CHAPTER TWO
1037 Words
Mira
The forest swallowed me whole.
Branches tore at my dress as I sprinted through the dark, frozen air, cutting into my lungs like blades. My heartbeat slammed against my ribs, loud enough that I feared it would give me away. Behind me, the palace bells thundered in warning—sharp, furious, echoing through the night.
The bells weren't for a celebration.
They were calling for my capture.
For my execution.
"Find the omega! She ran this way!" A guard shouted, his voice slicing through the wind.
I flinched and pushed harder, stumbling over roots and stones. My legs burned, my vision blurred, but I couldn't stop. Not now. Not when every breath felt borrowed.
My wolf whimpered, small and broken inside me.
We are hunted.
We are prey now.
We will die if they catch us.
"I know," I gasped out loud, gripping a tree trunk long enough to steady myself before pushing forward again. "Just… just stay awake. Please."
But she was fading, crushed by the rejection, bruised by the shame, drowning in the pain that still pulsed through my chest in jagged waves.
Fated mates weren't meant to be torn apart.
Not like that.
Not publicly.
Not cruelly.
Not by the one meant to protect me.
Branches snapped behind me.
"There! I see tracks!"
My heart lurched. I ran faster, deeper into the forest, away from the palace lights, away from the life I'd known, and away from the man who destroyed me with a single sentence.
You are nothing.
The words slashed across my mind again, hot and merciless.
I had always been weak, but hearing him say it. King Arden, my mate, turned weakness into a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding.
Cold bit into my skin. My dress snagged on thorns. My feet slipped in the mud. My breath came out in sharp cries.
Still, I ran.
Still, the guards followed.
"Stop her! She can't reach the border!"
I nearly sobbed. The forest border was the only place they wouldn't follow the edge of the Outlands. Rogue territory. Lawless land. A place where wolves went to disappear… or die.
But dying out there was better than dying on Arden's palace steps.
Better than kneeling while the one meant for me looked down with disgust in his eyes.
The ground sloped sharply. Suddenly, my foot caught on a root, and I tumbled down the hill, rolling, scraping, and slamming into frozen earth. Pain shot up my arms, but I forced myself to stand.
The border lights flickered ahead. A signal tower. A warning. Beyond it, nothing but wild forest, rogue lands, and ancient danger.
"I see her! She's there. Stop!"
A guard's torch cut through the darkness behind me.
I didn't think.
I just ran.
My legs screamed. My lungs burned. The cold stung my eyes.
But I reached the border.
And kept going.
One step into the Outlands.
Two.
A horn sounded behind me, sharp and furious. The guards skidded to a halt.
"She's crossed," one growled. "We can't follow. Law forbids it."
"Then let the rogues take her," another spat. “It's what she deserves."
Their torches faded behind me.
And for the first time since the rejection shattered me, I stopped running.
I dropped to my knees in the snow, gasping, trembling all over. The rejection pain pulsed again, deep, crushing, suffocating.
My wolf whimpered faintly.
It hurts… it hurts… Why did he choose death over us?
"I don't know," I whispered.
The wind carried the forest's answer: cold, empty, and merciless.
I pushed myself to my feet again, stumbling forward. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know what awaited me. But I couldn't stay here. Not even for a second.
The Outlands was silent, too silent. Even the trees seemed to hold their breath.
Something was watching me.
My wolf stiffened weakly.
We are not alone…
A branch snapped to my left.
I froze.
Another snapped behind me.
My heart slammed painfully. My legs trembled.
Then I heard them.
Wolves.
More than one. Their low growls vibrated through the darkness.
Rogues.
Their scent hit me, wild, sharp, and tainted by blood and hunger. They had been stalking me the moment I crossed the border.
One stepped out first, a massive, scarred wolf with dull red eyes. Another followed. Then a third.
My breath caught, my hands shaking as I tried to step back.
"P-please," my voice cracked.
The first rogue shifted, bones snapping as fur melted away. In seconds, a tall, brutal-looking man stood in front of me, scars running down his chest.
A cruel smile spread across his face.
"Well, well," he drawled. "Look what wandered into our land… a little palace girl."
I stumbled back.
"N-no. I just
I'm not."
He sniffed the air, and his grin widened.
"Rejected," he said slowly. "Your wolf is broken. Weak. You smell like pain."
Shame burned my cheeks.
The second rogue laughed, shifting beside him. "She won't last the night."
"She doesn't need to," the leader replied. "The Council will pay well for her head."
My heart stopped.
They knew.
They knew who I was.
And what Arden had done.
"No," I whispered. "Please no"
But my body was too tired to run. My wolf is too weak to defend me. My legs buckled, and I collapsed into the snow.
The leader reached down and grabbed a fistful of my hair.
I cried out.
"Shall we take her now?" one rogue asked eagerly.
The leader yanked me up until my face was inches from his. His breath was hot against my cheek.
"Oh, we'll take her," he growled. "Alive.
My heart thundered.
My stomach twisted.
My wolf whimpered.
As my vision blurred and darkness tugged at the edges of my consciousness, I heard one last thing:
"Chain her. She's worth more breathing."
A rough sack dropped over my head. Thick hands grabbed my arms and my legs, dragging me away.
I didn't fight.
I couldn't.
The last thing I felt before everything went black was the cold bite of iron closing around my wrists.
And the terrible truth hit me:
I had escaped the Wolf King…
Only to fall straight into the jaws of wolves far worse.
- Writer
