Chapter 3

THE PULL I CAN'T ESCAPE

Elara's POV

I avoided the Quad like it was a cursed thing.

After what happened with Seraphina.. and with the way Kael had looked at me, the way he stood up for me against her.. I couldn't risk running into them again. Not when I didn't even understand what any of it meant.

Lila tried to pry it out of me at lunch. I gave her the cliff notes of his little defense, leaving out the part where the most powerful guy on campus practically declared war in the middle of the hallway because of me.

"So let me get this straight..," she said, pointing her fork like it was evidence. "Kael Draven, the guy half the school drools over, stood up for you, and your big plan is to sit here sulking like the tragic lead in an indie film? Are you being serious right now "

I glared at my sandwich. "What do you want me to say? How do you want me to react?"

" Well for starters.. you could act like it meant something.. like when he looked at you with his weirdly hot eyes, your heart did a cartwheel or a summersault."

I snorted. "His eyes aren't weird and they aren't hot either, they're just there..."

"They're silver, Elara!. Not brown, not black, silver. Weird... Hot, yes, but still they're weird."

I rolled my eyes.. then froze. Because outside, across the Quad, Kael leaned against a tree like he owned the ground beneath it.

Rowan stood beside him, talking, but Kael wasn't paying attention.

He was looking at me.

And when our eyes met, he didn't look away and neither did I.

My stomach flipped so hard I thought I might already be sick.

"I hate this," I muttered.

"Seriously?.. Do you, though?" Lila's smirk was infuriating.

Before I could give her a befitting answer, my phone buzzed.

It was an unknown Number: Meet me behind the library in five minutes. Come alone.

My heart stuttered. And  I immediately showed Lila.

"Nope. Nope. That's how horror movies start."

But I was already standing.

"Elara!"

"I'll be fine.. Lila. If I'm not back in thirty minutes, you know where to find me."

The walk to the back of the library felt endless. Every sound, every shadow seemed eerie. My nerves pulsed under my skin.

I expected Kael.

I mean it had to be him, who else would send me something like that..

But when I got there..It wasn't him.

Instead a girl waited, half-hidden in the shade of the wall.. She didn't smile.

" Elara."

"And you are?"

"Someone who knows things..." Her voice carried weight, like secrets she wished she didn't have but wanted to share. She stepped forward. "Things you need to know too."

I stayed silent as I studied her face

"Like who you are. What you are. And why Kael Draven suddenly can't stay away from you."

My chest tightened.

"You might think he's protecting you," she slowly spoke. "But he's not.. in reality he's hiding you."

"Hiding me from what?"

She scanned the shadows as though she knew we were being watched, then she leaned closer to me, her words slicing low and sharp.

"From yourself of course."

I stumbled back, my heart pounding loud against my chest. "Who.. who the hell are you?"

Her sigh was tired, heavy. "Someone who trusted the wrong Alpha once. I won't let you make the same mistake."

"An alpha? Kael's not.. he hasn't done anything."

Her gaze pinned me. "Yet."

The air thickened. Her stare was so heavy it felt like she was peeling layers I didn't have off of me, deciding whether I was worth saving.. or already lost.

"You felt it, didn't you?" she asked. "That pull, when he first looked at you. Like the ground tilted and you were being drawn to him like a magnet."

I didn't answer. I didn't have to.

She was right after all..

She pulled something from her hoodie. A pendant. Silver, ancient and  etched with a cracked moon. It gleamed in her hand as I stared at it.

"You're not just anyone, Elara. You never were... You're one of us."

"One of us?" My voice barely rose above a whisper. "You mean like Kael and seraphina?"

Her lips curved in something bitter. "No.. One of the ones they keep hidden."

Before I could ask anything else, she turned and walked away towards the trees and disappeared into the dark, swallowed by shadows like she had never been there at all.

And just like that, I was alone.. with questions clawing inside me and my heart pounding loud enough to be heard by people passing by.

I didn't go to class. I couldn't.

Instead, I wandered behind the science building, walking in the corners like I expected her to reappear.

Her voice wouldn't leave me.

She had said "You're not just anyone, Elara."

I didn't want to believe it. Couldn't... If I did, my entire life everything I thought I was would literally shatter.

I leaned against the cold brick wall and dragged in a shaky breath.

And then..

"Isn't it a little bit too soon to be hiding from me?"

My spine snapped straight and I slowly turned my back.

Well if it wasn't the devil himself, the man of the hour.

Kael Draven.

No crowd. No distance. Just him.. close enough to make the air around us feel heavy. His black shirt clung to him do sexily, his silver eyes burned too bright, too sharp.

He looked less like a student and more like a sin dressed as a man.

And he was looking at me.

"I.. I wasn't hiding who said I was?," I stammered.

"It looked like hiding."

He stepped closer. The space between us immediately pulsed, with an electric force. My chest somersaulted again.

His presence wasn't just attractive.. it  was gravitational. Like the world bent around him and so should I.

"What do you want?" I whispered, hating how sweet I sounded.

The smirk faded. His eyes darkened, softened. "That's the problem. I don't know."

My pulse raced.

Around us, students laughed and carried books, blissfully unaware. I stood caught in the center of something vast and dangerous.

"You don't know?," I asked in a confused tone.

"Yes all I know is I've never been pulled to someone like this before." His words cut through me

My heart clenched. "Well..I'm not special."

"You keep saying that." His gaze locked onto mine,m. "You're wrong."

I should have walked away. I should have run.

But instead, I whispered, "Why me?"

He didn't answer with words. His hand lifted, brushing a stray curl from my face, his touch feather-light but sparking fire across my skin.

And then his expression shifted, sharpened.

"Elara," he said slowly, like the word carried weight. "Have you noticed anything... strange lately? Things you can't explain?"

My breath caught In my chest.. How did he know?

I swallowed hard, forcing words past the knot in my throat. "What are you talking about?"

His eyes searched mine, too steady, too knowing. "You've felt it.. you feel it now as well, don't you?." His voice was low, roughened, like it cost him to say.

"The way the air shifts when I'm near. The way your heart doesn't listen to you."

Heat rushed to my face. "That's not.."

"Don't lie to me."

The command in his tone cracked something inside me. The denial I had been clinging to slipped through my fingers. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think especially not with him standing this close to me.

"Kael..." His name left my lips like a confession

An expression flickered across his face, sharp and raw.. longing, frustration, hunger. He slowly stepped closer to me, so close that his hand lingered near my jaw, not touching, just hovering like a storm waiting to attack.

" What are you doing to me? Why are you doing this to me?" I whispered,

"Because," he murmured, leaning in until I could taste the heat of his breath,

The last of my resistance shattered.

And.. His mouth claimed mine.

The kiss hit me like unexpected lightning, sudden, consuming, and impossible to fight. His lips were fierce, demanding, but beneath the fire was something deeper, something that pulled at me like gravity itself. My hands subconsciously held his shirt, clinging to the fire sparking through every inch of me.

The world blurred and when he finally broke away, he carefully presed his forehead against mine, his breathing ragged.

"This," he whispered, "is why I can't stay away."