Chapter 33 The truth of that night

The silence pressed down on me like a weight I could no longer carry. My throat burned, my chest tightened, and before I realized it, the words slipped out. Raw, trembling, alive with pain.

“You don’t understand, Kael.” My voice cracked. “Losing my pack was… it was like losing the air in my lungs. Every face, every voice, every bond—gone. And then my parents—” My breath hitched. “Do you know what it feels like to lose everything? To wake up every day knowing the world you belonged to doesn’t exist anymore?”

Tears blurred my vision. I hated showing him this weakness, hated letting him see me break. But the dam inside me had shattered.

Kael didn’t move. He stood there, watching me with eyes too sharp, too steady. The silence between us stretched until I wanted to scream just to break it.

Finally, his voice came. Low, rough, carrying something that wasn’t pity, but something heavier. “It isn’t that simple, Elara.”

I snapped my head up, anger flaring hotter than my grief. “Not that simple?” I hissed. “You slaughtered them, Kael! You destroyed everything I had! Tell me, what could possibly make that not simple?”

His jaw tightened, his gaze unwavering. “If you truly want the truth, then stop clinging to what you think you know.”

I laughed bitterly, choking on the sound. “The truth? What truth could justify you standing in their blood?”

Kael stepped closer. I backed into the wall, but he didn’t touch me. His presence filled the room, suffocating and magnetic at once. “You think I wanted that night?” His voice dropped, almost a whisper, yet it cut through me. “You think I chose it?”

My hands trembled. “Didn’t you?”

His eyes darkened, haunted. “No, Elara. The night of the Silverfang massacre… it wasn’t mine alone. There are things you don’t know. Things you’ve never been told.”

My heart stuttered, torn between disbelief and the terrifying pull of his words. “Then tell me,” I whispered. “Tell me what really happened.”

Kael’s gaze softened—only for a fleeting second—before his face hardened again.

“If you want the truth,” he said, voice heavy with promise and threat alike, “you’ll have to be strong enough to hear it. Even if it destroys everything you thought you knew.”

The room spun, my grief colliding with rage, with the sickening twist of curiosity I couldn’t kill.

And then—Kael’s lips parted, his next words falling like the first crack of thunder before a storm. “The Silverfangs weren’t only betrayed by me.”

My breath caught. My world tilted. I didn’t know whether I hated him—or needed to hear the rest.

Kael didn’t look away. His voice deepened, heavy as if he were pulling words from the marrow of his bones.

“There were three great packs once. Bloodmoon, Silverfangs, and Moonvale. The oldest of us, bound by time itself. For centuries we lived under one vow, sworn before the Council of Elders—never to turn our claws against each other. To break that vow was to call down a curse.”

I clenched my fists. “And yet you broke it.”

His lips curved—not in a smile, but in something close to self-loathing. “Yes. But you think it was out of greed or thirst for blood. It wasn’t.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to claw his face and demand he choke on his excuses. But something in his tone made me still, just enough to hear the rest.

“Silverfangs,” Kael said slowly, “your pack… they were the keepers of the old laws. Wise, honored, rooted in bloodlines older than the mountains themselves. But wisdom is a blade, Elara. And sometimes it cuts both ways.”

His eyes flickered with something raw, almost reverent. “They guarded ancient truths. Secrets no other pack was allowed to touch. And among those secrets, they uncovered something… dangerous.”

My heart pounded against my ribs. “What?”

Kael’s jaw tightened. His voice dropped lower, as if speaking the words too loud would rattle the walls.

“A prophecy. The birth of a lone wolf from Silverfang blood. A wolf who could either save our kind… or destroy it.”

The air in the room shifted, colder, heavier.

I shook my head. “That’s… that’s just a story. A superstition.”

“No,” he said, firm, unyielding. “The Silverfangs believed it. And they intended to use it. To wield that prophecy as a weapon, to take the strength of every pack and make it their own. They wanted dominion.”

I swallowed hard, my throat dry as dust. I had never heard this—not from my parents, not from the elders, not in whispered stories by the fire. Could it be true?

“They wanted power,” Kael continued, his hands curling at his sides. “Not peace. Not balance. Power.”

He stopped then. His chest rose and fell sharply, his breath uneven. I saw it in his eyes—a flash of red bleeding into gold, a war he was barely holding back.

“Kael…” I whispered.

But he didn’t finish. His jaw trembled, his gaze burning into mine as if the next words would tear him apart. His eyes glistened, bloodshot, and for the first time since I’d known him… he looked like he was breaking.

He turned his head away, voice rough, strangled.

“There’s more. But if I speak it… I don’t know if you’ll ever look at me the same again.”

Kael’s eyes darkened, shadow swallowing the flicker of gold. His voice roughened, like gravel grinding against stone.

“My pack… Bloodmoon knew. We were the first to see through Silverfang’s intentions. The whispers of prophecy, the hunger behind their honor. My father—he was Alpha then. A brutal man. Cold. The kind of leader who ruled with fang and fear. It was a savage place to grow up.”

I said nothing, only listened, my heart pacing faster with each word.

Kael’s gaze softened briefly, distant. “But amidst that blood and fire, there was one light. My mother. She was… she was everything he wasn’t. Gentle. Clever. Beautiful. The only one who ever shielded me from the storm.”

His jaw clenched, eyes flicking away as though the memory cut too deep. “And then she was gone. Torn from me. Do you know why?”

I swallowed. “Why?”

“Because of your pack.” His words cracked like a whip.

I flinched. “Silverfangs?”