Chapter 11
1610 Words
Lila did not sleep that night. The moment the moon disappeared behind the rooftops, she locked the door, pulled the curtains shut, and placed the small bottle from the apothecary on the table. She had spent years believing her wolf was the weakest part of her, but now she was being asked to silence it completely, and the thought frightened her more than she wanted to admit.
She uncorked the bottle and stared at the clear liquid. The shopkeeper's warning kept circling through her mind, but so did Kael's voice from the forest.
You're not worthy.
Lila lifted her chin.
“If becoming invisible is the only way to stay free, then I'll become invisible.”
She poured a few drops into a cup of water and swallowed it before she could change her mind. The taste was bitter enough to make her eyes water, but nothing happened for the first few seconds. Then a sharp cramp twisted through her stomach, forcing her to grip the edge of the table.
Her knees nearly buckled.
Lila caught herself against the chair and waited for the pain to pass, breathing through clenched teeth. It didn't pass. It spread instead, crawling from her stomach into her chest, then down her arms until every muscle felt painfully tight.
Her wolf woke in panic.
Stop.
“I can't.”
It hurts.
“I know.”
The wolf pushed harder against the bond between them, desperate to escape the strange substance moving through their body. Lila slid down against the side of the bed and pressed both hands over her abdomen, sweat dampening her hair.
For several minutes, she could do nothing except endure it.
Then the pain began to fade.
Lila remained on the floor, breathing heavily as she waited for another wave. When none came, she slowly stood and walked toward the mirror.
Her reflection looked pale and exhausted, but something else had changed.
She couldn't smell herself.
Lila leaned closer to her wrist and inhaled.
Nothing.
She touched the skin beneath her jaw and tried again.
Almost nothing.
Her wolf's scent, once impossible for another wolf to miss, had become faint enough that even she struggled to detect it.
Lila stared at her reflection.
“It worked.”
There was no relief in her voice.
She returned to the table and picked up the bottle with shaking fingers. The liquid inside looked harmless, almost too ordinary for something capable of changing a part of her that had been with her since birth.
She knew one dose wasn't enough.
If she wanted to disappear, she couldn't stop halfway.
So she took another dose before fear could talk her out of it.
This time the pain came faster.
Lila bent over the table as a violent tremor ran through her body. Her wolf howled inside her mind, and for one terrifying moment, she felt the connection between them weaken.
Lila.
She froze.
Her wolf had never called her by name before.
“I’m here.”
Don't leave me.
Lila squeezed her eyes shut.
“I’m not leaving you.”
Then why are you doing this?
Because Kael could find them.
Because the pack had already decided what she was worth.
Because every time she smelled him, some broken part of her still wanted to run back.
Lila swallowed the answers.
“I need you to trust me.”
Her wolf went quiet.
The silence hurt more than the pain.
By dawn, Lila had taken enough of the suppressant to make her entire body feel hollow. She washed her face, changed her clothes, and opened the window for fresh air, then stood there for several minutes waiting for the familiar pull of the Mate bond.
Nothing came.
For the first time in years, Kael's presence did not seem to exist anywhere around her.
That should have made her happy.
Instead, her chest felt strangely empty.
She forced herself away from the window and began preparing everything she would need. The documents she had bought from the human town went into a small leather pouch, along with money, spare clothes, food, medicine, and the false identity she would use once she crossed far enough south.
She checked every item twice.
Then she stopped.
A faded ribbon lay beneath the clothes.
Lila picked it up.
Kael had given it to her when they were children, after she had scraped her knee climbing an old oak tree. He had tied it around her wrist and told her she was forbidden to cry because warriors didn't cry over little wounds.
She had kept it for years.
Her fingers tightened around the fabric.
“You were wrong.”
Her voice shook.
“I cried because you were the one who told me not to.”
She almost threw it away.
Instead, she folded it carefully and put it back into the bottom of the bag.
She didn't know why.
Maybe some things were too deeply tied to a person to disappear just because you wanted them to.
The next dose was worse.
By midday, Lila could barely stand after taking it. Her hands trembled so badly that she dropped the cup, and the sound of breaking ceramic startled her into tears.
She pressed her back against the wall and slid down slowly.
Her wolf was barely moving.
That scared her.
“Please.”
She held her arms around herself.
“Just a little longer.”
There was no answer.
Lila closed her eyes and waited.
When she finally sensed the wolf again, it was weak but present, curled somewhere deep inside her.
Relief nearly broke her.
“I told you I'd protect you.”
She wiped her face.
“I meant it.”
Another hour passed before she could move properly.
When she stood again, she noticed something different.
Her scent was almost completely gone.
Not hidden.
Not masked.
Gone.
Lila walked to the mirror and looked at herself for a long time.
The girl staring back at her looked the same, yet she knew she had crossed a line that could not easily be undone.
She had spent years wishing she could become stronger.
Now she was deliberately cutting away the part of herself that had made her a wolf.
The irony almost made her laugh.
Instead, she reached for the old notebook hidden beneath the mattress.
It was the only diary she had ever owned.
She had written in it during the happiest years of her life, when she still believed Kael would one day choose her without hesitation. There were pages filled with childish memories, pressed flowers, angry scribbles, and tiny descriptions of days she had once considered important.
Lila turned through them slowly.
There was the day Kael first taught her how to hold a knife.
The day he carried her home after she twisted her ankle.
The day he promised he would always protect her.
Then she reached the page from the night of her coming-of-age ceremony.
The ink had blurred in several places.
She remembered writing until her hand hurt, trying to convince herself that the rejection had to be a mistake.
Lila stared at the page.
Then she turned to a clean one.
Her pen hovered above the paper for several seconds.
She could write about Kael.
She could write about the pack.
She could write about the girl she had been.
Instead, she wrote one sentence.
I will not wait for anyone to choose me again.
She stared at it until the words stopped shaking.
Then she added another.
I choose myself.
A tear fell onto the page.
Lila wiped it away immediately.
“No more.”
She closed the diary.
For the rest of the afternoon, she prepared in silence. She burned the scraps of paper that carried her old name, removed every trace of the Silver Moon pack from her belongings, and separated the few possessions she couldn't bear to destroy.
When evening came, she took the final dose.
She knew what was coming.
Still, nothing prepared her for it.
Pain tore through her so suddenly that she fell beside the bed. Her wolf screamed, and Lila screamed with her, fingers clawing into the wooden floor as every nerve in her body seemed to ignite.
She couldn't breathe.
She couldn't think.
She couldn't even remember why she had decided this was necessary.
For one horrifying moment, the Mate bond flared.
Kael.
His scent flooded her mind.
His voice.
His face.
The way he had looked at her before saying the words that destroyed everything.
Lila curled into herself.
“Get out.”
The bond pulled harder.
“Get out of my head!”
She slammed her fist against the floor.
“I don't want you anymore!”
The pain peaked.
Then it vanished.
Silence crashed over her.
Lila lay motionless for several seconds before slowly lifting her head.
Nothing.
No Kael.
No pull.
No familiar wolf scent.
Even her own wolf was quiet.
She touched her chest.
Her heart was still beating.
But something had changed.
Lila forced herself upright and looked at the diary.
She opened it one last time.
For a long moment, she couldn't write.
Then her pen moved.
Goodbye, Lila.
She stared at the words until her vision blurred.
Then she closed the diary and placed it beneath the loose floorboard.
Tomorrow, she would leave.
Not as Kael's rejected Mate.
Not as the weak Omega everyone remembered.
Not even as the girl who had spent years waiting for someone to love her.
Tomorrow, Lila would disappear.
And the person who walked away would have a new name.
A new life.
And no reason to ever look back.
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