena had been confused, scared, desperate for answers that Kael hadn't been able to give her. He had tried to explain, tried to tell her about the prophecy, about the moon, about the bond that connected them, but the words had come out wrong, and she had looked at him

The morning light was pale and cold, filtering through the gaps in the cabin's shutters and casting long shadows across the wooden floor. Kael had been awake for hours, lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling the pull of the mate bond tighten around his chest with every passing moment. Lena was in the room down the hall, sleeping, recovering, trying to make sense of a world that had turned upside down in the span of a single night. He had found her. After decades of waiting, of dreaming, of praying to a moon that sometimes seemed deaf to his pleas, he had found her. She was everything his mother had described and more—fierce, scared, brave, *his*. But she wasn't his alone.

The fire crackled in the hearth, casting dancing shadows across the walls of the cabin. Kael sat on a wooden chair across from Lena, his hands clasped between his knees, his golden eyes fixed on her face. She had been quiet since the training session ended, her golden eyes distant, her thoughts somewhere else. Caspian stood by the window, his red eyes fixed on the forest, his body tense with the anticipation of danger. The night was cold and still, the kind of night that made wolves want to curl up by the fire and wait for dawn. Kael should have been sleeping, should have been conserving his strength for the challenges ahead, but sleep had become a stranger to him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Lena's face. Every time he drifted off, he dreamed of golden eyes and a light that seemed to promise something he couldn't yet