He Rejected The Wrong Wolf

Chapter 13

He didn’t give me time to think about anything he’d said.

The moment I steadied enough to move without feeling like my legs might give out, he turned and continued down the street with the same quiet certainty he’d had from the beginning, as if stopping had never really been an option. I followed, not because I trusted him, but because standing still felt worse. The city stretched around us in familiar shapes—cars moving past, distant voices rising and falling—but none of it felt grounded anymore. It was like I was walking through something that only looked real on the surface, every shadow just a little too deep, every movement just a little too sharp.

It wasn’t the city that had changed.

It was me.

The realization settled uncomfortably as I kept pace with him, my steps quickening slightly to match his. The heat under my skin hadn’t disappeared; it had simply quieted, settling into something low and steady that seemed to shift whenever my attention brushed against it. It no longer felt like something trying to break free. It felt like something learning how to exist.

That thought alone was enough to make me drag my focus back outward.

“Where are we going?” I asked, my voice quieter now, less sharp than before, but no less insistent.

He didn’t look back as he answered, his attention fixed ahead. “Somewhere secure.”

The response did nothing to ease the tension tightening in my chest. I watched the way he moved instead, the subtle awareness in every step, the way his posture never fully relaxed, and it struck me—not for the first time—that whatever he was, he didn’t exist in the world the same way I did. He moved through it like he expected it to shift around him.

Or like he knew where it already had.

We turned onto a narrower street where the buildings pressed closer together, their facades worn with age, windows set deeper into the brick as if built to watch rather than welcome. The noise from the main road faded behind us, leaving something quieter in its place, and the absence of sound made everything feel sharper.

He slowed near the end of the street.

Not abruptly. Just enough that I noticed.

I almost missed it at first, the way his attention shifted—not to the street, not to the space around us, but to the wall ahead. From a distance, it looked like nothing more than a solid stretch of brick, worn and unremarkable, the kind of thing you would pass without a second thought. But the way he approached it made something in my chest tighten.

“This is a dead end,” I said, my voice quieter now, more cautious than before as I stepped up beside him.

“It is not,” he replied.

The certainty in his tone made me look again, really look this time, but I didn’t see anything different. Just brick. Just shadow. Just a wall where there shouldn’t have been a way forward.

I was about to say something else when the heat under my skin shifted.

It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t sudden.

It was… responsive.

My breath caught slightly as the sensation moved inward, pulling my focus with it before I could stop it. For a second, everything else faded—the street, the wall, the sound of my own breathing—and all I could feel was that quiet, steady presence beneath my skin.

“What was that?” I asked, more to myself than to him.

He didn’t answer.

When I looked at him, his attention wasn’t on the wall anymore.

It was on me.

“Focus on it,” he said, his voice lower now, more controlled.

“I don’t know how,” I replied, my hand lifting instinctively toward my chest. “It just—happens.”

“Then let it,” he said.

That wasn’t helpful.

And yet—

I tried anyway.

I forced myself to stop resisting it, to stop bracing against the sensation every time it shifted, and instead let my awareness settle into it. The moment I did, the heat changed—not stronger, not weaker, just clearer, like something coming into focus that had always been there.

My breath slowed.

The world shifted.

When I opened my eyes fully again, the wall in front of us wasn’t the same.

It was still brick.

But it wasn’t solid.

Something layered over it, subtle enough that I couldn’t have seen it before, shimmered faintly along its surface, the edges of it softening as if the structure itself wasn’t entirely fixed. The longer I looked, the more it seemed to give way, like something hidden beneath it was beginning to show through.

“What am I looking at?” I asked, my voice quieter now.

“A barrier,” he said.

I stared at it, my brows pulling together slightly. “That wasn’t there before.”

“It was,” he replied. “You could not perceive it.”

The distinction settled uneasily.

“And now I can?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I didn’t like how simple that answer was.

Or how much it implied.

“So this is part of that… other world you keep not explaining?” I asked, glancing at him.

“It is part of the same world,” he said. “You are simply seeing it correctly now.”

That didn’t make me feel better.

If anything, it made everything worse.

Because if this had been here the entire time—

Then what else had I been missing?

He stepped forward without hesitation.

I barely had time to react before his hand reached the surface of the wall, the moment of contact sending a ripple through it like water disturbed by a stone. The illusion—if that’s what it was—shifted outward, and before I could say anything, he moved through it.

Just—

stepped forward and vanished.

I froze.

The wall stilled again almost immediately, the surface returning to solid brick as if nothing had happened.

For a second, I didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

Didn’t think.

Then the heat under my skin flickered again, sharper this time, pulling me forward in a way that felt less like curiosity and more like inevitability.

I stepped closer.

Close enough that I could see the faint distortion again, the way the edges of the brick didn’t quite hold if I focused too hard.

“This is insane,” I muttered under my breath.

But I didn’t stop.

Because at this point, nothing about turning back made sense anymore.

I lifted my hand slowly and pressed it against the wall.

For a second, it felt solid.

Then—

It shifted.

The surface softened beneath my palm, the same ripple spreading outward as before, and my breath caught as the space in front of me changed, the illusion peeling back just enough to reveal something else on the other side.

Something hidden.

Something waiting.

I hesitated.

Just for a second.

Then stepped through.