5. Chapter
765 Words
I thought pain had a limit.
But when Zane carried me out of the great hall and the cold wind touched my skin, I realized it wasn’t my body that hurt — it was what remained inside it.
His arms were strong, his movements steady, but his presence was too much for me. Every nerve in me was drawn tight, every breath trembled. My body waited for the blow. For the silence to break again. For Kian’s laughter to echo in my ears.
But Zane said nothing. He just carried me.
Down the corridor, the Red Moon wolves followed in silence, their eyes filled with a mix of respect and shock. The whole keep had seen what happened. Had seen how he tore Kian’s ritual apart with a single command. The pack still whispered fearfully about it.
The room he brought me to was surrounded by thick stone walls. It wasn’t my cell, nor the stable where I slept. This… was something else.
A guest room. A place where the light didn’t punish — it illuminated.
He set me down on the bed and stepped back.
“Stay still,” he said curtly. His voice was deep but not harsh. More like distant thunder — threatening, but not harmful.
Power still pulsed in his hands. The kind of power that needed no words. But he didn’t touch me again.
“Why… why did you do that?” I asked at last. My voice shook, and I hated how it sounded.
Zane looked at me but didn’t answer immediately. His face was unreadable, as if he himself were trying to understand the answer.
“Because I don’t tolerate injustice,” he finally said. “And what they were doing to you in there wasn’t discipline. It was torture.”
“You don’t know me.” I tried to sound quiet and defiant, but my voice broke. “Why would you care if I die?”
His green eyes flashed.
“Because your wolf responded to me.” A brief silence. “Because yours heard mine. And that… doesn’t happen by accident.”
My stomach knotted. I didn’t fully understand what he meant, but something in his words struck deep.
“I don’t want you to touch me,” I said suddenly. “I don’t want you to command me. I don’t want… to be controlled.”
Zane’s expression darkened, but not with anger. More with the effort of keeping control.
“I won’t force you to do anything, Elariana.” He said my name slowly, firmly, as if tasting it. “But I won’t let them lay a hand on you again.”
My chest tightened. I wanted to trust him and run from him at the same time.
“You don’t understand anything either.” My voice cracked. “If Kian finds out you took me, he’ll turn on your whole pack. He… he won’t let this go.”
“I don’t care about Kian.” His words struck like ice. “Or about your pack. Anyone who raises a hand against you is a dead wolf.”
I couldn’t answer. I just stared at him, feeling my heartbeat quicken. Not from fear — or not just from fear.
He stepped to the window, crossing his arms over his chest.
“We leave at dawn. To Red Moon territory,” he said with the tone of an order. “You can’t stay here.”
“And if I don’t want to go?” The words slipped out.
“You’re coming anyway.” His gaze left no room for doubt. “But not as a prisoner. As someone I won’t let go.”
I turned away from him. My fingers trembled, and my body still held the echoes of pain. The chains were no longer on me, yet I felt them alive beneath my skin.
Freedom was suddenly too big.
Too loud. Too sharp.
Zane watched in silence. I felt his gaze on my back, but he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t come closer. He just let me breathe.
And that was the strangest thing.
Because for the first time in my life, someone didn’t try to break me.
As night fell and the keep sank into silence again, my body slowly relaxed. My eyes drifted shut, but my last thought before sleep wasn’t about Kian.
It was about those green eyes that showed something beyond fear.
Something I couldn’t name.
But my wolf knew.
Because as I slipped into sleep, softly, as if whispering inside my soul, she said:
“He is the one.”
- Writer
