Chapter 5.
1006 Words
Naomi POV
I didn’t remember falling. One moment I was walking, each step away from Redwild tearing something loose inside my chest, and the next, nothing. Darkness swallowed me whole.
When I came back to myself, the ground was cold under my cheek. Not stone or packed earth shaped by pack borders and hierarchy.
I tried to move and pain bloomed everywhere at once. My limbs felt too heavy, my bones burning like they had been forged instead of born. My throat was raw, lungs aching as if I had screamed myself hoarse.
The border lay somewhere behind me.
I had made it out.
The ground pulsed under me, not like a heartbeat, but like something listening.
I pressed my palm into the soil, fingers trembling. The pain hadn’t faded, it had changed. It no longer begged me to curl inward. It pushed. My bones ached as if they were being rearranged, my skin too tight for what lived underneath.
I laughed weakly, breath hitching. “So this is it,” I whispered. “This is where I die.”
The moonlight shifted.
Not brighter, closer.
It felt like being seen for the first time without judgment. No pity. No expectations. Just the truth.
Memories spilled through me in broken fragments.
My mother’s voice, sharp with fear.
Never let them see her eyes when she’s angry.
My father’s hands shaking as he traced symbols I hadn’t understood into my skin.
It’s temporary, he had sworn. Until she’s strong enough.
Strong enough for what?
My body arched suddenly, a cry tearing from my throat as heat exploded through my spine. I tasted iron. Heard something inside me snap not cleanly, not gently but with the sound of chains breaking under strain.
I wasn’t dying.
I was remembering.
And whatever had been buried inside me all these years was no longer asking permission to wake.
That thought should have brought relief. Instead, my vision blurred and a sob tore out of me, ugly and sharp. I curled inward, fingers clawing weakly at the soil.
I was alone.
No title, mate and pack.
No strength left to pretend.
“Get up.”
The voice did not come from the forest.
It came from me.
I froze.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t comforting. It didn’t ask. It commanded.
My breath hitched. “Who..”
Get. Up.
Pain flared hotter, sharper, like something inside me had grown impatient. I cried out, fingers digging into the earth as my body arched against my will.
“No,” I gasped. “Please… I can’t…”
You can.
Something snapped.
Not clean, not gentle.
Cracks split through me, deep and violent, and with them came memories that were not dreams.
My mother’s hands, slick with blood, pressing against my small chest.
My father’s voice, urgent, shaking.
She’s too young…
If we don’t seal it, they’ll find her.
A circle carved into stone. Moonlight stained red. My scream swallowed by chanting voices as something ancient roared inside me, furious at being caged.
My body convulsed.
I screamed, nails breaking as I clawed at the ground, heat ripping through my veins like wildfire.
Chains.
I felt them now, not in a dream, not imagined but real. Buried deep. Wrapped around my bones, my heart, my wolf.
They sealed you to protect you, the voice said, sharp with disdain. They sealed me to control you.
The forest shook.
I gasped, dragging air into my lungs as power surged, not borrowed, not gifted but mine. It burned away weakness like dry leaves in flame.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the moon.
For years, I had begged her.
Bled for her. What she gave me now was not mercy. It was true. Footsteps crunched through the underbrush.
I felt them before I saw them. Wolves, Trained, Alert, Armed, Scouts.
They burst into the clearing and froze.
One by one, they dropped to their knees.
The sight jolted me more than the pain ever had.
“What are you doing?” I croaked, struggling to sit up.
None of them answered.
Their heads were bowed. Not in fear.
In recognition.
I pushed myself upright, spine straightening instinctively, though my body still shook with aftershocks. The earth hummed beneath my palms, alive and listening.
“Stand,” I said slowly.
They didn’t.
A man stepped forward from the tree line then, tall and broad, presence rolling off him in waves. His eyes locked onto mine and widened..just slightly.
Alpha Dave.
Behind him, the scouts remained kneeling.
I waited for fear.
It didn’t come.
My wolf rose fully for the first time in my life, stretching within me like she had always belonged there.
We do not kneel, she said.
Alpha Dave stopped a few steps away, gaze sharp, assessing.
“You crossed the Redwild border alone,” he said slowly. “You should be dead.”
I met his eyes without flinching.
“I was,” I replied.
Silence fell heavy between us.
He studied me for a long moment, then inclined his head, not fully, but enough.
“The land answered you,” he said quietly. “That hasn’t happened in a century.”
Something in me settled.
I thought of Caleb.
On the way had begged him with my eyes.
The way I had knelt.
I felt nothing.
No ache. No longing.
Just distance.
I looked back at the moon, then down at my bloodstained hands, now steady.
“I’m done crying for men who couldn’t see me,” I said softly. “Done begging gods who watched me bleed in silence.”
My voice didn’t shake.
“I don’t want a throne,” I continued. “I don’t want a title.”
Power curled around my spine, listening.
“I want my life.”
Alpha Dave exhaled slowly, something like awe flickering across his face.
“Then rise,” he said. “And take it.”
I lifted my head.
My wolf smiled.
And for the first time in my life. The world bowed first.
- Writer
