Integration Issues
1039 Words
Reza
Something is wrong.
I feel it the moment I step into the common room.
The sounds are familiar enough by now, low conversation, the scrape of chairs, someone laughing too loudly near the coffee station, but they don’t settle around me the way they did yesterday. They slide past instead, like I’ve stepped into a current flowing the wrong direction.
Too many pauses.
Too many glances that stop just short of meeting my eyes.
I slow without meaning to. Just a fraction. Enough to notice.
Starla lifts her head inside me, alert but uncertain.
- They’re watching, she murmurs.
- I’ve noticed.. I think back, my throat tightening.
I straighten my shoulders and keep moving. I’ve only been here a short while, but I’ve learned this much already: don’t hesitate. Wolves read that like blood in the water.
A conversation near the wall dips as I pass.
Not abruptly. Not rudely.
Deliberately.
My fingers curl at my sides.
Okay.
I pour myself coffee I don’t really want, mostly to give my hands something to do. The mug is warm against my palms, grounding. My reflection wavers in the dark surface, face calm, eyes sharper than I’d like.
You’re imagining it, I tell myself.
Starla doesn’t answer.
That’s what makes my stomach tighten.
I turn, and nearly collide with Carol.
“Oh sorry,” she says quickly, stepping back. Her smile is polite. Careful. The kind you give someone you’re still figuring out. “Didn’t see you there.”
“That seems to be happening a lot today,” I say lightly, testing the air between us.
She laughs. Looks anywhere but at me. “Yeah. Busy morning.”
She doesn’t linger. Doesn’t comment on my assignment. Doesn’t ask how I’ve settled in the past week at the hospital, small things she’d offered the last couple of days, casual and easy.
She just moves on.
I stand there with my coffee cooling too quickly, a hollow opening low in my chest.
“What did I do?” I murmur.
Starla shifts, uneasy.
- I don’t know.
The words echo too close to my own thoughts.
I leave the common room and head down the corridor toward my duties. Wolves pass me, some nod, some don’t acknowledge me at all. One younger pack member I helped with drills two days ago avoids my gaze entirely, shoulders tight as she walks past.
It stings.
It’s subtle. That’s the worst part.
No confrontation. No accusation. Just a collective recalibration. Like everyone agreed on something quietly, efficiently, without me.
Halfway down the hall, I feel it.
A gaze.
Not heavy. Not hostile.
Watching.
I glance sideways and catch Carl near the stairwell, posture easy, expression neutral. Aaron’s beta. His eyes meet mine for half a second, just long enough for something human to flicker there.
Concern.
Then it shutters.
Duty slides back into place like armor, and he looks away first.
My chest tightens.
- That was real, Starla says softly.
- Yes, I know.
And somehow, that makes it worse.
By midmorning, my duty rotation has shifted.
Not dramatically. Just enough to notice.
Tasks I was supposed to share are suddenly solo. Areas I haven’t covered before are now mine. When I ask, the answers come smooth and practiced.
“Temporary adjustment.”
“Just for today.”
“Better coverage this way.”
I nod. Smile. Do my job.
But my skin feels tight, like I’m wearing it wrong.
Starla paces now, restless.
- We’re being separated from the rest.
- No, I think back immediately. That’s dramatic.
- Is it though?
I don’t answer her.
By the time the pack gathers outside for the briefing, I hang back without really choosing to. The circle forms naturally, and leaves me at the edge.
That’s when I see them.
Aaron stands near the center, posture composed, expression unreadable.
Bethany is beside him.
Not clinging. Not casual.
Placed.
She looks calm. Polished. Like nothing in her world has shifted at all.
Something cold slides down my spine.
I shouldn’t look at him. I promised myself I wouldn’t. But my gaze betrays me anyway, fast and treacherous.
He doesn’t look back.
Not once.
Not when I step closer. Not when someone shifts and briefly clears a line of sight between us.
It’s like I don’t exist.
The bond, quiet but constant, tightens just enough to hurt.
And with it comes the memory.
Heat.
The echo of his scent, pine and freshly fallen rain in a damp forest and something unmistakably his, ghosting at the back of my throat like a taste I shouldn’t still remember.
The contrast makes my breath hitch.
Starla growls low.
- He feels it too.
That thought lands heavier than the silence.
Bethany speaks, her voice carrying easily. “We’ve had a few minor disruptions lately,” she says, all concern and calm authority. “Nothing serious. Just adjustments as we integrate new members.”
New members.
The phrase lands like a needle.
Several heads turn.
Not toward her.
Toward me.
My pulse spikes, but I hold my ground. I don’t shrink. I don’t apologize for something I don’t understand.
Bethany’s gaze finds me at last.
Just for a second.
Her smile never wavers, but her eyes sharpen, cool and assessing.
I look away first.
The briefing continues. Assignments. Logistics. Routine. None of it sticks. My awareness has narrowed to the pressure building around me, invisible but unmistakable.
When it ends, people disperse quickly.
Too quickly.
I’m left standing at the edge of the clearing, space opening around me as if by design.
Carl passes close enough that I catch his scent, clean, controlled, steady. He doesn’t stop. But his head dips slightly. A warning. Or an apology.
I don’t know which.
Starla presses close, bristling.
- They’ve decided something, she says. About us.
My throat tightens.
I don’t know what scares me more, that she’s right.
Or that I still don’t know why.
As I turn away, I glance back once.
Aaron is still there.
Bethany’s hand rests lightly on his arm.
He lets it.
And whatever shifted, whatever line I crossed without seeing,
I know it with sudden, bone-deep certainty.
This isn’t over.
It’s only just begun.
- Writer
