The war drums had quieted, but they still echoed in my bones. We had crushed the alliance of the North and South; their bannersy trampled beneath our ws, their warriors broken across the field. Tonight, the West was drunk on victory.

    Stormbane Citadel glowed with fire and song. The courtyard zed with torches, wolves howled their praises, and the halls brimmed with feasting. All for me. The White Wolf. Their champion.

    I should have been there–sitting beside Aedric, letting him lift my hand before the Pack as though I were his destined mate. Instead, I slipped away. The noise, the worship, the weight of belonging to something I did not feel a part of–it strangled me.

    I walked alone through the cold corridors until I reached my quarters. The moment the heavy doors closed behind me, silence rushed in like a wave. My armor was still dusted with blood and ash, but I had no strength to remove it. I sank into the chair by the window, staring out into the night where the moon bled through clouds.

    No matter how they knelt before me, no matter how they whispered my name with reverence, I did not belong here. The West adored me, yet I felt nothing in return. No pride. No home. Only distance.

    Three years ago, I had opened my eyes for the first time in this very stronghold.

    I remembered it vividly: waking to the scent of burning herbs and the low hum of voices. My body had felt like stone, my wolf like a shadow torn apart. And beside me, seated with his silver eyes unblinking, was Aedric Stormbane–the Alpha of the West.

    “You are safe,” he told me. “You are Aria. You were born of the West. Our strongest White Wolf.”

    I had believed him because what else could I do? My mind was a hollow cavern, stripped of memory. He told me I had fought bravely, struck down in battle, and dragged home by my mentor, Maeryn. That I had beenatose for two years. That only the Pack’s rarest moon–blessed herb, Moonshade Veyra, had saved me and my wolf, Sia, from death.

    He called my amnesia a wound of war. He said the past would return, piece by piece.

    But it never did.

    Whenever I pressed Sia, she gave me nothing but silence or vague unease. My wolf was as nk as I was, though her strength burned fierce and untamed. She was my only anchor in the confusion. At least that much had survived–the White Wolf’s power.

    Still, fragments haunted me. Not of parents or a childhood–I found myself recoiling at the very thought of parents. The word itself sickened me, filled me with inexplicable hatred. No, the shadows that followed me were not of family.

    They were of him.

    A man who came to me in dreams. Towering, golden–eyed, his presence heavy as thunder. He never spoke clearly, but my chest ached whenever he appeared. Each time I reached to see his face, the dream dissolved, leaving me gasping with tears I could not exin.

    11:47 pm

    b+20 /bFree Coins

    And so I buried myself in battle. It was easier to wield my ws than to confront the emptiness. Easier to guard the borders, to drown in war cries, than to sit beneath Aedric’s unyielding gaze.

    Because Aedric was always there.

    Alpha. Conqueror. With his sculpted frame and silver eyes that gleamed like steel under moonlight, he was every wolf’s vision of power. His jaw sharp as a de, his hair dark as obsidian, his smile dangerous enough to break oaths. To many, he was perfection–the kind of Alpha others would dly kneel for.

    And to me? He was a snare.

    I was not blind. I saw the way his eyes lingered, the way his words curled with hunger. I knew he wanted more than my loyalty as a soldier. But my soul recoiled whenever he touched too close. My body stiffened as though betraying something I could not even remember.

    A knock rattled against the door, sharp andmanding.

    ‘Aria.” His voice. Deep. Smooth. Inescapable.

    I swallowed, forcing the calm back into my voice. “Enter.”

    The door opened, and there he was–Aedric, in ck trimmed with silver, the flicker of torchlight gilding his features. Even after battle, he looked immacte, untouchable, as though the blood of war had neverred stain him.

    You weren’t at the feast,” he said, stepping into the room. His gaze swept over me, assessing. “Are you inwell?”

    I shook my head. “My body is sound. I just… needed quiet.”

    He came closer, and I stiffened as his shadow fell across me. The scent of steel and cedar clung to him. His hand reached, not for my face but for my shoulders, as if to draw me into his arms.

    I moved without thinking—just a shift of my weight, a breath of space–but it was enough. His embrace faltered in the air between us.

    For a heartbeat, his silver eyes burned with something raw. Then the anger broke through, sharp and unmasked.

    Three years,” he said, voice low, dangerous. “Three years, and still you recoil from me. What are you waiting for, Aria? A ghost? Some shadow from dreams?b” /b

    My chest tightened. His words cut close–too close.

    “Tell me,” he pressed, his voice rising with frustration. “Are you waiting for Storm-”

    He stopped abruptly, as though the next word had betrayed him. But I had heard enough.

    “Waiting for what?” I demanded, heart pounding. “What did you almost say? For who?”

    His jaw clenched, the fury in his eyes glinting like ice. He said nothing. He only turned, his cloak snapping behind him as he strode out. The door mmed shut, and silence crashed down once more.

    I sat frozen in the emptiness he left, but my mind was no longer nk.

    b2/3 /b

    11:47 pm D

    +20 Free Coins

    Storm…

    He had almost said it.

    Storm.

    The word burned in my chest like fire.

    And for the first time in three years, I wondered if the life I had been told was mine was nothing but a

    cage.