The collar felt heavier with each passing day. Aurelia sat alone in her chambers, her fingers absently tracing the strange symbols etched into the metal. They were too intricate, too ancient to be Ironfang in origin. Where Kaelen's clan favored harsh lines and brutal utility, these markings were almost delicate—curved lines, looping glyphs that shimmered faintly beneath her touch. One of them pulsed with a soft, rhythmic glow, and a shiver crawled up her spine.
This wasn't just a shackle.
"This isn't yours, Kaelen," she murmured, voice barely audible in the stillness. "So what are you hiding?"
The thought made her stomach turn. Whatever magic was worked into the collar, it wasn't passive. It responded to her. Not just suppressing her wolf—but interacting with it. Changing it.
A soft knock pulled her from her thoughts. Mira stepped into the room, silent as always, carrying a tray of tea and herbs. The healer's presence had become one of the only things Aurelia could tolerate in this place. Mira didn't flinch around her. Didn't treat her like she might snap someone's neck without warning. She wasn't afraid.
"You're not sleeping again," Mira said quietly, setting the tray on a small table beside the bed.
Aurelia didn't look up. "Would you? If your body didn't know whether it was dying or mutating?"
Mira didn't answer right away. She simply sat beside her, the silence between them more comfortable than most conversations Aurelia had endured here.
"That collar," Mira said finally, her tone careful, "it's not just a leash."
Aurelia turned, her brows narrowing. "Then what is it?"
"It's old magic. Pre-Ironfang. Pre-War, even. Some say it was made by the Nightborn Alphas, back when bloodlines still spoke to the moon."
Aurelia scoffed softly. "Curses and fairy tales."
Mira met her gaze. "You think the way it reacts to you is just a coincidence?"
She fell silent. Her fingers moved again across the surface of the collar, tracing the cracked rune near the clasp.
"It doesn't feel like suppression," she admitted. "It feels… alive. Like it's adapting to me."
"It is," Mira said. "That's what makes it dangerous."
Aurelia's eyes narrowed. "Kaelen knew what this was when he put it on me."
"He knew some of what it was," Mira replied, voice quieter now. "But the collar wasn't forged in his time. He inherited it. And like all legacy pieces… there are parts he doesn't fully understand."
"So I'm an experiment," Aurelia muttered, bitterness creeping into her voice.
"No," Mira said gently. "You're a catalyst."
Aurelia looked away, the words settling like lead in her chest.
That night, the dreams returned.
They always did.
Blood, fire, the smell of burning fur. Her mother's scream echoing through the trees, distant but seared into memory. But this time, her wolf didn't cower in the shadows. It pushed back. Scratched at the inside of her ribs with a fury that left her gasping.
She stumbled to the mirror, heart pounding. Expecting her usual, hollow-eyed reflection, she was startled to find something else staring back.
Golden eyes. Not hers—her wolf's.
Alive.
"You're still there," she whispered, touching the mirror with trembling fingers.
A knock shattered the silence. Not the soft, hesitant kind. This was sharp. Demanding.
Kaelen didn't wait for permission. He stepped inside, bare-chested, eyes scanning the room like he expected a fight.
"I felt it," he said.
Aurelia backed away instinctively. "Felt what?"
"The collar," he said, stepping closer. "It flared. You're changing."
"I'm not your damn project," she snapped, reaching for the dagger she kept hidden beneath her pillow. She leveled it at him. "Stay back."
He didn't flinch. "You think I don't know what this is doing to you?"
"You enjoy it," she hissed. "You've been waiting for me to crack."
"I put that collar on to stop you from destroying everything," he said, voice sharp. "Including yourself."
"Then take it off."
His jaw clenched. "It's not that simple."
"No," she said, the blade still raised. "It never is with you. What do you want from me, Kaelen? Obedience? Submission? To break me in half like you did to your enemies?"
His expression darkened, but he didn't answer right away. When he finally spoke, his voice was lower. Tighter.
"I want to know why I feel it when you dream."
The air between them shifted.
"What?" she breathed.
"When you wake up panicked, so do I," he said. "When your wolf claws at the surface, I feel it like it's tearing at me. The collar isn't just bound to you anymore."
Aurelia stared at him, trying to process the implications. "Then unbind it."
"I can't."
He reached for her—slowly, like she was some wild thing that might bolt. His fingers brushed her wrist, and the world tilted.
A surge of power ripped through her. The dagger fell from her hand, clattering to the stone floor. The collar sparked—bright, hot—and one of the runes split open with a sound like cracking bone.
She staggered back, clutching at the metal.
"What did you do?" she gasped.
Kaelen looked as shaken as she felt. "That wasn't me."
She stared at him, pulse racing. "It's breaking."
He shook his head. "No. It's evolving."
Later, long after he left, Aurelia sat with her back against the wall, knees pulled to her chest. The collar glowed faintly in the dark, casting strange shadows across the stone. It no longer felt like a shackle. It felt like something inside her had awakened—and it was no longer content to sleep.
She didn't sleep. She couldn't. Not after what she saw in her dream.
Kaelen had stood over the remains of her pack. Fire in the background. Smoke curling into a black sky. But for the first time, his face hadn't been cold or unreadable. It had been shattered. Grief-stricken.
Why?
What truth was hiding beneath that brutal, calculating exterior?
As dawn broke, pale light filtering through the high windows, the question burned on her tongue before she could stop it.
"I should hate you," she whispered into the silence. "But why the hell can't I stop wondering if there's something more?"