CHAPTER 23
1702 Words
Elise had never realized how loud silence could be until now.
It stretched endlessly around her, through the halls of the packhouse, through the little sounds made in conversations, through the large distance between herself and the rest of the world.
Although she grew up a loner, it was never quiet around her as much as it was now.
Even though she was alone, she was never alone in real.
There was either someone bullying her, someone talking s**t to her face or someone motivating her with pity.
It was never this silent.
Right now, no one said a word to her face.
There were just little whispers and hushed voices, but no one even said anything to her all day.
Not even Kai or Lucien as they were nowhere to be found since morning.
Even the wolves that used to greet her with nods or forced smiles now avoided her gaze like her eyes was filled with curse or like she could light them up just by looking at her.
No one said it out loud, but the fear was there.
It clung to the walls like a chewing gum, like mixed cement.
Something to be scrubbed away or ignored or left as it is.
She sat at the end of the training field, legs crossed and palms pressed flat into the grass, watching a group of junior warriors run drills and jump over the net.
She wasn’t part of the session.
She hadn’t been asked to join.
No one had told her to leave, either.
She was just… there in her own head.
She felt like a monster.
A soft wind shaked the branches of the tree behind her, but it did little to nithing to ease the pressure building in her chest.
From where she sat beside the bag of wolves bane stored at the edge of the training field, she could see it all.
How the instructors adjusted their postures when they noticed her watching, how conversations felt hushed and fell short when she passed, how their eyes darted away just a little too quickly.
At first, she thought she might be overthinking or exaggerating, but she could see it clearly.
She wasn’t blind and it was so clear.
Of course, she wasn’t a wolf.
Even the fact that she sat pretty close to bags of wolfs bane like it was nothing proved that.
Wolves were normally scared of wolves name as it was used to torture them, but she sat there.
Although they were kept there in order to train the wolves not to be so sensitive to it and then had to ingest very once a week so that their bodies could be used to it, no wolf still wanted to seat that close to it.
But wolf or not, the avoidance was way too exaggerated.
It was as if they thought she might snap or burn them alive with nothing but a glance.
She felt stigmatized and cast aside.
She hadn’t done any of those things.
And yet, the image had already been painted.
She could feel it clinging to her skin like wet paint.
This outcast and disaster the Council had helped shape.
Mysterious.
Powerful.
Unpredictable.
Dangerous.
“Elise?” someone called, hesitant.
She turned to see Rowan approaching, one of the young warriors who used to joke with her between shifts.
His movements were unsure now, cautious.
“Hey,” she said, voice low.
He stopped a few feet away from her, not sitting, just standing awkwardly like he wasn’t sure if he should be there.
His legs were set like he could run away fast if anything happened.
“They, uh… they asked me to tell you that dinner’s ready, in the hall.”
Elise blinked. “They sent you?”
Rowan nodded, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Elder Kion thought it would be best if, you know, somebody told you.”
She smiled tightly. “So now they’ve got messengers for the outcast.”
“No…. it’s not like that,” Rowan said quickly, brows raised, eyes wide.
“I just—look, I don’t know what’s going on. No one tells me anything. But I thought… I thought maybe you’d want to eat.”
She studied his face.
He looked tired. Conflicted. And young—so much younger than she remembered.
Maybe because now, she felt ancient like a moon breather.
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
Rowan hesitated a bit, then nodded. “Okay. I’ll let them know.”
He turned and walked away before she could thank him.
Elise stayed where she was, letting the breeze sway her hair.
The field was starting to get empty now, warriors heading back toward the main building with tired faces and hands holding their waists.
It was dinner time.
She didn’t want to go back inside.
Not yet.
Instead, she wandered.
The forest behind the training field had always been a place of comfort for her.
She remembered how she’d hidden there countless times after being asked to do tough tasks in the pack, Lucien had always found her there and dragged her back.
She smiled a bit before frowning back.
Now, it felt different.
Still beautiful, yes, but filled with a kind of quietness that felt as if it was hunted.
The same kind of silence that followed her wherever she went these days.
She walked aimlessly, letting her fingers brush against low-hanging branches, the air cool beneath her fingertips.
Her thoughts wandering alongside her.
It was all happening so fast.
Too fast!
One day she was just Elise Thorne; the omega no one noticed and the omega was bullied by the ones who noticed her.
And now? She didn’t even know what she was anymore.
Moonbreather.
The word echoed in her mind, equal parts terrifying and unfamiliar.
No one had explained it, not really.
Not even Kai.
They all acted like naming it was enough to make it understood.
Like the label could replace the truth.
But Elise didn’t feel powerful. She felt… disconnected.
Like her skin didn’t fit quite right anymore.
She came to a stop in a small pathway, the same place she used to sneak off to hoping Lucien wouldn’t find her each time.
The old tree she’d always lean on was still there, cracked in the middle but still solid.
She sat, drawing her knees to her chest, resting her chin there.
The wind whistled through the leaves.
She didn’t cry.
She hadn’t cried in days, not even when Elder Kion had looked through her like she was a smudge on his polished vision of the pack.
Not when the Council muttered behind closed doors, treating her like a threat instead of a girl who’d risked everything to protect them.
No.
She had run out of tears.
Now there was only the numbness.
The cold.
The waiting.
“Elise.”
She turned quickly.
Kai stood at the edge of the pathway with a hand resting against a smaller tree, breathing heavily like he’d been looking for her.
She stood immediately with spasm in her legs, heart beating faster than she’d like to admit. “What do you want?”
His eyes searched her face. “I’ve been looking for you”.
“Clearly not very hard.”
He winced. “That’s not fair.”
“No,” she agreed. “It’s not. But neither is being shut out of every single conversation about my own life.”
Kai stepped closer. “I wanted to talk to you,I’ve tried to talk to you, but the council….”
“Don’t,” she cut his sentence off sharply.
“Don’t blame the Council. I know they’re terrified of me. I can live with that. But you? You’re supposed to be different.”
“I am different—”
“Then prove it!” Her voice broke on the last word, raw and frayed.
“Because all I see is you standing on the other side of that door with them, every single time!”
“Kai, you look at me like I’m a puzzle you can’t solve.”
“You haven’t even waved at me not to talk of a hi from you today.”
Kai was quiet for a moment.
Then, he walked closer, slowly, like she might vanish if he moved too fast.
“I don’t think you’re a puzzle, Elise, I think you’re a force of nature. And yeah, that scares them. It scares me, too, sometimes.”
She flinched. “Then why are you here?”
“Because even when I’m afraid,” he said, voice low, “I still choose you and I always will”.
Her breath caught.
“I should’ve told them to let you in. I should’ve fought harder. But I thought I was protecting you from them. From their ignorance.”
“I don’t need protection”, she whispered.
“I need the truth!”
Kai reached out, his hand covering hers. “Then I’ll give it to you.”
She didn’t pull away.
They stood like that for a moment, suspended in something fragile and uncertain.
Then she stepped back.
“I’m not ready to forgive you,” she said quietly.
He nodded. “I know. But I’m not going anywhere.”
The sun was beginning to set behind the trees, casting long shadows over the forest floor.
Elise looked away from him, toward the orange-colored sky.
“I don’t know who I’m becoming,” she admitted. “And I’m scared I won’t like her.”
Kai followed her gaze. “You don’t have to become anyone else. Just… be who you are. Whoever that turns out to be.”
For the first time all day, something inside her shifted. Not peace, exactly. But something close to it.
She glanced at him. “Let’s go back.”
He nodded.
They walked in silence, side by side.
But even as they entered the training grounds and they could see packhouse ahead, Elise couldn’t shake the feeling.
That hollow hum beneath her skin.
That knowing.
Something was coming.
Something was already here.
And this—this calm? This moment of quiet?
It wouldn’t last.
- Writer
