Chapter 12
905 Words
NORA
His voice is still in my head.
The coldness of it. The way it cut through me on that field like I was nothing.
I was wrong about him.
Again.
I thought he was different. I hoped he'd come around eventually. He said things that first week that made me think maybe. Maybe this one sees me properly or maybe this one isn't Kael.
Wrong.
How ironic.
He puts everything before the mate bond. Duty. Pack. Rules. Always. Five days ago while I was in that hospital bed he was warm. Attentive. Present. Now he's back to this and I don't know what I did or when it changed.
Maybe Iris got to him. Maybe pushing back against her was one thing too many. Maybe just me having an opinion was the problem.
These thoughts are filling my head as I walk through the pack grounds. Snow is coming down. Cold air. The pack is busy and moving around me and I'm walking through like a plug.
Then I noticed.
People are looking at me.
Not the way I'm used to.
These are open. Curious. A few of them even smile when my eyes cross theirs.
It makes me uncomfortable.
I genuinely don't know what to do with warmth from strangers who want nothing from me. In Kael's pack every smile had a price. Every look was a setup for something else.
Kindness there was currency and someone always collected eventually.
I'm still watching what happened, when three pack women fell into step near me. Laughing between themselves. Easy. Unbothered. The tall bright faced one slows to match my pace.
"You're the one staying in the alpha chambers," she says.
"Yes," I say.
"Morning stretches. East field. Come along," she says. Just like that.
I look at her. Then the two behind her.
Nothing threatening on any of their faces.
Saying no felt stranger saying yes.
"Alright," I say.
"Jade. That one is Priya. The quiet one at the back is Sasha."
Priya waves enthusiastically. Sasha nods once, eyes on the ground.
Sasha is my favourite already.
---
The field is cold and damp and open. Jade leads and she's relaxed about it. Just moving through something familiar.
I follow carefully.
The scar pulls when I stretch too far and I ease off when it does. My body still remembers everything even when my head tries to forget.
Other women on the field nod at me when I arrive. One says good morning. A younger one asks if I slept okay.
I'm not used to people looking at me without something ugly sitting behind their eyes. In Kael's pack acknowledgement came with conditions. Here it seems to just come.
Priya is beside me attempting a stretch with total confidence and completely wrong execution. Her face is cycling through expressions trying to figure out where she went wrong.
Jade stares at her.
"That is not what I showed you," Jade says.
"This is exactly what you showed me," Priya says. Absolutely certain.
"It isn't."
"I watched your hands."
"My hands were not doing that."
Priya tries again.
Somehow worse.
The laugh comes out before I can catch it.
One short real laugh.
I shut my mouth immediately and stare at the far tree line.
Jade glances over and says nothing.
My wolf is awake instantly.
'You're allowed to do that,' she says.
'Stay out of it,' I tell her.
'One laugh is not a crime.'
'I said stay out of it.'
'When last did you laugh like that. Actually laugh. Not performed. Real, laugh.'
I don't answer.
Priya is now presenting a full case to Jade for why her version was correct. Jade has her arms folded.
The younger wolf nearby watches them quietly, as they try to meet up.
My wolf is satisfied in my head without saying a word.
'Stop,' I tell her.
'Not doing anything,' she says.
'You're being smug.'
'I'm just standing here.'
'Stop standing here smugly then.'
She goes quiet but doesn't go far.
---
When it ends Jade says they're out every morning except Thursdays. I'm welcome whenever. No pressure in her voice.
No agenda. Just an open door left casually ajar.
The three of them head back, still debating Priya's form.
I stay on the field a little longer.
The Pack is fully awake now .
People here are treating me like I belong.
Like my presence requires no justification.
Like I don't owe anyone an explanation for existing in this space.
I don't trust it yet.
I want to.
I don't.
My wolf stays quiet. Let me have the feeling without an argument. I appreciate that more than I'll tell her.
I start walking back.
Scar aching low.
Snow is still falling lightly.
Pack warm around me in a way that doesn't feel earned yet and maybe that's the problem.
Maybe I don't know what to do with things that aren't earned.
Maybe I only know how to survive spaces that cost me something.
My pup is out there.
Somewhere.
Growing up without me knowing his face or his name or whether he's warm enough or held enough or loved enough by whoever has him.
That thought sits on top of everything else the way it always does.
Always there.
Always heaviest.
I breathe through it and keep walking.
The laugh was real though.
One.
Small.
Mine.
And nobody took it from me before it was finished.
- Writer
