Chapter Two: Survival
904 Words
I froze. My eyes went up, tense muscles ready to strike. But the presence wasn't threatening—it was… curious.
Soft steps padded closer, slow and measured. I crouched, my muscles coiled tightly, until I saw a blur of black fur through the trees. A scout, most likely. A beta. Young. Not him.
I took a deep breath in, shut my eyes, and focused. Turning back now would cost me everything—blood, energy, my final thread of sanity. But if it was what I had to do, I'd do it. I'd survive. I always did.
The wolf paused, caught a scent of air, and vanished into the woods again.
I waited for a minute before getting up, my body protesting in agony. The moon remained high, bathing the forest in crimson light. It felt too quiet now, as if the very land itself was holding its breath.
I pressed a hand against my ribs, hissing at the pain below my chest. Warm blood seeped into my shirt. That bastard from the ridge—the one who nearly took my leg two nights ago—must have cracked bone when he threw me into the rocks.
I moved forward, more slowly this time. Carefully. Cautiously.
I couldn't stay here. I needed to get out of Moonfall before their patrols closed in around me again. Before he found me again.
But then I remembered his voice.
"You're hurt."
No one had said those words to me in years. Not with gentleness. Not like it mattered.
Why had he looked at me like that?
I waved the thought aside and pushed deeper into the woods, ignoring the ache in my leg. The woods thickened around me, the pine and moss smell mixed with the distant scent of wolf musk and damp fur. A long way off, an owl hooted. Closer, I heard the sound of a stream bubbling over rock.
I found it after another hour's of agonizing limping. The stream cut through the woods like a silver thread, moonlight dancing across its surface. I fell to my knees at the riverbank and drank greedily, feeling the icy water numb my cracked lips.
My reflection rippled in the water.
Hair tangled and silver. Eyes too bright. Blood smudged across the jaw. A claw-shaped scar ran down my collarbone.
This was no longer the face to love. Not anymore.
Then why did he look at you like you were made of stars?
I closed my eyes hard. The memory of his gaze burned behind them, branding me from the inside out. It had been more than curiosity. More than duty. Something in him had recognized me—and something in me had burst wide open in return.
Was this what the bond was supposed to feel like?
Or was it just another curse in disguise?
A gust of wind blew through the trees, with the scent of something I hadn't noticed. Smoke. Pine. Something faintly metallic.
I whipped around.
He was there.
Leaning against a tree a few feet away, arms crossed over his broad chest, eyes fixed on me as if I were the only thing holding him to the ground.
My heart skipped a beat.
"You're following me," I growled.
He didn’t deny it. "You're hurt."
"You already said that."
"You didn't hear it the first time."
I stood up, keeping the stream as cover between us. He didn't move. Just watched. The way he looked at me—it made me feel like I was in the eye of a storm. Not bruised, but seen. Every jagged edge. Every scar. And still… he didn't flinch.
"what do you want?" I asked.
His jaw flexed. "I don't know yet."
Honorable. It made me hate him a little less.
"I'm not one of yours," I said to him. "I never will be."
"I didn't say you were."
I stepped back as he came one step nearer. Only one. But it felt like the earth shifting.
"Then why are you here?" I demanded.
He exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing. "Because ever since I saw you... I haven't been able to stop thinking about you."
There was silence between us that was heavy and pulsing.
"I don't want this," I whispered. "Whatever this is."
"I know," he said.
And yet he didn't turn away.
Neither did I.
His scent hit me again—warm leather, pine, and that sharp electric charge of ozone before the storm. Everything about him was wrong. Forbidden. He was Moonfall. I was a rogue. He was a future Alpha. I was nothing but bloodlines buried in ash.
Why did my body betray me? Why did my wolf respond to him like it wanted to roll over and bare its throat?
I couldn't breathe.
"Leave me alone," I said, but it came out more like a plea.
His expression changed, and I saw the struggle in his eyes for the first time. The same battle that I fought within myself.
"I can't," he said, simply.
And then he moved away from me.
Not because he wanted to.
Because he understood.
The tension in my chest exploded like a dam. I turned without speaking and strode away, pounding heart, clenched fists at my sides.
But though the forest swallowed him up behind me, I could still feel him.
In my blood.
In my bones.
In the part of me that I'd thought was dead for years.
- Writer
