Chapter Six: The Lesson He Meant to Teach
707 Words
Cruelty, Faye learned, did not always arrive screaming.
Sometimes it arrived smiling.
Gabriel woke her before dawn, fingers tight around her wrist, not painful—yet.
“Get up,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”
Sleep clung to her thoughts as she sat up, heart already racing. “Where?”
“Patrol.”
She frowned. “You’ve never asked me to—”
“I’m asking now.”
Her wolf stirred immediately, alert and wary.
This is not about patrol, it warned.
Faye dressed quickly, hands steady by force of will. The bond hummed low and expectant, as if sensing the shift in him before she fully did.
They walked in silence through the dark forest, the pack following at a respectful distance. Frost silvered the ground. Breath clouded the air.
Gabriel stopped at the edge of the eastern border.
“This land,” he said, voice carrying, “belongs to us.”
The pack murmured assent.
Gabriel turned to Faye.
“You tell them.”
Her stomach dropped.
“I—what?”
“You’re Luna,” he said smoothly. “Speak.”
Her wolf bristled. He’s testing you.
Faye lifted her chin. “This land is protected,” she began carefully. “We guard it because—”
“Wrong,” Gabriel snapped.
The word cracked like a whip.
She flinched before she could stop herself.
Gabriel stepped closer, voice lowering. “You don’t explain. You declare.”
The pack watched in uneasy silence.
Heat crawled up her spine—fear, yes, but something else too. Anger. Sharp and bright.
“I won’t shout at my own pack,” she said quietly.
The bond slammed tight.
Pain lanced through her chest, stealing her breath. She gasped, dropping to one knee as Gabriel’s power surged unchecked.
“You will not defy me,” he said, eyes burning. “Not here. Not ever.”
Her wolf roared, throwing itself against the bond like a living thing.
This is it, it snarled. This is where he breaks us—or fails.
Faye forced herself upright, trembling but unbowed.
“I didn’t defy you,” she said, voice shaking but audible. “I spoke differently.”
The pressure intensified.
Someone in the pack shifted uneasily.
Gabriel smiled.
“Then you’ll learn,” he said, “to speak the right way.”
He turned to the pack. “Dismissed.”
They scattered quickly, eyes averted.
No one met Faye’s gaze.
The punishment was not physical.
It was worse.
Gabriel cut her off from the bond.
The warmth vanished completely—no comfort, no reassurance, no sense of connection. Just a cold, hollow ache where something vital had been.
She staggered when it happened, grabbing the table for balance.
“Gabriel,” she whispered. “Please.”
He watched her dispassionately. “You need to remember who anchors you.”
The words echoed emptily in her chest.
That night, she curled on the bed alone while he slept elsewhere, her wolf pacing inside her mind like a caged storm.
This is not discipline, the wolf said fiercely. This is punishment meant to erase.
Faye pressed her face into the pillow to muffle a sob.
I don’t know how to leave, she admitted. The bond—
—is not the strongest tie you have, her wolf interrupted. You have blood. You have will. You have me.
Something flickered then—memories not her own.
Wide plains. A howl answered by many. Wolves bowing not out of fear, but recognition.
Faye gasped.
What was that?
Her wolf’s voice softened, layered with something ancient. What you come from.
The next morning, Faye began preparing without naming it escape.
She memorized patrol schedules. Took note of supply caches. Counted the days between moon cycles.
She hid dried meat in the hem of her cloak.
She listened.
She waited.
And when Gabriel touched her again—careful, apologetic, controlling even in gentleness—she endured it with her mind elsewhere, her wolf watching everything with ruthless clarity.
Soon, her wolf promised.
Faye stared out the window at the distant tree line, heart steady in a way it hadn’t been in months.
For the first time, fear did not swallow her.
It sharpened her.
- Writer
