Finding Aria Cole

Chapter 2: Broken Bonds

“Aria”

A faint call at the back of my mind woke me to the darkness of the forest. The moon hung heavy in the night skies casting a silvery glow across the skies. Everything looked beautiful, yet the night came with stillness as though someone held its breath out for the silent whispers of death.

Cold seeping into my bones from the forest floors, chilling me to my core. I sat there, back against the rough bark of a tree, knees pulled to my chest, my body stiff from the night. The ache in my chest was unbearable, a constant reminder of what I’d lost.

No, not lost. Rejected.

Pressing hard to my chest, I pushed the void left for where my heart used to be. Everything felt hollow. Void. Empty.

Just like the woods. The woods were quiet, too quiet. The usual rustle of leaves in the breeze, the hum of crickets, even the distant call of birds—all absent. It felt like the whole world was holding its breath, waiting. For what? I didn’t know.

Unworthy. Unfit. Rejected.

These words were like a knife, slicing through the thin thread of control I still had. My breath hitched, my chest tightening again, that suffocating weight pressing down on me. I dug my fingers into the dirt, nails scraping at the earth like I could bury the pain beneath it.

But it stayed, clawing at me from the inside out.

“Aria.”

My wolf’s voice was weak, too weak, barely a whisper in the back of my mind. She sounded as hollow as I felt, her strength drained by the rejection. She wasn’t strong to begin with, but this rejection had broken her. I could feel her retreating, curling up in a ball somewhere deep inside me, licking her wounds. I needed her—more than ever now—but she wasn’t there. Not fully.

“Aria, please,” she whimpered. I could feel her pain, her strength drained from everything, but there was no fight in her words.

I tried to stand, my legs shaky, from exhaustion my body feeling heavier than it ever had before. My muscles screaming in protest as I forced myself to move. Each step a battle I was losing. I had to keep going, I had to get back to the pack house, it looked too far off, but I had to make and pretend everything was fine. I wouldn’t survive without them not out here, not alone.

But I couldn’t. Not yet.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm the storm inside me, but all it did was stir the panic.

Ethan’s voice echoed in my mind. Unfit. Unworthy. He looked Distant. Cold—like I was nothing but a burden he needed to shake off. A burden he would rather not have.

Unworthy.

That word, like bile, in my throat, kept circling back, like venom in my veins sinking deeper and deeper. My wolf whimpered again, quieter this time. She losing her will to try. She was fading.

Stumbling over a stone, my body too slow to react, I fell hard onto my hands and knees. The pain shooting up my arms and legs, but it was nothing compared to the pain in my chest. I laid there dirt and leaves sticking to my palms, tinny cuts nicking into my skin, my breath coming in shallow gasps. The cool night air felt thick, heavy with shame and disgust.

Alone. I was alone again.

And this time there was no hope to keep me going.

My mate was my only hope for something better than this pitiful existence of mine. My only chance to something bigger, something better than the fragile existence I’d known. Now, that connection was fading alongside my very will to live. I could feel slivers of it fading away like my wolf and that hurt more than any pain I had ever felt.

I curled in on myself, pressing my forehead against the cold earth, my body trembling uncontrollably. My wolf couldn’t help me. She was too broken, too weak. Her strength had always been small, but now, with the rejection still fresh, it was almost nonexistent.

“Help,” I whispered to the darkness. My voice broken, barely audible, swallowed by the void around me.

But no one was here to hear me. No one was here to help me. No one.

The rejection wasn’t just a blow to my heart—it was a blow to my soul. I had no one now. I was truly alone. With no hope in sight. No one was coming for me. No one to fight for me, no one to help me rise.

The pack was never there for me, not when it really mattered. I was the Omega. The weakest link.

My wolf whined, a pitiful, broken sound. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I wasn’t supposed to be this… shattered.

I tried to pull her back, tried to call on her strength, but she was slipping further away. I could feel it. She was withdrawing, like she was preparing to vanish altogether. I wanted to scream, to claw at my own skin, to do something to stop it, but I didn’t know how.

“Please… don’t leave me,” I choked out, my voice raw, desperation thickening every word. “I can’t do this without you.”

But there was no response.

My wolf was too weak. Too tired.

I forced myself to sit up, my arms wrapped tightly around my knees, trying to hold myself together. I couldn’t fall apart. Not like this. Not now. But the more I fought it, the more I felt like I was unraveling.

Fear crept in, insidious and dark, wrapping its tendrils around my mind. I wasn’t just alone out here in the woods. I was vulnerable. Anyone could find me. Rogues. Predators. Or worse, the other pack members. They wouldn’t understand, and even if they did, they wouldn’t care. Omegas were disposable. Unimportant.

I pressed my hands to my chest, the hollow ache there growing worse with each passing second. My heart felt like it was collapsing in on itself. The weight of rejection was too much, suffocating me, stealing the air from my lungs.

My body trembled violently now, not from the cold, but from the sheer panic that had taken hold of me. I had never felt so… small. So insignificant.

My wolf gave a weak whimper again, her presence barely there, like a fading echo in the back of my mind. I wanted to reach for her, to hold onto her, but she was slipping too fast.

And I was too weak to stop it.

I needed strength. I needed something—anything—to pull me out of this. But every time I reached for the bond that should’ve been there with Ethan, all I found was emptiness.

He was gone.

The mate bond, that lifeline I’d been holding out for, was nothing more than a phantom pain now. I’d never felt more lost. More abandoned. My wolf was a part of me, and if she faded… I didn’t know what would be left of me.

Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Not yet. Not here. Crying wouldn’t fix anything.

But the fear—gods, the fear—it gnawed at my insides, making me feel like I was coming apart. I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms again, trying to ground myself in the pain. Trying to hold on to something tangible.

Because right now, everything inside me was slipping away.

I can’t survive this.

The thought hit me with terrifying clarity, and it paralyzed me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Everything was crumbling, and I was powerless to stop it.

My wolf gave one last, weak cry before her presence faded completely, leaving me alone.

Completely, utterly alone.

A sob ripped from my throat, raw and uncontrollable. I pressed my hands against my mouth, trying to stifle the sound, but

it didn’t matter. The woods swallowed the noise, just like it swallowed me.

I was sinking.