Chapter one: Loving the fractured one
1089 Words
Angora:
“Angora, you just put the kettle in the cupboard again.”
I stopped what I was doing and turned slowly, following Kail’s voice. The cupboard door was still open. The kettle was sitting beside the bowls, exactly where it did not belong. I stared at it, then at my empty hand, trying to remember when I had decided this was the right place for it.
“I was… saving it,” I said after a moment.
Kail leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. He didn’t look annoyed. He just looked tired in a familiar way.
“Saving it from what?” He raised his brows.
“Dust,” I shrugged my shoulders. “And insects. Kitchens are unpredictable, you know.”
His lips twitched, but he didn't fully smile. “You forgot again.”
“I didn’t forget,” I argued, taking the kettle out and placing it on the counter. “I just lost track halfway through.”
“That keeps happening,” he said gently.
I smiled at him sheepishly, because smiling worked better than explaining. “If I remembered everything, you wouldn’t have anything to do then. You’d get bored easily.”
I winked at him, making him shake his head with a smile.
“You were already impossible,” he replied.
“And you still love me.”
“Yes,” he said without pause. “I do.”
The way he said it made my chest flip and my nerves calm at the same time. I turned back to the stove, now too cautious of the way he kept watching me.
The memory of our first meeting snapped in front of my eyes, as fresh as ever.
That night could have ended badly three years ago, but a miracle had happened. I had been taking the long way home through Angrath Vale, the streets quiet, the forest thick around me.
Men from the outer settlements had been drinking near the edge of town, loud and careless. One grabbed my arm as I passed.
“Let go!” I snapped, twisting, pulling my arm free….but he didn’t let go. He laughed, tightening his grip further.
“Relax, girl. Don’t get so worked up.”
“I said let go!” I shouted, yanking harder, my voice sharp with fear and frustration.
“Or what?” another man called from behind, slurring his words. “You gonna do something?”
My wolf stirred beneath my skin before I knew it, restless.
My magic reacted instinctively, buzzing against the edges of control.
“I-I’m warning you!” I tried, panic creeping in. “Let go, now!”
They only laughed louder. The first man leaned closer, his grip cutting into my wrist.
“Or else what, little girl?”
That was when something inside me snapped.
Heat rushed through my chest, my veins humming with raw power. My vision sharpened, my heartbeat pounding in rhythm with a surge I could not stop. The ground shook beneath my feet. A wave of energy pushed outward like a pulse, knocking them back. Torches flared and died. Smoke curled into the night air.
When I blinked, the men were gone, scattered into the darkness, and the earth beneath me was scorched.
I stared at my hands, trembling, wondering what I had just done.
That was when Kail stepped out from the shadows.
He looked like a man who had seen things like this before, like nothing about the destruction unsettled him.
“Are you hurt?” he asked first, his voice steady, observant, cautious.
“I-I didn’t think so,” I managed, my voice shaking.
Something had shifted between us that night, something quiet but unbreakable, leading to the bond of trust and the kind of love we carried now. I still remembered the first look of shock and horror on his face when he had truly looked at me, like he had seen a dead person standing alive.
He had been my rock against the whispers of the packs, protecting my peace with steady words, loving my strange, fractured self without hesitation. He never minded how many times I broke things, forgot them, or let chaos spill from my untamed wolf and magic. He never grew tired of me.
No one ever had……at least, not the way he did.
The mysterious distance in him had remained, though. He never spoke about the centuries of exhaustion behind his calm eyes. He never gave voice to the restlessness that showed in the way his body stilled when he watched me for too long. All I knew was that he was an immortal alpha, and he never wanted to talk about it.
“Angora.”
His voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
Something in it made me turn.
He was no longer leaning casually in the doorway. His shoulders were tense. His expression was careful, like he was choosing every word before letting it out.
“We needed to talk.”
I set the spoon down. “That sounded serious.”
“It was.”
I folded my arms. “Did I break something again?”
“No.”
“Then what?” I asked, confused.
He hesitated, and that hesitation settled uneasily in my stomach.
“The council summoned me,” he said.
I didn’t speak right away.
“They were worried,” he continued. “About your power. About how quickly it was growing.”
“I was controlling it,” I said quickly. “I hadn’t lost control in weeks.”
“I know,” he said. “But they didn’t think it was enough.”
I shook my head. “They always said that.”
“They warned me,” he added quietly.
I looked at him. “Warned you about what?”
“That if things kept escalating, they would take matters into their own hands.”
My throat tightened. “What did that mean?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“Would they evict me?” I asked. “Send me away from the Vale?”
His jaw tightened. He looked down, then back at me. “No.”
The way he said it made my pulse spike. I swallowed.
“Then what?”
The room felt too quiet. Too small all of a sudden.
“Angora—”
“Would they execute me?” I whispered, dread curling through every word.
The question hung between us.
Kail didn’t say anything.
He didn’t deny it.
And that was what made my body turn cold.
- Writer
