Chapter 14 - Instinct
1124 Words
*Elara – pov*
The first thing I felt was warmth.
Strong arms around me.
Large fingers threaded through mine.
A steady heartbeat beneath my cheek.
Raiden.
Then reality came crashing back.
The vision.
My mother.
The journal.
The words:
You were never fully human.
My eyes snapped open sharply.
For one disorienting second, I didn’t recognise where I was. Then the library came back into focus.
The daybed.
Dust-filled sunlight.
Raiden sitting with me, one hand gripping mine tightly enough like he thought I might disappear.
Relief flooded his face so quickly it hurt to look at.
“Elara.”
Something inside me broke.
Not gracefully, not quietly.
I folded forward suddenly, covering my face with both hands as emotion hit all at once.
This is too much. Too many things and emotions at once.
My mother’s face.
Her voice.
The grief in her eyes.
The impossible truth clawing apart everything I thought I knew about myself, about the world I lived in.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered hoarsely.
Raiden shifted without hesitation.
One arm wrapped around me, pulling me tighter against his chest while the other cradled the back of my head gently.
“You can.”
“No.” My voice cracked painfully. “No, I can’t.”
I hated crying.
Hated losing control but the tears came anyway.
Sharp, violent things dragged out from somewhere deep inside me.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” I choked out. “Nothing makes sense anymore.”
Raiden just held me tighter.
No judgment. Not trying to fix me. No demands for composure.
Just there and somehow that made me cry harder.
Ethan would’ve tried to silence this.
Control it.
Minimise it.
Raiden simply let me fall apart.
“I saw her,” I whispered against his shirt. “I saw my mother.”
His hand moved slowly through my hair.
“She said my wolf is waking up.”
His body stilled slightly beneath mine.
Then carefully:
“How much did she tell you?”
“That there are many people who would want me dead.” My voice trembled. “That I should trust my mate.”
Silence.
I pulled back enough to look at him then.
Raiden’s expression looked almost painfully soft.
Like hearing me say the word mattered more than it should.
“Are you my mate?” My voice came out as almost inaudible whisper.
Something fierce flickered across his face then.
Protective.
Possessive.
Devoted.
“Yes” he said quietly.
A loud crash suddenly echoed from downstairs.
Raiden went rigid instantly.
Another shout followed and then the unmistakable sound of fighting.
His entire body transformed in seconds.
Gone was the gentle man holding me together moments ago. This was something else.
Predatory.
Lethal.
Alpha.
“Stay here,” he ordered sharply.
Adrenaline surged instantly through me.
“What’s happening?”
His eyes flashed strangely gold.
“I said stay here.”
Then he moved.
Fast enough to blur.
I stumbled after him anyway because apparently I had lost all survival instincts recently.
Voices erupted downstairs.
Furniture shattered.
A deep, violent snarl ripped through the house hard enough to freeze me mid-step.
Not human.
I reached the lower floor just in time to see chaos explode through the kitchen.
Raiden’s construction crew was fighting.
No—not fighting, transforming.
Bones cracked violently and bodies twisted. Suddenly enormous wolves filled the half renovated space.
My brain stopped functioning.
One massive brown wolf slammed into another hard enough to send them crashing through unfinished cabinetry.
Someone snarled.
A black blur launched across the room.
Then I saw him. Golden eyes.
Raiden.
Except not Raiden anymore but a wolf.
A gigantic jet-black wolf larger than any animal I had ever seen in my life.
Pure muscle.
Dark fur gleaming beneath hanging lights.
Gold eyes burning with terrifying intelligence.
He was mesmerising and absolutely terrifying.
Every logical thought in my brain simply collapsed.
This was real.
Oh my God, this was actually real.
The black wolf, Raiden, hit one of the attackers with enough force to crack the floor beneath them.
Snarls and growls filled the kitchen violently.
Workers shifted between human and wolf forms seamlessly while construction tools and debris scattered everywhere.
Yet somehow I wasn’t afraid.
Shocked?
Absolutely.
Raiden’s wolf moved like pure violence wrapped in fur and muscle.
Protective violence.
Every time another wolf moved too close to where I stood, he intercepted instantly.
One attacker lunged toward me and a brutal growl shook the room.
Raiden hit the rogue wolf midair and slammed it hard into the wall.
The sound alone made my stomach turn.
The fight ended minutes later or maybe seconds.
Time stopped making sense.
Eventually silence settled broken only by heavy breathing and low growls.
Then reality crashed back in hard.
Blood.
Injuries.
Pain.
My vet instincts slammed into place immediately.
“Oh my God.”
Several wolves lay injured across the kitchen.
One limped badly.
Another bled heavily from the shoulder.
Without thinking, I dropped to my knees beside the closest injured wolf.
“It’s okay,” I said automatically, slipping into calm clinical focus. “Easy.”
Someone behind me shifted back into human form with a painful groan, ut I barely noticed, because all I saw were injured animals and instinct overpowered shock completely.
“Boil water,” I snapped toward the stunned construction workers nearby. “Now.”
Everyone froze.
Including Raiden.
Still in wolf form.
Watching me.
I pressed carefully against an injured wolf’s ribs, checking breathing and reaction automatically.
“This one needs pressure here,” I ordered. “And I need clean towels.”
The room suddenly burst into motion.
Because apparently nobody argued with me when I used my doctor voice.
Good.
Raiden shifted back moments later behind me.
I refused to look at him yet.
If I looked directly at the man who had just turned into a giant black wolf, I might finally lose my mind properly.
Instead, I focused on the injured wolves while my hands shook only slightly.
One of the younger wolves whimpered softly as I cleaned a deep gash along his side.
“You’re okay,” I murmured gently. “You’re okay.”
Silence settled strangely around the room.
Then one of the construction workers said carefully:
“…Alpha. She’s treating us like actual wolves.”
I blinked slowly.
Oh.
Right.
Not fully animal.
People.
Sort of.
I finally looked up then.
Raiden stood a few feet away in sweatpants someone had apparently thrown at him.
Dark hair damp.
Chest streaked faintly with blood.
Amber eyes locked completely onto me.
Not amused or embarrassed.
Awestruck.
Like I had somehow shocked him too.
And honestly?
That made two of us.
- Writer
