~Isolde’s Point Of View~

The screen of Isolde’s phone glows in the dim light of her apartment, displaying a caller ID that still makes her heart skip. However, it is no longer out of fear, but out of a heavy, lingering guilt.

"Isolde, please," Heidi’s voice comes through the speaker, sounding exhausted yet persistent. "It’s been five years. Nash is... he’s barely a wolf anymore. He spends every waking hour outside the pack borders, tracking scents that don’t exist. He won’t let us breathe. He thinks if he finds you, he can somehow fix the sky."

Isolde leans against her kitchen counter, staring at her reflection in the window. She doesn’t look like a Bellamy anymore. Her hair is styled in a modern human cut, and she wears a simple graduation cord from the university around her neck. She has her degree. She has a life.

Despite the heaviness in her heart, she keeps a steady tone. "He chose his graveyard, Heidi. I can’t go back just to see if the ashes are still warm. I’m scared that if I see him, I’ll expect the man who promised me the world, and all I’ll find is the man who let me walk away in the rain."

"We miss you," Heidi whispers. "Jarek asks about his Auntie Issy every day because Daphne doesn’t stop singing tales about you to him. Since Amias came back, the pack is thriving, but there is a hole where you used to be."

"I’ll think about it, Heidi. I promise. I have to go—I’m meeting someone."

Isolde hangs up before she can push further. She has a date. Mark is sweet, a human architecture student who doesn’t know what a ’mate’ was and doesn’t care about bloodlines. It is simple and safe.

As she walks toward the park where they are supposed to meet, the cool evening air of the city feels refreshing. But as she turns the corner near the old fountain, the silence is shattered by the sound of grunts and the unmistakable thwack of a fist hitting flesh.

Isolde hurries toward the noise, her pulse quickening. In the shadows of a narrow alley, she sees a tall, hulking figure. He is a whirlwind of violence, systematically tossing Mark and two of his friends against the brick walls like they are ragdolls.

What the—

"Stop it!" she screams, rushing forward. "Leave them alone!"

Mark scrambles to his feet, blood leaking from his lip, his eyes wide with terror. "Isolde, stay back! This... this freak just jumped us!"

The large man freezes. He is hunched over, his clothes tattered and caked with forest grime. His matted, wild mane of hair falls over his shoulders. He looks like a lowlife, a drifter who had crawled out of a gutter. But as he slowly turns his head, the moonlight catches the sharp, familiar line of his jaw.

Isolde’s mouth falls open. Her knees turn to water.

"Darien?" she whispers, the name feeling like a prayer.

Mark and his friends don’t stay for the reunion. "You’re crazy, Isolde! Your friends are lunatics!" Mark yells, clutching his arm as they bolt down the street, hurling insults into the night air.

Darien doesn’t chase them. He stands there, his chest heaving, smelling of wet earth, old blood, and something dark—something that makes Auro whimper at the back of Isolde’s mind.

"Five years," Darien rasps.

His voice is a broken growl, stripped of the Alpha’s polish. He looks in the direction her date had fled. "And you’re still attracting jerks, aren’t you, Issy? That asshole was talking to his friends about how you are desperate for him and how he’ll record the sex for their pleasure."

WHAT?! Isolde wants to scream, unable to believe Mark was just yet, another douchebag. However, all of that doesn’t matter to her right now. What matters is her lost brother standing right before her... looking like he’s been through hell and back, yes—but her brother nonetheless.

"Darien!" Isolde throws herself at him, ignoring the dirt and the smell of the wild. She sobs into his chest, her hands gripping the shredded fabric of his shirt. "Where have you been? We thought you were dead! Heidi is a wreck, Jarek is growing up without a father—why didn’t you come home?"

He doesn’t hug her back at first. His hands twitch, hovering over his shoulders as if he were afraid to touch her. When he finally speaks, the words are cold and jagged.

"The Forgotten... they did something to me in that fog, Isolde." He pulls back, and she sees it then. His eyes aren’t just amber—they are laced with shifting, oily black veins. "Kairos... he’s corrupted. The same shadow that lived inside Morgan, that demon core... it found a home in me."

Isolde reaches for his hand, but he flinches away.

"I have powers now," he whispers, looking at his palms.

A flicker of purple-black smoke dances between his fingers before he crushes his fist shut. "Magical filth that rots my mind every time I touch it. The darkness whispers things, Isolde. Evil things. It tells me to tear the world down. It tells me that my son is a weakness and Heidi is a prize to be broken."

His face contorts in agony. "I can’t bring that near them. Heidi deserves a King, not a monster. Jarek deserves a father, not a ticking time bomb."

"So you just stayed here? Living like a ghost?" Isolde snaps, her Bellamy fire finally sparking. "You think leaving them to mourn you is better than letting them help you? Heidi is the God-wolf, Darien! If anyone can purge that darkness, it’s her."

"It’s not that simple," he growls.

"It is," she says, stepping into his space and forcing him to look at me. "I’ve spent five years running because I was scared of a broken heart. You’ve spent two years running because you’re scared of a broken wolf. We’re both cowards, Darien. And I’m done being a coward."

Isolde grabs his hand, ignoring the spark of cold, dark energy that nips at her skin.

"We’re going back," she says firmly. "Amias is there. Heidi is there. Even Nash is still there, rotting away for a girl who wasn’t brave enough to stay. We’re going back to Duskwind, and we’re going to fix this. All of it."

Darien looks down at her, the black veins in his eyes receding just a fraction, replaced by a glimmer of the brother who used to shield her from their mother’s biting tongue.

"She’ll hate what I’ve become," he murmurs.

"She’ll love that you’re alive," Isolde counters. "Now come on. You need a shower, a shave, and a very long ride back to the mountains."

As they walk out of the alley together—the fallen King and the exiled Princess—Isolde feels an odd sense of peace. The human world is over. Her degree is a piece of paper. Her heart is in the mountains, and for the first time in five years, she is ready to face the echoes of the past.

"The pack is calling," Auro howls in a voice stronger than it has been in years. "And this time, we aren’t walking into the rain. We’re bringing the storm home."

Damn right, Isolde affirms internally. After all, they are Bel-fucking-lamy wolves.

THE END.