Chapter 2 The Bond Stirs

Serena’s POV

I woke up screaming.

My whole body snapped upright, hands clawing at my chest, lungs dragging in air so sharp it hurt. It felt like I had clawed my way out of a grave. My heart hammered so hard I half-expected my ribs to break apart. Sweat plastered my hair to my forehead. My skin was slick with cold.

For a split second, I braced myself for blood.

Fire.

Screaming.

The crushing weight of my brother’s body pinning the breath from my chest.

But nothing happened.

No pain. No flames licking at my skin. No metallic tang in my mouth.

I was in my childhood bed.

The canopy curtains were still that soft blue, silver thread glinting where my mother had stitched them by hand. Morning light spilled in, warm and golden, turning everything gentle. The air smelled like pine and clean sheets. No smoke. No blood.

I stared at my hands.

They didn’t shake. No scars, no blood caked under my nails. This was terrible. Something wasn't right.

“No,” I rasped. “No, no...”

I tumbled out of bed, legs nearly giving out. Stumbled to the mirror. The girl staring back at me looked... younger. Her cheeks were round. No dark shadows under her eyes, no grief carved into her mouth. She looked like she was the happiest girl who had ever been alive. My young and slender figure gave me a great race in my heart. I was...

Alive.

I pressed my fingers to my throat. My pulse thudded, steady, strong.

I wasn’t dead.

The room spun. Panic clawed up, fast and choking. I stumbled back from the mirror, half expecting it to call me a liar.

And then I saw it.

The lunar calendar on the wall, covered in neat little marks and ceremonial days. My eyes landed on the one circled in red.

Luna Ceremony... Tonight.

The year jumped out at me.

Five years ago.

My knees buckled.

I hit the floor, gasping, as memories crashed into the present. The rejection. Vivienne’s rise. War. Blood. My death.

This wasn’t a dream.

It was worse.

A second chance.

Something inside me stirred.

My wolf.

I froze, breath caught, as she stretched awake, a soft, eager ripple inside my chest. She felt light. Excited. There was no pain, no ancient weight of grief. She was young again.

Strong.

We’re alive, she whispered, wondering in her voice.

Tears stung my eyes.

“Yes,” I whispered. “We are.”

It should have been a comfort. Instead, fear twisted tight inside me. If I were alive again, all of it could happen again.

Unless I changed it.

I dressed fast, hands shaking, fumbling through familiar clothes, soft trousers, a tunic I had worn a hundred times. Every detail felt too real, too solid to be a dream.

I stepped into the hallway. The pack house greeted me with soft morning sounds... footsteps, laughter, the clatter of dishes from the kitchen.

Peace.

It hurt more than chaos ever had.

I walked outside.

Sunlight washed over the pack grounds. Warriors trained near the field, laughing and shoving each other. Pups darted around the trees, shrieking with delight.

Alive.

All of them.

My chest ached. I saw every face through a haze of memory. I knew who would die first when the war came. Who would bleed out screaming. Which laughter would vanish forever.

Not this time.

I moved without thinking, my feet carrying me down old paths. I had walked them a thousand times, but never like this. Never really awake.

I drifted past the training grounds and slowed, watching. Their formations were sloppy. Patrols were out of sync. Right away, I saw the gap, the blind spot the rogues would use years from now.

My stomach clenched.

It had always been there.

I just hadn’t seen it in time.

Guards passed me, nodding, a few smiling. None bowed. I wasn’t Luna. Maybe I never would be, not to them.

I had always been invisible.

I turned back toward the pack house, and right away, I felt him, like a spark in the air that always finds me.

My heart skipped a beat.

I knew that feeling. I had known it before I ever learned his name.

I rounded the corner and almost ran straight into Alpha Kael.

He stood there, blocking the hallway, dressed in black leather, power just spilling off him. He filled up the space the way thunderclouds fill up the sky, heavy, impossible to ignore.

For a second, I forgot how to breathe.

In my old life, moments like this had meant everything. Just passing him in the corridor, feeling him close, and pretending it didn’t matter while my wolf knelt and my pulse hammered away.

I used to treasure that.

This time...

“Serena,” Kael said, voice even, stepping aside like I was nobody special.

That was it.

No warmth, no hesitation, no spark of anything but the bare minimum.

His eyes flicked past me, treating me like any other member of the pack. Polite, sure. But it's cold. Distant. Like I was a stranger.

That somehow hurt more than being rejected.

“Oh,” I managed. “Alpha.”

He nodded once and turned away, already focused on his advisors waiting down the hall.

Just like that, he was gone.

I stood there, chest hollow, long after he’d disappeared. Old memories slammed into me. All those nights I replayed moments like this, convincing myself his distance meant patience. That if I just stayed quiet, stayed useful, stayed good, he would finally see me.

I had loved him before he even realized I existed.

That truth hit hard.

And I died for it.

My wolf shifted restlessly, an ache blooming under my ribs. Not pain...yet. Just a warning. Something ancient and dangerous is starting to wake up.

I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling my heart pounding.

Tonight, everything will change.

And, for the first time since I woke up, fear wrapped tight around my spine.

Because the mate bonds...

That was waking up too.