CHAPTER 40
1457 Words
Elise woke up feeling more like a stranger in her own body than ever before.
Her eyes blinked open slowly, and for a moment, she didn’t know where she was.
Then it came back—everything.
Nora’s body.
The flashback.
The symbol.
The war room.
The weight of what they now faced.
Kai….she needed to check up on him.
She got out of bed, freshened up, then headed for Kai’s quarters.
She took a glance at the mirror before heading out and she didn’t know exactly what she looked like, or what she saw as her reflection in it, but she didn’t care about anything at the moment.
When she looked around Kai’s quarters, he was gone.
Her heart sank a little.
He’d stayed with her the night before, talking until she dozed off.
He said he would rest too.
But clearly, he hadn’t.
She went back to her quarters and threw herself on the bed while putting the blanket over her head with a soft groan.
After sighing countless times, she sat up and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, the silence in the room pressing on her chest.
She already knew where he’d gone.
The war room again.
The elders.
The leaders.
The whispers behind closed doors.
She wasn’t surprised.
But it still hurt.
He still checked on Lucien, not as often as he gets in a bad mood each time the healer says he’s still the same.
She knew he was aching inside and didn’t know what to do to console him.
Not like there was even time to console him, she thought, since he buried his head into the matters concerning the feral wolves.
She felt a little selfish thinking about how she was expecting him to still check on her despite knowing all he was going through.
She got out of bed again.
Outside, the sky was heavy with grey.
It looked like it would rain again, but no one paid attention to the weather today.
The entire packhouse buzzed with quiet tension—people moving quickly, whispering sharply, glancing over shoulders like something might jump out of the shadows any second.
Elise walked down the hall, trying not to get in anyone’s way.
Wolves she usually trained with barely nodded at her, and some didn’t look at her at all.
Something had shifted.
She reached the war room doors just as Torin stepped out.
His face was tight, jaw clenched, like he’d been arguing. Elise paused, unsure if she should even speak.
He saw her and gave a nod. “They’re inside.”
“Can I join?” she asked.
He hesitated. “They didn’t say no. But they didn’t say yes either.”
Which meant no.
Still, he didn’t stop her when she pushed the door open.
Inside, the room felt tenser than ever.
Kai stood at the far end of the table, his hand on a map, finger tracing a line through the forest.
Miriah was beside him, arms folded, frowning deeply.
The elders were seated. Some looked worried. Some looked irritated.
One of them, Elder Jovan, didn’t even glance Elise’s way.
She stood quietly by the door, unsure where to go.
“This is getting worse,” Kai said, voice steady but tired. “Lucien’s attack wasn’t random, Nora’s death proves it. And these aren’t just feral wolves. There’s something behind them.”
Elder Yora leaned forward. “You keep saying that, but we have no solid proof. All we’ve seen are bodies and fear.”
“Bodies and a marked symbol,” Miriah said sharply.
“Which we both know hasn’t shown up in over thirty years.”
“So what?” Elder Jovan snapped. “You want to stir up the old stories now? Get everyone panicked over shadows?”
“They should be panicked,” Kai said. “People are dying.”
“And what do you suggest we do? Declare war on ghosts?”
Torin stepped in then. “If we don’t act now, the pack will tear itself apart. The younger warriors already don’t trust the elders to protect them. They think we’re hiding things.”
“Because we are,” Miriah said quietly.
The room went still.
Jovan’s voice turned cold. “You’re stepping out of line.”
“No,” Kai said. “She’s telling the truth. And if we don’t own up to it, more people will die.”
Yora shook her head. “There’s a right way to handle this, Alpha Kai. Quietly. Without chaos.”
Kai’s jaw tightened. “We’ve been quiet for too long.”
No one noticed Elise in the corner.
No one asked her opinion.
No one even looked at her.
When the meeting ended an hour later, Kai left with two scouts to prepare for another patrol.
He didn’t look back at Elise as he passed her in the hall.
She didn’t follow him.
She didn’t know if she should.
Instead, she turned and walked the other way.
Later that day, she tried to join a strategy session in the training grounds.
A group of warriors was gathered around Torin, weapons out, drawing battle formations in the dirt.
But when Elise stepped forward, a few of them glanced up—and no one said anything.
Not even a “Hey.”
Not even a nod.
She stood there for a moment too long before walking away.
Back at her room, Elise sat on the bed, knees to her chest.
She hated this feeling—the one where people decided she didn’t belong without ever saying it out loud.
She had fought beside them. Bled beside them.
Trained every single day.
She had passed every trial, survived every storm.
And yet somehow, she still felt like an outsider.
Like no matter what she did, she wasn’t truly part of the pack.
And now, with Kai so caught up in the politics and pressure of being alpha, she didn’t know if he even noticed.
In the evening, the packhouse held a gathering.
Not a feast—there was nothing to celebrate.
It was more of a council update, where the elders shared “reassurance” with the people, trying to keep order.
But it didn’t work.
One of the younger wolves, barely twenty, stepped forward. “You keep saying we’re safe. But Nora is dead. Lucien might not survive. How is that safe?”
Another joined in. “If this is just about wild wolves, why are there symbols? Why haven’t you explained anything to us?”
And then the murmurs started—dozens of them.
People turning on each other.
People blaming the elders, the scouts, even Kai.
“I heard the ferals were created—made by someone in the pack.”
“They say it’s a curse.”
“What if it’s someone in the council?”
It spiraled quickly.
Voices grew louder. Angrier. Fingers pointed in every direction.
Elise watched from the side of the room, heart pounding.
She saw Kai step forward to calm them, but the tension was too high. The pack wasn’t listening. Not really.
They were scared.
And fear always made people cruel.
That night, Elise sat on the steps behind the packhouse, hugging her arms around herself. The sky had finally opened up, soft rain falling quietly across the grass.
She didn’t cry.
She was too tired.
Too numb.
She felt invisible again.
Like all the strength she’d found in herself was slipping away.
She heard footsteps behind her and didn’t need to turn to know it was Kai. He sat beside her, silent at first.
“You left early,” he said.
“Wasn’t much reason to stay,” she replied softly.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel left out.”
She didn’t answer.
“I’ve just been trying to keep the pack from falling apart.”
“I know,” she whispered.
Another silence.
Then she added, “But sometimes… it feels like you’re choosing them over me.”
That hurt him. She saw it in his face.
“I’m trying to choose both,” he said.
“I know,” she said again. “It’s just… it doesn’t feel like it.”
Kai looked down, rain dripping off his hair. “They’re scared. And when people are scared, they blame anyone who’s different. That includes you.”
“You’re not defending me.”
“I am. Just… not always out loud.”
That made her smile a little. A bitter kind of smile.
“You should work on that,” she said.
He looked at her. “Yeah. I should.”
They sat like that for a while.
Not everything was fixed.
But at least, for now, she wasn’t sitting alone.
- Writer
