Chapter 205

Damon

The trail ended where the forest broke apart into a snowy clearing.

I reined in my horse at the ridge, staring down at the village tucked against the trees. Small, quiet, and almost shockingly ordinary.

After years of war camps and blood-soaked fields, it looked like a whole other world.

The roofs were half-buried in white, smoke curling from chimneys. Someone laughed near the well, the sound carrying faintly through the cold.

Children darted between houses, chasing each other through the snow, their shrieks high and unguarded. It was too peaceful. Too still.

And yet… the air hummed.

I could feel it beneath my skin, that faint, electric thrum, like static under my ribs. Zane stirred in the back of my mind, restless. Do you feel it?

“Yes,” I murmured. “It ends here.”

We’d followed scraps of rumors and fading scent trails for weeks, and each one had led to nothing. But this – this felt different. The forest itself seemed to hold its breath.

I nudged my horse forward, guiding her down the narrow path toward the edge of the village. My cloak was stiff with frost, my body bone-tired, but I couldn’t stop now. Not when I felt so close.

The guards at the entrance didn’t even question me. Silver Glen was the kind of place that had never needed soldiers. They just nodded politely as I passed, eyes dull with the boredom of a peaceful afternoon.

No one here knew me. No one bowed or called me Your Majesty. They didn’t flinch when I met their gaze. I should have found it insulting; instead, I found it almost comforting.

For the first time in years, I wasn’t a King. I was just a travel-weary male passing through.

The streets were narrow and clean, lined with shops and cottages dusted in frost. Villagers in both wolf and human forms alike moved easily among each other, their scents blending into a community.

I caught glimpses of bakeries, children bundled in furs, old wolves sharing tea on doorsteps.

My world was made of desperation and death. Theirs was made of the quiet rhythms of life.

Then I smelled it. A faint scent I’d thought lost to fire and time. My pulse stuttered.

I followed it without meaning to, each step moving faster. The closer I came, the stronger it grew. A pull through my chest, subtle but unmistakable.

She’s here, Zane breathed.

I turned the corner into the main square, and the world narrowed to one impossible point.

Lila was here.

Kneeling beside a villager by the well, sleeves rolled to her elbows, her hands glowing faintly silver as she worked. Her hair was pulled up, the same color I remember. She wore no jewelry or crest, just a plain apron dusted with powder.

But I would know her anywhere. In any lifetime, in any world.

My throat went dry. For a long moment, I couldn’t breathe.

Her voice carried over the square, calm and gentle as she instructed the man to lift his arm. “There,” she murmured. “It’ll bruise a little, but the break will be healed by tomorrow.”

The sound of her voice stroked over me, soothing the ache I’ve been carrying for the last two years. The cadence of it, the warmth. She spoke as though the world could be kind if she just willed it hard enough.

I stood there, half-hidden by the awning of a nearby stall, hands trembling inside my gloves. Every instinct screamed at me to move, to go to her, to touch her just once and prove she was real.

But I couldn’t. Part of me was certain that if I spoke, she’d vanish and be just another ghost conjured by grief and longing.

Zane pressed at the edges of my mind, his voice raw. Go to her.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

We’ve spent two years searching for her scent, he snarled. Now she’s right there.

I closed my eyes, willing myself to calm. I could hear her laugh, faint and unguarded, as one of the village children handed her a bundle of herbs. The sound hollowed me out.

When I opened my eyes again, she was standing. She looked different. Her smile was softer but distant.

It was Lila. And it wasn’t.

My hand tightened around the reins until the leather creaked. “Lila,” I breathed, too quiet for anyone else to hear. The name tasted like salvation.

For a long time, I just watched her.

The hustle of the square moved around us; villagers trading, children laughing, but the world had narrowed to the space between her heartbeat and mine. I’d spent years chasing whispers, cutting down Rogues, bleeding for even the smallest scent of her.

And now she was here. Breathing. Laughing. Glowing with life.

I took a step forward. The crowd parted instinctively, though no one seemed to understand why.

I knew they felt the thrumming just beneath my skin, the power barely leashed. Or maybe they were just wolf enough to know when they were standing too close to a more dangerous predator than they were.

She looked up at the sound of my boots on the snow-packed path.

Her gaze found me instantly, like some part of her still knew exactly where I stood in relation to her. But her eyes… her eyes stopped me cold.

Silver. Not the warm color I’d burned into memory.

For a heartbeat, her expression flickered with shock, pain and something unnamed – then it was gone. She turned back to her patient, steady and composed, finishing her work with the precision of someone who’d spent years healing.

I barely felt myself move closer. The distance between us closed easily.

“Lila,” I said. It came out quiet, raw, torn from somewhere deep in my chest.

Her shoulders went tense. Slowly, she turned to face me. The movement was measured, deliberate. Her gaze met mine with a calm that made my blood run cold.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was soft, even. “You’ve mistaken me for someone else, my lord.”

My heart stopped.

For a moment, I thought I’d misheard her. That she was playing some kind of cruel joke to make me pay for every sin I’d ever committed.

But her expression didn’t waver. No anger, no fear. Just polite distance, as if I were a stranger who’d stepped too far into her personal space.

Zane’s growl filled my skull. She’s lying.

“I know you,” I said quietly. “I’d know you anywhere.”

She only tilted her head, patient, unreadable. “You must have met someone who looked like me. Silver eyes are rare, but not unheard of.”

Every word felt like a blade twisting deeper. “Don’t do this,” I whispered. “Please.”

Something flickered in her gaze, pain, sharp and quick, before she shuttered it again. “I think you should rest, my lord. You’ve traveled far, and the cold plays tricks on the mind.”

Her tone was the same one she used on the injured villager: calm, careful, measured. It undid me more than if she’d shown me anger or hurt.

I reached for her before I could stop myself, fingers brushing the air between us. “I thought you died,” I said, the words breaking on my tongue. “I burned half the world trying to find you. Don’t tell me you’re someone else.”

Her breath hitched, almost imperceptibly, and then she stepped back. “You’re mistaken,” she said again, quieter this time.

It was a final blow.

Zane roared, but I couldn’t hear him anymore. My pulse thundered in my ears, drowning everything but the sight of her walking away, her back straight, her hands steady. The crowd swallowed her easily, like the village itself conspired to hide her from me.

I stood in the square long after she disappeared from view. The world around me refocused in pieces, the wind, the laughter, the sound of snow crunching under passing boots.

Maybe she was right. Maybe the cold really had driven me mad.

But the air still smelled faintly of herbs and honeysuckle, and the bond I’d thought dead was thrumming, alive, just beneath my skin.

She could lie to my face all she wanted.

My wolf knew the truth.