Sera's POV
I woke up to screaming.
My eyes snapped open, my head pounding from whatever Marcus had injected into me. The summit hall was pure chaos—wolves fighting everywhere, blood on the marble floors, smoke filling the air.
And standing over me was the Rogue King.
"You're awake." His voice was rough with relief. "Good. We need to move."
I scrambled backward, my heart hammering. "Stay away from me!"
"Can't do that, little mate." Kael crouched down to my level, his golden eyes softer than they should be. "I just got you back. I'm not losing you again."
"Sera!" Marcus's voice cut through the noise. "RUN! He's going to kill you!"
But I couldn't run. My body wouldn't obey. Because the mate bond was pulling me toward Kael so hard it hurt, and my wolf was howling with joy that we were close to him.
"You don't remember me," Kael said quietly. Not a question. A statement of fact that made his expression crack with pain. "They took that from you. Took us from you."
"I don't know what you're talking about—"
"Yes, you do." He reached out slowly, like approaching a frightened animal. "Deep down, you know. Your wolf knows. The bond knows. That's why you can't run from me even though you're terrified."
He was right. I was terrified. But not because I thought he'd hurt me.
I was terrified because some broken part of me wanted to stop fighting and let him take me.
"Sera, please!" Marcus was closer now, pushing through the fighting wolves. "He killed your family! He's the monster from your nightmares!"
"I never killed her family," Kael said, his eyes still locked on mine. "But I know who did. The same person who's been lying to you for three years. The same person who drugged you five minutes ago to keep you from remembering the truth."
My hand went to my neck where Marcus had stabbed me with the syringe. The spot still burned.
"You're my wife," Kael continued. "We were bonded three years ago. Married in the old ways. And then someone stole you from our bed in the middle of the night. Erased your memories. Locked your wolf away. Made you forget you ever loved me."
Tears streamed down my face. "Stop. Please stop—"
"I wish I could." His voice broke. "But if I don't take you now, Marcus will drug you again. Hide you again. And I'll lose you for another three years. I can't survive that, Sera. I'm barely holding on as it is."
He stood up, and I saw it then—the exhaustion in his eyes. The madness lurking just beneath the surface. The desperation of a man who'd been searching for something precious for so long he'd almost forgotten what sanity felt like.
"Come with me," he said, extending his hand. "I won't force you. But I'm asking. Please. Give me a chance to prove what we had."
I stared at his hand. At the mating mark on his chest that matched the hidden one on mine. At the bond pulling so hard between us I could barely breathe.
My wolf screamed YES.
My heart whispered maybe.
My mind said run.
"Sera, NO!" Marcus broke through the warriors surrounding us, his face twisted with fury. "He's manipulating you! Using the mate bond to control you! I'M the one who saved you!"
"You're the one who STOLE her!" Kael snarled, his control snapping. "And I'm taking her back."
He moved so fast I didn't have time to react. One second he was standing in front of me. The next, he'd thrown me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.
"PUT ME DOWN!" I screamed, pounding on his back. "Let me go!"
"Never again." His arm locked around my legs like iron. "I let you go once. Biggest mistake of my life."
"SERA!" Marcus lunged for us, but a massive grey wolf—one of Kael's warriors—slammed into him, knocking him to the ground.
"RETREAT!" Kael roared to his army. "Back to the Shadowlands! NOW!"
Rogue wolves disengaged from their fights and flooded toward the exits. I kept screaming and hitting Kael's back, but he didn't even flinch. Just ran through the chaos like I was the only thing that mattered.
"I'll come for her!" Marcus's voice echoed behind us. "I'll get her back, Thorne! This isn't over!"
Kael didn't answer. Just kept running.
We burst through the summit gates into the night. Hundreds of rogue wolves surrounded us, forming a protective barrier. And ahead, rising like a wall of darkness, was the Void Forest.
"No." Ice flooded my veins. "Not the forest. Please, not there—"
"It's the only way to the Shadowlands," Kael said, his grip tightening. "And the only place Marcus won't follow. Pack wolves fear the Void Forest."
"Because wolves go insane in there!" I dug my nails into his back. "The magic—it shows you things—"
"I know." His voice was grim. "I've crossed it a thousand times searching for you. I know exactly what it shows."
We plunged into the trees, and the world changed instantly.
The air grew thick and cold. Shadows moved wrong, twisting into shapes that shouldn't exist. And the whispers started—soft at first, then louder. Voices calling out from the darkness.
My own voice.
"Kael, please! Don't leave me!"
"I love you. I'll always love you."
"Come back. Please come back."
I froze, my blood turning to ice. "That's... that's me. That's my voice."
"The Void Forest shows what you've lost," Kael said quietly, still running. "What was taken from you. Your memories are buried, but the forest remembers."
Another whisper, this time Kael's voice: "I'll find you. I swear on my life, I'll find you."
Then mine again: "I'm scared. I can't feel you anymore. Why can't I feel you?"
Sobs tore from my throat. Because those voices were real. I didn't remember saying those things, but I felt the truth of them in my bones.
"Make it stop," I begged. "Please make it stop."
"I can't." Kael's arms tightened around me. "But I've got you. I won't let the forest take you too."
The whispers grew louder. More desperate. More broken.
"Someone's here. Someone's taking me. Kael, HELP!"
"No! Let me go! I don't want to leave!"
"KAEL!"
My scream. From three years ago. The night I was taken.
I buried my face against Kael's back and sobbed. Because even though I didn't remember that night, I felt it. Felt the terror and betrayal and desperate need to get back to him.
"I'm sorry," Kael whispered, his voice cracking. "I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you. That I let them take you. But I'm here now. I've got you now. And I'm never letting go again."
We ran for what felt like hours. The whispers followed us the whole way—memories I'd lost, moments I'd forgotten, a life stolen from me.
Finally, the trees thinned. The whispers faded. And ahead, rising against the night sky, was a massive black fortress.
Blackstone Keep. The Rogue King's stronghold.
My new prison.
Kael slowed to a walk as we approached the gates. Rogue wolves lined the walls, staring down at us in shock.
"Is that—"
"The Queen?"
"She came back!"
"Our Queen came back!"
I lifted my head, confused. Queen? They thought I was their queen?
The gates opened. Kael carried me through into a courtyard filled with rogues who dropped to their knees as we passed. Some were crying. An old woman reached out to touch my hand, whispering, "Thank the gods. Thank the gods you're alive."
This was insane. All of it.
Kael climbed stairs, carried me down hallways, and finally stopped at a large wooden door. He pushed it open and set me down gently on a bed.
I immediately scrambled backward, pressing against the headboard. "Please. Just let me go. I won't tell anyone where—"
"This is your room," Kael interrupted. "Our room. Where we slept together for six months before you were taken."
I looked around wildly. The room was beautiful but untouched—like no one had lived here in years. Dust covered the surfaces. But on the nightstand sat a framed photo of me and Kael, smiling at each other like we were the only two people in the world.
I'd never seen that photo before. But I recognized the happiness in my own eyes.
"I kept everything exactly as you left it," Kael said quietly. "Your clothes. Your books. Your journal. I couldn't bring myself to change anything. It felt like giving up."
"Why are you doing this?" I whispered. "If you really loved me, you'd let me go—"
"I DO love you!" The words exploded from him. "I love you so much it's killing me! Three years, Sera. Three years of not knowing if you were dead or alive. Three years of the mate bond screaming that you were out there somewhere but not being able to find you. Do you know what that does to a wolf? To lose their mate?"
He pulled his shirt aside, showing me his mating mark. But unlike mine, which was hidden, his was angry and inflamed—like a wound that wouldn't heal.
"This is what happens when mates are separated," he said hoarsely. "The bond tries to pull us back together. The longer we're apart, the worse it gets. I've been in constant pain for three years. And you—" His voice broke. "You've had it too. That ache in your chest that never goes away. That's the bond trying to reach me."
I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling the mark pulse beneath my skin.
"I'm not the monster Marcus told you I am," Kael continued. "I'm just a man who lost everything when you disappeared. Who went a little mad trying to find you. And now that I have you back—" His golden eyes met mine, blazing with desperate intensity. "I will burn down the entire world before I let anyone take you from me again."
I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out.
Because somewhere in the back of my mind, behind the fog and the lies, a memory stirred.
Golden eyes staring down at me with such fierce devotion it made my heart ache.
A deep voice whispering: "You're my everything, Sera. My reason for breathing. I'd destroy the world for you."
And my own voice answering: "Then I guess it's a good thing I'd burn it down for you too."