Chapter2
1148 Words
Aria Valehart
Pain.
It was the first thing I felt. Not a sharp wound or a bruise—but something deeper. A hollow ache that seemed to come from inside my soul.
I was cold. My body trembled against something soft—fur? Fabric? The scent was unfamiliar: sage, ash, and old cedar. Not the Blackfang wolves. Not the forest.
Where am I?
I opened my eyes to shadows and golden light. I was inside a cabin. Low wooden beams overhead, a fire crackling in a stone hearth to my right. Animal pelts layered across the walls and floor. It smelled of old magic.
I sat up too fast, and a sharp cry escaped me.
Gods.
Every inch of me hurt. My bones felt like they’d been broken and reassembled with no instruction. My muscles twitched and burned with fatigue. My skin… it felt wrong. As if my body didn’t know what shape it wanted to hold anymore.
Then it all came flooding back.
The woods. The pain. The shift.
Him.
Kade Blackthorn. His voice. His words. That last look he gave me—utter disinterest, as if I were a stain on his boot.
“I reject you.”
I gasped like I’d been stabbed.
A soft rustle behind me made me spin—and nearly fall from the low bed.
“Easy,” a voice said, calm and lilting, like sunlight through leaves. “You’re safe now. Mostly.”
I blinked.
The woman standing in the doorway was not what I expected.
She was old—but not frail. Tall, draped in layers of indigo and smoke-gray. Her long silver hair was braided with bone beads and feathers. Her eyes, pale as frost, glinted with power I didn’t understand.
“Who—?” My throat cracked. I coughed.
She handed me a cup. Warm. Herbal.
“I’m called Mave,” she said. “And you’re lucky I found you when I did. Another hour, and you might’ve burned yourself out entirely.”
I took a hesitant sip. The bitterness bit my tongue. My stomach churned.
“What… what do you mean?”
She tilted her head. “You shifted for the first time under a full blood moon, and then your mate rejected you before the bond could settle. You’re lucky your wolf didn’t go feral from the shock.”
I flinched. “He said he didn’t want me. That I was… nothing.”
She sighed, turning away to stir something in a small cauldron. “Alpha males can be cruel when the bond catches them off guard. Especially ones as tightly wound as Blackthorn.”
“You know him?”
She gave a dry smile. “I know of him. Kade was raised to see weakness as infection. You were unexpected. He didn’t know how to handle that. So he rejected you to regain control.”
I didn’t respond. The pain was still there—lodged in my chest like a shard of ice. Every heartbeat rubbed against it.
“I didn’t even know I was a wolf,” I whispered. “No one told me. Aunt Marla never said anything. My parents—”
Were dead. Gone in a car crash ten years ago. All I remembered was fire. Screaming. And a silver locket in my mother’s hand.
Mave hummed. “That explains a few things. Your wolf has been caged too long. She woke violently. That bond—the mate link—it broke too fast. You're bleeding energy.”
I blinked. “I’m… bleeding?”
“Not physically. But your aura. Your soul. The rejection tears something open. Most wolves grow up trained to handle the risk. But you?”
She stepped closer and placed two fingers on my temple. Her touch was cool and gentle.
“You’re something else entirely, aren’t you, girl?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Instead of answering, she moved to a wooden chest and pulled out a polished shard of obsidian.
“Hold this,” she said.
I hesitated, then took it.
The moment my fingers closed around the stone, the fire behind her flared. A sudden gust of wind tore through the cabin, extinguishing the candlelight. The ground shuddered beneath us.
I dropped the stone with a cry.
Mave didn’t flinch.
“Well,” she said softly, “that confirms it.”
My breathing was ragged. “What was that?”
“You’re not just a shifter, Aria.” Her voice was quiet now. Grave. “You carry something old. Something wild. And very few packs would know how to deal with that. The Blackfangs certainly don’t.”
My chest tightened. “Then what am I?”
She studied me.
“That’s the question you’ll have to answer.”
I looked down at my hands. Calloused. Bruised. My nails still had a faint silver hue, like they weren’t sure whether they were claws or not.
“I just want to go home,” I said.
“Home,” Mave echoed. “To the town that never told you what you were? To the aunt who kept your heritage hidden? To the people who will smell your broken bond and pity you—or worse, fear you?”
I didn’t speak.
“Your wolf’s awake now. You can’t pretend to be normal anymore.”
“What do I do then?” My voice broke. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
She walked over, sat beside me.
“Maybe not. But the moon doesn’t wait for us to be ready. You were born for more than this, Aria Valehart.”
That name—Valehart—used to mean nothing. Just a last name.
Now it felt like a key I hadn’t yet turned.
“What happens to me now?”
Mave stood, moving to a shelf stacked with maps, scrolls, and bones. She pulled out a thick leather-bound book and set it on the table.
“You have a choice,” she said. “You can run back to Silvergrove, tail between your legs, and try to forget this ever happened.”
Or?
“Or,” she said, “you stay. You train. You learn who you are—who you really are. You reclaim what was taken from you before you even knew to miss it.”
I stared at the fire, flickering low now.
“I don’t have anyone,” I whispered.
“You have me,” Mave said. “And soon, you’ll have yourself. That’s more than most start with.”
Something inside me stirred.
A memory, maybe. A voice not mine, echoing from somewhere long ago:
The moon chooses her daughters. And the wild does not bow.
I looked back at her.
“I want to learn.”
Mave smiled. Not warm. Not proud. But something stronger.
She nodded once.
“Then the real work begins.”
- Writer
