I have a wolf?
943 Words
Vespera's Pov
When I woke up, I thought at first that I'd died.
Everything hurts. My muscles felt like they'd been stretched on a rack. My throat was raw and swollen. Even my skin hurt, hypersensitive to the rough wood beneath me. I tried to move and my body screamed in protest.
I lay there for a long time, just breathing, trying to figure out where I was. Light filtered through the gaps in the walls—thin beams of gray that told me it was either early morning or late afternoon. I couldn't tell which. I had no idea how long I'd been unconscious.
Slowly, carefully, I pushed myself up to sitting. The cabin looked even worse in the daylight. There was a table in one corner, half-rotted and missing a leg. A stone fireplace that was crumbling. Holes in the roof where I could see patches of sky. Animal bones scattered across the floor—small things, rabbits or squirrels, picked clean.
Something had been living here. Maybe still was.
I should have been afraid. Should have been panicking. But I just felt numb. Hollowed out.
I'd left everything behind at the pack house. No supplies. No food. No water. Nothing that could be tracked back to me. Before I ran, I'd taken Julian's hunting knife from his study and hacked off my hair in front of the bathroom mirror. My long dark waves, the one thing about my appearance that people sometimes complimented, had fallen around my feet like shed skin.
I'd looked at myself in that mirror—hair chopped short and uneven, face pale with shock—and barely recognized the woman staring back.
Then I'd smeared ash from the fireplace across my skin. Rubbed dirt from the garden into my hair. Anything to mask my scent, to make myself harder to track. The woman in the mirror had looked feral by the time I was done. Wild. Ruined.
Good, I'd thought. Let them see what they made me.
Now, sitting in the abandoned cabin, I reached up and touched my butchered hair. It was matted with sweat and debris. Uneven chunks stuck out at odd angles. I probably looked insane.
I probably was insane.
What was I doing? I had no plan. No destination. I'd just run blindly into the Forbidden Forest with nothing but the clothes on my back and a desperate need to disappear. Julian's hunters would be looking for me by now. He wouldn't let his investment simply walk away. And even if I somehow managed to evade them, then what? I had no money, no skills, nowhere to go.
I was going to die out here.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, I felt almost calm. Maybe death would be a relief. Maybe it would be better than going back to Julian's cold bed and Lydia's mocking smile and the endless whispers of the pack.
*You're not going to die.*
I froze.
The voice had come from inside my head. Clear as a bell. Feminine and strong. Not my own thoughts. Something else. Someone else.
My heart started hammering against my ribs. I looked around the cabin wildly, but I was alone. No one else was here. Which meant—
No. That was impossible.
*Don't be afraid.* The voice came again, gentler this time. *I'm not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you.*
"Who—" My voice came out as a croak. I tried again. "Who are you?"
*I'm Nyx. I'm your wolf.*
The world seemed to tilt sideways. I pressed my hands flat against the floor to steady myself. "That's impossible," I whispered. "I don't have a wolf. I've never had a wolf."
*You've always had me.*
"No." I shook my head, even though there was no one to see it. "No, that's not true. They tested me when I was thirteen. The healers said there was nothing there. No wolf. No shift. Nothing."
*They were wrong. Or they lied. I don't know which. But I've always been here, Vespera. Always. I've been with you every day of your life.*
"Then where were you?" The words burst out of me, sharp with pain. "Where were you when I needed you? When the other girls shifted for the first time and I was left standing there like an i***t? When they started calling me wolf-less behind my back? When Julian looked at me like I was defective?"
My voice was rising but I couldn't stop. Three years of humiliation, of shame, of feeling broken and less-than came pouring out.
"Where were you when they made me drink those horrible fertility tonics? When they performed rituals that left me sick for days? When Julian would come to my bed and I could smell Lydia's perfume still on his skin? Where were you when I begged the Moon Goddess every single night to just give me a wolf, to make me normal, to make me worthy?"
I was crying now, hot tears streaming down my face. "Where were you?"
Silence. For a long moment, I thought maybe I'd imagined the whole thing. That I really had lost my mind and was now hearing voices in my head. That would make sense. It would fit perfectly with how completely my life had fallen apart.
Then Nyx spoke again, and her voice was thick with grief.
*I couldn't answer. Something was holding me back. Keeping me locked away, keeping me silent. I've been creaming for you for years, Vespera. Fighting to reach you. But there was a wall between us and I couldn't break through it.*
"What wall? What are you talking about?"
- Writer
