Chapter 44. Kael's Betrayal

The forest swallowed them whole as they fled.

The wolves moved in broken clusters through the dark, wounded and bloodied, weaving between ancient trees whose heavy boughs sagged as if bearing witness to their grief. Each step Selene took felt heavier than the last, as though the very air resisted them, mourning the loss of the Hollow alongside its people.

Night pressed close, cold and unyielding. Only the ragged breathing of the survivors, the crunch of boots and paws against leaf rot, and the distant crackle of dying fires marked their passage through the woods.

Selene led from the front with Alaric at her side, a constant, silent presence she drew strength from without thinking. Her blade remained slick with blood, her tunic torn across the ribs where an enforcer’s strike had grazed her. Every breath sent knives of pain through her lungs, sharp reminders of how