Chapter 103 – Betrayal of the Heart
The air between them was wrong.
Aria felt it before she even saw him.
A sharp, suffocating tension that clung to her skin as she stepped into the clearing near the pack grounds. The familiar scent of home—earth, pine, and wolf—should have grounded her.
Instead, it made something inside her recoil.
Or perhaps…
Someone.
“How fragile they are,” the Shadow King murmured in the depths of her mind. “So easy to break.”
“Be quiet,” Aria whispered under her breath, her jaw tightening.
But the voice did not fade.
It never did anymore.
Her eyes lifted—and there he was.
Kael.
Standing at the center of the clearing, unmoving, his broad shoulders rigid, his gaze locked onto her with an intensity that sent a ripple of unease through her chest.
He had been
