The Wolf in the Fog

The scent hit him again—sharp, cold, and wrong. Kael stood in the torchlit hallway of his ruined castle, bare-chested and barefoot, staring at the thick fog curling in under the ancient stone door. It shouldn’t be here. Not this deep. Not this fast.

Fog don’t move like that.

And it doesn’t carry the scent of blood, moonfire, and a girl who shouldn’t be breathing.

He clenched his jaw as he stepped forward, the old floor creaking beneath him. The fog had teeth tonight. It curled around his ankles like a beast that didn’t fear him. He hadn’t stopped thinking about the girl since he laid her in the healer’s bed—her skin too cold, her body too light, the crescent-shaped mark glowing faintly on her collarbone before fading again. It was the same mark that burned on his own chest every full moon. The curse he’d carried for years, buried deep in his blood, branded onto his soul.

She shouldn’t have it.

She shouldn’t have found him.

And she shouldn’t have known his name.

A shiver ran through him. Not from the cold. From the pull—something tight and invisible that tugged at the space behind his ribs.

It was her.

Even now, unconscious and asleep, he could feel her. Kael’s wolf stirred beneath his skin, restless. It hadn’t reacted to anyone this way in years. It growled, impatient. Alert. Hunting.

But not just for blood. It was seeking her. And that was what scared him most.

He turned from the door, stormed down the stairs with practiced silence. The air grew colder the deeper he went. His boots echoed down the empty stone corridor that led to the healer’s chamber—a space untouched by time and rotted by magic. The door creaked as he opened it.

The bed was empty.

Kael’s heart stopped.

The chains he’d hidden beneath the sheets hadn’t been used. She was gone. No blood. No signs of struggle. Just the faint outline of her form in the dust-covered sheets—and a strange smear of moonlight still clinging to the floor.

“Shit.”

He growled low and spun on his heel, racing back up the stairs.

Outside, the fog thickened. She was in the woods.

---

He shifted the second he hit the tree line. Bones cracked, muscles stretched, fur tore through skin. In seconds, the man was gone—replaced by a massive black wolf with golden eyes and scars slashing through his fur.

He bolted into the woods, paws pounding over frozen soil, his breath misting in clouds behind him. Trees passed in a blur. The fog stung his nostrils, thick with rot and the metallic tang of old magic.

And beneath it—her scent.

Lyra.

She was moving. Fast. Too fast for someone who claimed to be powerless. And she was running toward the cursed part of the forest—the part that even Kael’s most loyal wolves wouldn’t go near. His instincts screamed at him to stop. Instead, he pushed faster.

He caught a flash of white between the trees—low, quick, and silent.

A wolf?

No.

No, not a wolf.

Her.

She was running on all fours, her movements fluid and unnatural. She looked like she was part-shadow, part-dream. Her skin was glowing faintly under the moonlight, her hair streaming behind her like threads of silver fire.

She didn’t look back.

Kael growled and leapt forward, cutting through the trees with terrifying speed. He gained on her with every stride, heart hammering with a mix of fury, confusion, and something deeper—something worse. He should’ve let her die. He should’ve left her in the rain. Instead, he’d brought her into his home, into his domain… and now the curse was shifting.

Waking.

He leapt again, clearing a fallen tree, and landed only feet behind her.

“Lyra!” he barked—half-growl, half-roar.

She didn’t stop. But she slowed.

For a heartbeat, her body flickered—like a flame about to go out. Kael shifted mid-run, his body stretching painfully back into human form. He skidded to a stop and caught her just before she collapsed.

Her skin was freezing. Her lips blue. But her eyes were wide open.

...And they weren’t hers.

They glowed silver, rimmed with black. Kael stared into them, and felt the weight of centuries pressing down on him.

Then she spoke.

But it wasn’t Lyra’s voice.

“She will return,” she whispered, her head tilting unnaturally. “Through fire and fang. Through the cursed blood of the one you love most.”

Kael’s stomach dropped. “No,” he whispered.

The wind howled through the trees like a scream.

Lyra blinked.

And then she fell limp in his arms.

---

He carried her back through the fog, every step heavier than the last. The forest pulsed around them, alive and watching. The trees bent like they remembered her. Or feared her. He didn’t stop to wonder which. She didn’t stir once.

Not even when he laid her in the healer’s bed again. Not even when he wiped the dirt and blood from her palms—blood that hadn’t come from any wound on her body. She’d killed something out there.

Or someone.

Kael stepped back and stared at her in silence. Her chest rose and fell slowly, rhythmically. Human.

But something was wrong. Terribly, painfully wrong. He didn’t understand her. Didn’t trust her. But he couldn’t bring himself to chain her, either.

Not yet.

Not when his own curse had burned cold the second she touched him. Not when his wolf had gone still and silent the moment she’d looked at him in the forest with someone else’s eyes.

The prophecy. The voice. The mark.

The way she whispered his name when he’d never told it to her. He didn’t know what she was.

But Kael knew this: She wasn’t a girl with a death wish. She was a storm in a girl’s skin. And if he didn’t stop her…She’d destroy him first.

---

As Kael turned to leave the room, Lyra’s lips parted in her sleep. Her voice came soft. Strained. Barely audible.

“Don’t let her out... She’ll kill you, Kael.”

He froze.

The candle flic

kered.

And a chill ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. Because no one—no one—had called him by name in years.