solo
1546 Words
Savannah’s POV
Finding the right therapist felt like trying to stitch a wound shut with shaking hands and the wrong thread.
They all looked at me with kind eyes and soft voices, but none of them saw me.
One asked too many questions I wasn’t ready to answer.
Another spoke in metaphors, and affirmations like healing was just a choice I hadn’t made yet.
One woman gods, she wore feathers and crystals and smelled like sage told me to speak my truth to the moonlight, and I was seconds from asking if she was the one who needed professional help.
I wanted to heal.
I did.
But I couldn’t sit across from someone and feel like a case study or a pity project or some shattered thing they couldn’t wait to fix.
And then…
A name.
A place.
A retreat tucked far off the northern range, nestled between wild forest and serenity. Not a clinic. Not a ward.
A safehouse for trauma-born wolves.
Therapists who weren’t human. Healers who understood how the bond worked. How it could break. How it could bleed.
It wasn’t traditional. It wasn’t easy.
And it wasn’t here.
I brought it up gently, expecting the triplets to at least consider it.
They didn’t.
They froze.
Three alphas, still as statues, eyes locked, and jaws clenched like I’d just suggested leaving them for good.
“You’re not going alone,” Rowen said instantly.
“No way in hell,” Luca snapped. “You just got here.”
“It’s not safe,” Jace added, lower but sharper.
I let the silence stretch until it pressed against my chest.
And then I said quietly but clearly, “It’s not your decision.”
Three pairs of eyes locked on me.
“I know what this place could mean for me,” I continued. “I feel it in my bones, and Kali does too. It’s not that I don’t want your help. I need you. But I need to find pieces of myself that you can’t reach.”
Luca paced, fists clenching. “You think we’ll just let you go off to some unknown forest with strangers and”
“It’s not about letting me,” I said softly but firmly. “It’s about trusting me.”
Rowen stepped forward, his voice cracking a little. “What if something happens? What if you spiral and we’re not there?”
I met his eyes, then Jace’s, then Luca’s.
“I know what it means to spiral. You’ve seen it. I’m not cured, and I won’t be overnight. But I am strong enough to make this choice. You have to let me try. If I don’t, if I stay here and feel like I’m trapped inside my own skin with no way out, then it’ll never get better.”
Jace’s hands dropped to his sides, defeated. “I hate this.”
“I know,” I whispered.
Rowen looked at the floor. “We’ll speak every day. You miss one check-in, we’re coming for you. Agreed?”
I nodded.
Luca was the last to fold. He growled low, kissed my forehead like it might be the last time, and muttered, “This place better fix what it claims to.”
I smiled faintly.
“I don’t want to be fixed,” I said. “I just want to feel like I belong in my own body again.”
And that was a journey I had to take on my own, even if it broke all of us for a while.
Savannah’s POV
I found him on the back terrace, exactly where I knew he’d be.
Coffee in hand. Phone close. Watching the horizon like it owed him answers.
My father had always been that way quiet, present, and powerful in a way that never needed to shout. I used to think he was distant. But now I know better.
He was always there.
In the shadows. In the background. In the triplets' check-ins three times a day like clockwork. I could feel his fingerprints on every boundary they didn’t push, every decision they carefully placed in my hands.
I stepped into the early morning light and cleared my throat.
He looked at me like he’d been waiting for this conversation since the moment I came home.
“I’m going,” I said before he could speak. “To the retreat.”
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.
“I know they already told you.”
“They did,” he said, voice even. “But I wanted to hear it from you.”
I nodded, wrapping my arms around myself. “I didn’t want to make this harder than it already is.”
“It’s not about what’s hard for me,” he said gently. “It’s about what’s right for you.”
That cracked something open in me.
Because for so long I’d been waiting for someone to say you don’t owe anyone your healing on their terms.
He looked at me then, and it really looked like he was trying to memorize me in this moment. Not broken. Not whole. Just… me.
“You’ve always been the strongest person I’ve known,” he said. “Even when you didn’t feel it. But strength doesn’t mean doing it alone.”
“I’m not doing it alone,” I said. “I’m just not doing it here.”
He nodded slowly. “I’ve vetted the retreat. I have a contact already embedded there. You’ll be protected.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d probably known about the place before I did. He probably stayed silent so I could find it on my own.
I stepped closer, let myself lean against his side, and for the first time in a long time, I let him hold me without guilt.
“I hate leaving them,” I whispered. “The triplets.”
He kissed the top of my head. “If it were up to them, they’d chain you to the palace walls.”
“I know.”
“But they also know what you need. Even if it kills them to let you go.”
A long pause passed between us, filled with birdsong and breeze and memories.
“When I come back,” I said quietly, “I want to be the version of me they deserve.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “When you come back, you’ll be the version of you, you deserve.”
And for the first time, I believed that might be possible.
Savannah’s POV
They stood in front of me like a wall.
Three alphas. My alphas.
Rowen’s arms were crossed, his jaw tight like he was bracing for impact.
Luca kept clenching and unclenching his fists, a storm behind his eyes he couldn’t control.
And Jace gods, Jace looked like someone had already ripped his heart out and was just waiting to crush it.
“We’re coming with you,” Luca said. Final. Absolute.
“No,” I said softly.
All three of them flinched like I’d struck them.
“Sav—” Jace started, but I shook my head.
“No,” I repeated, firmer this time. “You can’t.”
“You don’t get to do this alone,” Rowen growled, stepping forward. “Not again.”
“This isn’t about being alone,” I snapped, frustration bubbling. “It’s about space. About silence. About finally being able to hear myself think without worrying how you’ll all look at me every time I flinch or panic or break down.”
“We don’t care if you break,” Luca said, voice raw. “We just want to be there to hold the pieces.”
“And that’s the problem,” I whispered.
They stilled.
“If you come with me,” I said, forcing the words past the lump in my throat, “I won’t let you leave.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
“I’ll cling,” I confessed, laughing darkly at myself. “Moon, I’ll beg you to stay. And I can’t do that. I can’t go from being the girl who didn’t need anybody to the frightened child who can’t sleep without her mates nearby.”
Jace stepped forward, his eyes shining. “It’s not weakness to want us.”
“It is if it keeps me from healing,” I shot back, blinking hard. “Please. You promised to trust me.”
Rowen’s mouth opened, then closed. His wolf was screaming inside him, I could feel it.
Luca ran a hand through his hair like he wanted to rip it out.
And Jace… just nodded.
Slowly. Painfully.
“If this is what you need,” he said, voice hoarse, “we’ll let you go.”
“But don’t expect us to like it,” Rowen muttered.
“I don’t,” I whispered. “I just expect you to wait for me.”
Luca stepped forward, and this time, I let him pull me into his arms.
One by one, they followed until I was wrapped in all three of them safe, but not stuck.
Wanted, but not caged.
Their touch burned like a brand I’d carry into the woods.
A reminder that I wasn’t walking away from love.
I was walking toward myself.
- Writer
