Remembering what I lost.
Ethan's POV
The night wraps the packhouse in darkness, thick and pressing, the wind rattling the battlements like a living warning. Torches flare along the walls, casting long, uneven shadows across stone and wood, but I see nothing in their dance. My mind is far from strategy, far from the battles that wait with the dawn. I see only her, Aria Hale.
I met her the way men of power meet pawns and allies: through her father. Alpha Lucas Hale, a man whose name demanded respect, whose pack rivalled mine in strength, had been a necessary ally, a voice I could not ignore. I had come to his halls expecting ceremony, diplomacy, perhaps even polite indifference. What I found was his daughter, a spark I could not extinguish. She was younger then, barely nineteen, yet she carried herself with the quiet certainty of someone born to command, to lead. Her hair fell around her shoulders like a dark wave, her eyes sharp, calculating, threaded with curiosity, the kind that could be dangerous in a girl of her status. She was standing in her father’s study when I first saw her, clutching a scroll of maps, absorbed in the lines and symbols of battle. I paused without realising it. It was not her beauty that struck first, though she was beautiful in a way that burned itself into my memory. It was the strength she exuded, the fire she could not hide, the intelligence in every tilt of her head, the quiet defiance that dared any man, even an Alpha, to challenge her. My wolf stirred immediately, sensing the power in her form, the strength she carried without pretence. She was mine before she knew it, before the Moon Goddess had marked us, and I had not yet understood what that would mean. Her first words to me were sharp, cutting, brimming with challenge.“Your troops will tire on the eastern ridge. There are hidden ravines you’ve not accounted for,” Aria said. The authority in her voice, so young and untested yet wholly convincing, struck me in a way I could not anticipate. My wolf growled in delight, recognising strength, independence, defiance, and the spark of something else, something pulling her toward me. Alpha’s daughter or not, she was a force, a fire I could not snuff. The moment I realised the thread pulling at me, I knew that nothing in this world would ever be the same.
I returned to her father’s halls under the guise of diplomacy, forming alliances and securing borders. Every visit, every council meeting, every chance encounter was a brush with her presence, a reminder of how power and vulnerability could coexist in one small, indomitable body. I watched her argue with her father, navigate strategy, and wield authority with precision. I learned that she had grown in the shadow of power, moulded by a man who demanded strength, respect, and loyalty. She had never been a child. She had never been allowed to falter, which is why she was formidable. That is why I could not resist her.
I recall the first time she looked at me with something more than caution, more than curiosity. We had been caught in a sudden storm, rain lashing the forest, mud soaking our boots, lightning cutting the sky in jagged white. She slipped, twisted her ankle, and I had been there instinctively, catching her as though she weighed nothing. Her eyes locked with mine, wide and incredulous, and for a heartbeat, the world contracted around her. Our fates collided in that moment, unrelenting and irreversible. She pressed against me, trembling, not from fear, but from the storm and the force of the bond that had claimed us both.
“I will not let anything take you from me,” I vowed. She had nodded once, ever so slightly, enough to acknowledge our bond.
Even in memory, I can see the fire in her eyes when she dared me, when she challenged me to match her, when she defied me with that courage I thought only Alphas could wield. She had grown in the crucible of her father’s demands, shaped by relentless training, by harsh lessons in strategy, in leadership and survival. Every word she spoke, every glance she gave, carried weight. Yet, beneath that fire, there was a softness, a thread of vulnerability, that pulled at something I did not understand then but know now. She was my other half, as much a part of me as the blood in my veins.
The memory twists now, bitter and sharp. I had rejected her. Pride, foolish arrogance, the desire to control and command, had made me blind. I told her the thread was meaningless, the bond irrelevant, and I watched her recoil with heartbreak that I could not repair. I convinced myself our paths were separate, that her fire would burn without me and that I would survive. But every heartbeat, every shadow on the wall, every whisper of wind through the battles of my mind reminds me of what I lost, of the bond I broke and the woman I can never forget.
One night, her pack was attacked by rogues. I went to help, but I was too late to save her parents, her family and her pack. Aria was half-dead, fighting off the rogues while trying to protect what remained. I brought her home with me. We were on the verge of the Luna ceremony, the moment I would have claimed her as mine forever, when Lilith walked into our lives. She was a warrior in Aria’s father’s pack, an old friend of Aria’s, a shadow of familiarity who became a spark of betrayal. Lilith was exciting, dark, and irresistible. I was weak. I betrayed Aria, and in that moment of reckless desire, I rejected the bond. The night I should have made her mine, I cast her aside. I can't believe it's only been a few weeks.
Tomorrow I ride to war, yet my mind is caught in the past, weaving through memory like a hunting wolf tracing a scent trail. I will find her again and bring her home. When I have her again, Lilith has to go. I remember her father’s warnings, her lessons in strategy and leadership, her brilliance, and I feel the ache of what I cast aside. The war ahead will be fought with sword and claw, with blood and fire, but the war in my chest, the one I carry into every plan, every manoeuvre, every battle, is the one I lost when I let her go.
Aria Hale. Daughter of an Alpha, fire in my veins and the thread of my soul. She is mine, though I betrayed the bond. Still, I threw her away. Tomorrow, with the dawn when we march to war, I will carry her in my mind, in my heart, in every command and in every breath. I will remember the moments that forged us, the moments that bound us, and the moments that shattered us. I will ride, bonded to her memory, to reclaim what is mine, to prove to her, to the Moon Goddess, and to myself, that the bond she holds is not broken.