Instinct Unleashed -chapter 9- By Kind Nightmares [ FREE 2026 ]

"Lena thinks I can save you," Elias continued. "Tobias wants to put you down. The others are too afraid to speak their minds. And you? What do you want, Kael?"

And in the silence that followed, the rain stopped. The moon held still. And something in the dark—something older than the pack, older than the forest, older than fear—opened its eyes and recognized a kindred hunger.

Chapter 9 ends not with a howl, but with the absence of one. Because the loudest roars are the ones that never leave the chest. And Kael had finally stopped fighting the quiet. Instinct Unleashed -Chapter 9- By Kind Nightmares

"I never left," Kael replied. "I just stopped pretending the cage had a lock."

Kael stood at the edge of the treeline, breath fogging the air despite the summer warmth. His hands were no longer trembling. That was the problem. For weeks, the tremor had been his anchor—proof that the thing inside him was still a passenger, not the driver. But now, stillness had settled into his bones like a second skeleton. Calm before the claw. "Lena thinks I can save you," Elias continued

The moon hung low and fractured, as if something had tried to swallow it and thought better of it. Rain fell not in droplets but in sheets—grey, relentless, the kind of rain that washed away footprints and memories in equal measure.

The pack had scattered three nights ago after the incident at the silos. He could still hear the wet snap of Tobias's shoulder dislocating, still see the way Lena had looked at him—not with fear, but with the hollow recognition of someone watching a friend drown in slow motion. She had whispered, "You're still in there, Kael. Fight it." And you

"Then call me leashed," he whispered. "Just don't call me broken anymore."

Elias took a step back. For the first time in thirty years, the alpha smelled afraid.

Predator , the eye seemed to say. Not monster. Not yet.

Kael smiled. It was not a human expression. It was something the face did when the thing beneath the face decided to wear it like a mask.