“We proceed with caution,” Caelum said. His voice didn’t rise, but it didn’t need to. It was the kind of voice people listened to whether they agreed or not. “No speculation. No sudden action. The Grove hasn’t responded like this in recorded memory. That alone tells us what we need to know.”

We were gathered near the base of the sacred tree. The council stood silently in a semicircle, waiting for Caelum’s command. Their deference was learned. I could already tell Caelum kept the order here. He was the first voice they turned to when the Grove stirred, and the last voice they disobeyed. His authority was absolute, like an alpha’s.

Even the ward tracers lingered at the edge of the circle, glancing at him before drawing incantation runes or scanning the tree line.

“We coordinate patrols in pairs,” he continued, scanning the group with sharp eyes. “No one moves alone. Report any disturbances before you react. We reconvene every half bell. Until the Grove gives us more, we don’t act.”

Damien spoke from where he leaned against one of the standing stones. “You’re assuming it will speak.”

Caelum didn’t answer him directly. Instead, he looked at me. “It already has.”

I tensed. “What are you saying?”

But I knew what he meant. The Grove had responded to me in ways it hadn’t to anyone else. Not just when I entered it, but every time I moved through it. And it hadn’t cast Damien out either—not even when it had the power to do so. And now it had allowed another cloaked outsider in, unchecked.

“I’m saying you aren’t just involved in this,” Caelum said. “You are the reason this is happening.”

Before I could form a reply, a ripple rolled across the ground under our feet. It wasn’t forceful. If anything, it moved like a soft skip in rhythm. Barely enough to stir the moss underfoot.

Another pulse followed it. Then silence.

All heads turned to the base of the Grove’s sacred hill, where carved roots curved into the lower stone steps. A glow had begun to bloom there. Soft gold, growing steadily brighter with each second. It felt like a summoning.

Caelum stepped toward me. “You don’t have to go alone.”

“I think I do,” I said. My throat felt tight, but I didn’t look away.

He gave a single nod. “Then I’ll follow.”

And he meant it. Not out of politeness or performance. He didn’t reach for my hand or ask for reassurances. He simply meant what he said, as if he’d already chosen to follow wherever I went, whether I asked or not.

Fabian crossed his arms and stepped closer, his mouth set in a line of wary disapproval.

“You’re not prepared for this,” he said. “If that presence is armed, or worse—you won’t be able to defend yourself.”

“She shouldn’t have to,” Damien growled. “We should be the ones’”

“She is the one,” Caelum cut in gently.

I swallowed. The light at the base of the roots grew brighter. It was calling me.

“Then teach me,” I said, louder than I meant to. “Not now. But after. I need to know how to defend myself—how to use these powers I barely understand.”

Caelum’s eyes lit. “You have my word.”

Fabian gave me a slow half-smile. “Goddess help us. She’s finally decided to wake up.”

I smiled, but my hands trembled as I moved toward the light. The Grove let me through without hesitation. The roots shifted out of my way, the earth rearranging itself to form a narrow trail that sank deeper into the forest. The air warmed slightly as I passed. Light touched my skin. But it didn’t sting. It vibrated.

The trail narrowed, funnelling me toward a space I had never seen before. A second clearing—smaller, enclosed by trees that pulsed faintly with power.

A grove within the Grove.

And there, standing at the centre, his back to me, was the intruder. He turned as I stepped into the clearing, and my breath left me in a single, stunned exhale.

Kael.

He looked older than I remembered, somehow. There was a strain behind his eyes, like he hadn’t slept in days. His cloak hung open, and his posture was taut. But his expression, when he saw me, collapsed into something I couldn’t name.

His spellbinding green eyes locked onto mine, and every part of me went still.

It hit like fire and wind. Like memory and instinct. Like I’d been missing something vital my entire life and only now, in this exact second, did my body realise what it was.

The bond snapped into place.

My ribs tightened, and my knees wobbled. For a second, the world tipped sideways and came back crooked.

Kael stumbled forward one step, blinking like he’d been pulled out of a dream.

“Luna?”

His voice was a gravelled whisper, barely audible.

I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed up. I stood frozen between the urge to run and the heavier, more dangerous urge to move closer.

The Grove had brought him here to seal what had never been sealed, and finish what fate had started years ago.

Behind me, I heard Caelum’s voice filtered through the portal. “Are you alright, Luna?”

And Fabian, bitter but oddly reverent, added, “It’s a wolf.”

Kael took another step. His jaw clenched, and his chest rising and falling, like he was trying to breathe past the force of the bond that had just dropped into his lungs.

“I don’t know how I got here,” he said, eyes locked to mine. “One minute I was tracking a witch incursion outside the northern wall” and then I was somewhere else. I tried to turn back, but the world just” bent.”

“The Grove pulled you in,” Caelum said quietly through the portal behind me.

Kael didn’t respond to him. He kept his eyes on me. “Why?”

My throat was dry as I held his green gaze. Goddess, was this what the wolf bond truly felt like? It burned like feral fire through me, and wrapped itself around my lungs, refusing to let me breathe without reminding me that he was there. That he was mine.

“Because you’re mine,” I said.

The words didn’t feel like a choice. They came out of me the way instincts do—uninvited but irrefutable. And what made it worse was that Kael had said those exact words to me before. More than once. Back then, I had rolled my eyes, laughed, told him not to romanticise what clearly wasn’t real. I’d shut it down, over and over.

Now the bond was clawing at my ribs and dragging the words from my mouth.

And Kael—Ultima Alpha, the Dominion’s strongest wolf, my protector, the one who had stood in Marrick’s place more times than anyone wanted to admit—was staring at me like he was seeing me for the first time.

I couldn’t hold myself together under that look.

Each heartbeat came sharper than the last. My skin felt too tight. My wolf was rising in full force. She recognised him now and wanted him. And I felt the pull in every breath.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

The bond never took when it should have after my first shift. Kael had watched over me since I was a child, and in all that time, never once had he crossed the line. He believed in choice. And I had never given him mine.

“I always wondered,” he said, stepping closer, his voice thick with awe and resignation, “why our bond never manifested. Even though I knew” in my soul’”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but he really didn’t have to.

Caelum stepped into the clearing, quiet but impossible to ignore. His presence changed the air immediately.

“The Grove pulled you here to awaken all bonds,” he said, gaze shifting between us. “Luna’s awakening is near.”

I forced myself to look at Caelum, needing something that didn’t feel like it was tearing me apart.

There was a flicker in his eyes. It was brief, but it was there. Pain. Not loud or dramatic. Just sharp enough to see before it vanished again.

“You knew this would happen?” I asked him.

“I knew the threads were aligning,” Caelum said. “I didn’t know what shape they would take.”

Fabian’s voice echoed from higher up the ridge as he descended into view. “I assumed it would be her other protector. Since the Grove didn’t toss him out, that more or less confirmed it.”

Of course. Damien.

He stepped into the clearing behind Fabian, and his posture was so rigid. His expression was carefully neutral, but his eyes betrayed him. The moment they landed on Kael, then on me, they gave way.

He bowed slightly. “Alpha.”

“Where is this place?” Kael asked. His gaze swept the grove’s interior—root-covered walls, faintly glowing trees, the narrow portal behind me that had collapsed into a shimmer.

He looked at Caelum briefly. Then his attention cut back to the portal. His jaw clenched.

“He is a warlock,” Kael said flatly.

“I prefer the term witch,” Caelum replied with a shrug, more exasperated than defensive. “This is the Pale Grove. I believe your Ultima line referred to it as the Secluded Sector.”

Kael’s brow lifted, just slightly, but he didn’t answer.

And for a moment, none of them spoke. We stood in a perfect triangle of distrust, recognition, and something none of us had the language for yet.

“So, where does that leave him?” Fabian asked, tilting his chin toward Damien but keeping his eyes on Caelum.

Damien’s brow pulled. “What are you talking about?”

I looked at him. Really looked. The ache I’d always carried for him hadn’t vanished, it was still there, still familiar. But it felt smaller now. Dimmed. As if it belonged to a version of me that no longer fit. What lived in its place was louder, and hotter. It coiled low in my spine and vibrated through my limbs every time I glanced in Kael’s direction.

And of course, I glanced.

His eyes hadn’t left me once. The second our gazes locked, the bond surged again, wild, full-body, and powerful. My chest tightened instantly.

“Their mate bond ignited,” Fabian said, answering the question no one had asked out loud.

I stiffened. How the hell did he know? How did Caelum know? Could they sense it, or had it been that obvious?

Damien stared at me. For a second, I saw it crack him wide open. His mouth parted slightly. His expression shifted into something unfathomable before he reeled it back in, clenched his jaw, and looked away.

He didn’t argue or even speak.

Just exhaled through his nose like he’d taken a punch he’d been waiting for. And that silence said more than anything else could have.