Chapter 4.
1015 Words
Caleb POV
The moment she crossed the boundary, my knees buckled.
It wasn’t painful at first. It was absent. Like a limb had been torn off without warning, leaving only a hollow, screaming void behind.
My chest seized violently, breath ripping from my lungs as I staggered forward, clutching at my sternum like I could physically hold the bond in place.
“Alpha!” someone shouted.
I ignored them.
My wolf slammed against my ribs, feral and enraged, claws raking the inside of my skin. You let her go, it snarled. You sent her away.
“She was weak,” I growled under my breath, forcing myself upright. “She was destabilizing the pack.”
The words sounded thin like lies repeated too many times.
The ground beneath my feet still hummed faintly, as if the territory itself remembered her. I could feel it, an echo trailing far beyond the boundary, stretched taut like a thread pulled too tight.
The bond hadn’t snapped.
It burned.
I sucked in a sharp breath as something slammed into my chest again, hot, furious, unfamiliar.
Her anger.
Not grief. Not despair.
Anger.
“What is this?” I hissed, staggering back against a stone pillar. Wolves nearby lowered their heads instinctively, sensing the turbulence rolling off me in waves.
My wolf reared, hackles raised. That is not a weakness.
I clenched my jaw. “Enough.”
Eight years. Eight years of silence, of obedience, of her shrinking every time I raised my voice.
This…this fury crawling through the bond, this was new.
I forced myself to breathe, to straighten my shoulders. Alpha. I was Alpha. I had done what was necessary.
The pack needed stability.
Naomi had failed.
That was the truth.
…wasn’t it?
“Caleb.”
Lila’s voice slid into my ears, soft and careful. She approached slowly, hands clasped, eyes filled with concern that looked practiced rather than instinctive.
“You should rest,” she said. “The rejection took a toll on you.”
The moment she touched my arm, my wolf snarled.
Not a warning.
A threat.
I froze.
Lila flinched, withdrawing her hand quickly. “I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean..”
“Don’t,” I snapped, harsher than intended.
She stepped back, hurt flashing across her face. “I was only trying to help.”
My chest tightened again, another pulse through the bond. This time it came with heat. Heat and pain. Sharp enough that my vision blurred.
I sucked in a breath through my teeth.
Naomi was hurting.
No…she was burning.
“What’s wrong?” Lila asked, watching me carefully.
“Nothing,” I said immediately, too fast..
I turned away from her, pacing. My wolf was restless now, pacing alongside my thoughts, teeth bared.
She is changing, it growled.
“She’s gone,” I said aloud, as if saying it would make it true. “Exiled. The bond will fade.”
It should have already, my wolf shot back. It hasn’t.
I stopped pacing.
That was wrong.
When a mate was rejected, truly rejected, the bond didn’t linger like this. It withered. It dulled. Pain came, yes, but it didn’t… pulse. It didn’t carry emotions this vivid. This is raw.
Another surge slammed into me without warning.
This one wasn’t pain, it was power.
Dark, coiled, and vast.
I dropped to one knee with a sharp grunt, fist slamming into the stone floor. Cracks spidered out beneath my knuckles.
“What in the moon’s name..” I muttered.
My wolf went utterly silent.
That scared me more than its rage.
“Alpha!” Beta Roren hurried toward me. “We just received word from the Northern territories.”
I forced myself to stand, chest heaving. “Speak.”
“There’s… unrest,” he said carefully. “Alpha Dave is on the move.”
My spine stiffened. “Dave? Why?”
“He’s searching,” Roren replied. “For a dormant Alpha bloodline. Something ancient. Something… sealed.”
The word hit me like a blade.
Sealed?
My chest flared violently, heat ripping through my veins as an image flashed unbidden in my mind..
Naomi on her knees.
Blood on her hands.
Her eyes lifted to the moon, not broken… but burning.
I staggered back.
“No,” I muttered. “That’s impossible.”
Lila’s brows furrowed. “What is?”
I didn’t answer.
Because suddenly, memories I had buried clawed their way to the surface.
Naomi’s wolf, how it never emerged.
The way she winced when certain rituals were performed.
How the healers’ herbs never worked on her. How Derrick had insisted on special treatments.
My stomach twisted.
“What if…,” my wolf said slowly, dread threading through its voice, she was never weak?
My breath hitched.
“What if,” it continued, she was restrained?
The bond flared again, violently this time.
And with it came something new.
Not pain or anger but a presence.
Ancient and watching.
I backed away instinctively, heart pounding. “I rejected her,” I whispered. “I broke the bond.”
You tried, my wolf replied grimly. And failed.
The room felt colder suddenly, shadows stretching unnaturally long along the walls.
That night, sleep dragged me under like a curse.
I stood in a clearing bathed in silver moonlight. The air vibrated with power so thick it pressed against my lungs.
She stood at the center.
Naomi.
Her hair flowed loose down her back, dark and wild. Her skin glowed faintly, etched with symbols I didn’t recognize. Chains lay shattered at her feet.
Her eyes…
Gold.
Not wolf-gold.
Something deeper and older. She looked at me without hatred.
That was worse.
“You will beg one day,” she said calmly.
I opened my mouth to speak.
To apologize, to command and to plead
But no sound came out.
I jolted awake choking, clutching my chest as regret flooded my veins like poison.
For the first time since the rejection, I didn’t feel like an Alpha.
I felt like a man who had just realized..
He had made the worst mistake of his life.
- Writer
