The first time Elara felt her world crumble, it wasn't with a roar or a crash. It was with silence. Deafening, soul-splitting silence.
She stood in the middle of the moonlit hallway, her fingers trembling around the edges of a small, crumpled piece of parchment. The words scribbled on it—"I know everything. We're done."—burned into her memory like branded fire. The scent of ash and cedar lingered on the paper, his scent. Calix.
A few hours ago, they'd laughed under the stars, sharing sweetbread and secrets. Now, he was gone.
Her legs gave out before her tears did. She sank to the cold marble floor of the Alpha's estate, her palm instinctively pressing to her abdomen. Life stirred within her, fluttering like a frightened bird. Three months along, the healer had said. Three moons growing under her ribs, kicking softly at her ribs like a silent accusation.
"Whose is it?" Calix had asked, his voice so cold she hardly recognized him.
She couldn't answer. She hadn't had the chance. He hadn't stayed long enough to hear the truth. Only long enough to break her.
No trial. No chance for an explanation. Not even a single word more.
She had betrayed the pack's strongest bond: the mating link. Or so they believed.
But it wasn't betrayal. Not truly.
Not when the bond had never fully taken hold.
Not when the mark never burned like the stories promised it should.
Not when, during one fateful patrol, a night shadowed by blood and fear, a stranger had saved her life—and left something behind.
Elara closed her eyes and tried to forget the night of the raid. The fire. The fangs. The bite she couldn't explain. The way her skin had sizzled at the touch of that mysterious wolf. The haze in her memory afterward.
She tried, but her body remembered everything.
By morning, she was gone.
She left the estate before dawn, before the gossiping mouths of the pack's she-wolves could spit their venom. With nothing but a travel sack, the clothes on her back, and a crystal locket pressed against her collarbone, she walked into the unknown. Her boots sank into the dewy forest floor with every step. Behind her, the howls of the pack faded like dying echoes.
Her journey had no destination. Just a desperate need to breathe without judgment, to survive for her unborn child, to find a place where her name wasn't whispered like a curse.
The world outside the Moonstone Pack's borders was wild, unfamiliar. She crossed silent rivers, slept in abandoned watchtowers, and bartered with passing merchants for scraps of food. Her pregnancy began to show more with each passing week, and with it came the fear of what she carried—what it meant.
One evening, as she settled beneath the branches of a twisted oak, a sudden rustle sent a jolt through her spine. She reached for her dagger, instincts sharp despite exhaustion.
But it wasn't a threat.
It was a voice. Low. Rough. Like gravel smoothed by moonlight.
"You shouldn't sleep so close to the riverbanks. Too many eyes."
Elara froze.
Out of the shadows stepped a tall figure, half-cloaked in a dark hood. His presence was more felt than seen—like the ripple in still water before the splash.
A werewolf. She could smell it—wild, rich, like pine smoke and rain.
She gripped her dagger tighter. "And who are you? One of them?"
His head tilted. "Them?"
"The bounty hunters. Or scouts from the packs. Or anyone looking to drag me back."
A pause.
Then a chuckle, deep and strangely warm. "No. Not one of them. I don't belong anywhere."
He stepped closer, and for a moment, the moon broke through the trees. Elara caught a glimpse of his eyes—one gold, one silver. Mismatched. Unsettling. Enchanting.
"And you?" he asked.
She considered lying. But she was too tired. Too broken for pretense.
"I'm no one," she whispered. "Just a girl who made a mistake."
He studied her. The silence between them stretched, taut with something unspoken.
"Funny," he said at last. "You don't look like a mistake. You look like a storm that hasn't fully arrived."
And then, without another word, he turned and vanished into the trees, as silently as he came.
Elara stared into the darkness, her heart pounding. For the first time in weeks, it wasn't from fear—but from the thrum of something else.
Recognition?
No. That would be impossible.
Wouldn't it?