Chapter 11: The truth that refused to die
795 Words
(Mara’s POV )
Pain arrived before awareness.
Not the sharp kind that made you cry out, but a deep, consuming ache that seemed stitched into my bones. It wrapped around my chest, tightened with every breath, and reminded me that whatever had tried to kill me had almost succeeded.
I tried to move.
Failed.
My fingers twitched weakly against rough fabric, and I realized I was lying down. The scent of bitter herbs, crushed leaves, and old wood filled my lungs.
The healer’s hut.
Alive.
The thought stunned me more than the pain.
My eyelids felt impossibly heavy, but memory began to seep back in slow, relentless, unforgiving.
The path near the boundary.
The voice calling my name.
Gather herbs beyond the markers. It’s urgent. The Alpha approved.
I swallowed, my throat burning.
That voice.
Kind. Familiar. Trusted.
My eyes fluttered open.
Light blurred the room, lanterns melting into dull gold shapes that swam before sharpening slowly. A shadow moved near the bed.
Someone was there.
I turned my head just enough to see him.
Alpha Liam sat beside me, his usual commanding posture fractured by exhaustion. His forearms rested on his knees, hands clasped tightly together, head bowed as though he’d been fighting a losing battle for hours.
He looked… human.
“Alpha,” I whispered.
The word scratched itself out of my throat.
He looked up instantly.
“Mara,” he said, standing so fast the chair scraped against the floor. “Don’t speak. You’re not ready.”
But I was.
Because if I didn’t speak now, fear might steal the strength that pain was giving me.
“She sent me,” I said faintly.
His body went still.
I swallowed again, fighting to keep my eyes open, fighting the heavy pull of sleep. “Selena.”
The name landed between us like a dropped blade.
My chest hurt as I forced more words out. “She told me the Alpha ordered herbs from beyond the markers. She said it was important. Urgent. She said you approved.”
Liam’s jaw tightened so hard I feared it might c***k.
“She didn’t come with me,” I continued quickly, panic rising that I might not finish. “She stood in the trees. Watching. Like… like she already knew.”
Images flashed behind my eyes the moment I crossed the boundary line, the sudden shift in the air, the smell of strangers.
Rogues.
“They were waiting,” I whispered. “It wasn’t an accident.”
The silence in the hut thickened, heavy with realization.
I heard another presence then.
A different kind of stillness.
I turned my head slowly and saw her.
She stood near the doorway, silver-grey eyes reflecting the lantern light like moonlit steel. She looked untouched by panic, untouched by fear but not untouched by pain.
She met my gaze and didn’t look away.
“You remember,” she said softly.
I nodded, even though it hurt. Even though tears burned behind my eyes.
“She wanted it blamed on you,” I whispered. “She wanted people to think danger follows you.”
Her expression didn’t change.
But something in the room did.
The air felt tighter. Heavier.
“She tried again,” Liam said quietly. “Tonight.”
I frowned weakly. “I felt someone… near me.”
His eyes flashed dark. “She was.”
The silence that followed was different now.
Not confusion.
Certainty.
I exhaled shakily. “She’ll deny it,” I said. “She always sounds reasonable.”
“I know,” Liam replied.
I gathered what little strength I had left. “She told people your omega was unstable long before the shed. Before I was hurt.”
The omega stepped closer then, close enough that I could see the resolve etched beneath her calm.
“She was preparing the ground,” she said. “So truth would sound like madness.”
I looked at her and understood why Selena feared her.
Not because of power.
Because of clarity.
Outside, faint sounds of the pack waking drifted through the cracks in the walls. Life continuing as if nothing had changed.
But everything had.
“You’ll need proof,” I whispered. “Not just my word.”
Liam nodded slowly. “And she doesn’t know you’ve fully woken.”
A weak smile touched my lips.
“That’s your advantage.”
He met my gaze, something like steel settling into his spine. “Rest,” he said firmly. “This ends properly.”
My eyelids grew heavy again, but this time sleep felt earned.
As darkness claimed me once more, I clung to one thought with steady certainty:
Selena had tried to bury the truth.
Instead, she’d given it a voice.
And it would speak.
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- Writer
