Chapter 0018
1464 Words
•ESTELLE•
When I woke, the room was empty. The air still carried Seraphina’s scent that she’d left hours ago, maybe less, and my chest felt lighter, but not in a good way.
It was the lightness that came right before you remembered you were on your own again.
‘Finally awake,’ Ember said in the back of my mind, her voice soft but alert. ‘She’s gone.’
I sat up slowly, brushing my hair away from my face. The sheets got tangled around my legs, as if they were trying to hold me there. “Yeah,” I groaned. “I can tell.”
Ember was quiet for a beat before she added. ‘We’re rogues now.’
The word hit me harder than I wanted to admit. I swallowed. “Rogues?”
‘Free,’ she answered, sounding almost excited. ‘We can go anywhere we want. Be whoever we choose. Dan, your father, brother, and cousin won’t hurt you anymore. Including Knox. Our fated mate.’
I laughed. “You make it sound like a vacation, though it sounds good that I won’t be staying in Dan’s house anymore.”
‘I’m sorry for everything you went through, Estelle. I wish I could’ve been there to save you. But as I’ve promised, no one is ever going to hurt you again. Now that we are free, we will go far away from those who will bring us harm.’
I swung my legs off the bed and stood, stretching the stiffness from my shoulders.
“Free?” I scoffed. “We won’t belong anywhere, Ember. Not really.”
‘You’re thinking like an omega again.’
“I was an omega,” I answered sharper than I meant to. “That doesn’t go away just because I’m about to have my first shift.”
It terrified me, and I still found it weird having full-blown conversations with Ember. She made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore. I finally had a powerful extension of myself.
Ember’s voice softened. ‘It’s not about rank anymore. It’s about survival. About us.’
I dressed up and smoothed my hair in front of the mirror. “You think packs will welcome a rogue? Especially one with my father’s name?”
‘They don’t have to welcome you,’ Ember replied. ‘You don’t need a pack anymore.’
I almost smiled. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re a wolf. You don’t have to live with people looking at you like you’re a mistake.”
‘I am you, Estelle,’ she replied gently. ‘Don’t forget that.’
I didn’t answer. My chest ached with all the words I couldn’t say. Belonging wasn’t something I truly had.
I never belonged in my pack because I was an omega, and my marriage didn’t last. Asher’s mother and sister never liked me. They couldn’t wait for the day Asher would get rid of me.
Ember broke the silence. ‘We need to leave Atlanta before Seraphina comes back. She won’t let us live when she finds us here again.’
“Once Knox announces her as Luna to his pack, she will exile me from all the land in Atlanta. She will make me run all my life and make it hell.”
‘That too,’ Ember replied. ‘But mostly, she’ll come for what she thinks she owns.’
I groaned as I looked in the mirror, pretending I could see Ember. “And what do we own?”
‘Nothing yet,’ she answered. ‘But that’s about to change.’
***
The forest behind the cabin was dense and alive with the sounds of nature. The air was cooler than I remembered, crisp against my skin as I stepped barefoot into the dirt.
‘You ready?’ Ember asked.
I nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”
The shift came easily this time — smoother than it ever had before. My bones didn’t break or realign with that awful crunch. The ground tilted, blurred, then settled again under paws instead of feet.
When I opened my eyes, the world was brighter. Every scent sharper, every sound clearer. The air vibrated with life.
And Ember — she was right there, not just in my head but in my body. We moved together.
“Why do we look…” I hesitated, glancing down. Our fur gleamed white, glowing faintly as if the moonlight was underneath our skin. “Different.”
Ember slowed, letting me catch my reflection in a puddle. The glow shimmered along our backs, faint and ethereal. ‘You see it too.’
“Of course I see it. We’re glowing, Ember. Wolves don’t glow.”
‘Not ordinary ones.’
“That’s comforting,” I muttered.
She huffed a laugh in my head. ‘You’ll understand when the time comes. For now, we run.’
So we did.
Through the trees, over fallen branches, across shallow streams. The forest opened and closed around us.
The farther we ran, the lighter I felt, and yet, part of me stayed heavy, tied to all the things I was leaving behind.
“Are we heading anywhere specific?” I asked.
‘Far,’ Ember replied. ‘As far as our legs can take us.’
“Far sounds nice,” I answered, pushing harder.
My paws tore through leaves and mud, the wind cutting through my fur. I could almost believe this was freedom — the kind that didn’t ask for permission.
But the illusion didn’t last.
Ember slowed suddenly, her ears twitching. ‘Stop.’
I came to a halt, chest heaving. “What is it?”
‘Someone’s searching for us,’ she responded.
“How do you know?”
‘I can feel it. The pull. The scent isn’t here yet, but it’s close. Familiar.’
A shiver crawled up my spine. “Seraphina?”
‘No. Stronger. Older.’
That didn’t make me feel any better. “You’re not helping.”
‘I’ll mask our scent,’ Ember answered, her focus sharpening. ‘Hold still.’
I did. The air shifted around us, a ripple of energy passing through. It wasn’t painful, just strange, and it felt weird.
I breathed out slowly. “You think it’ll work?”
‘It has to.’
A heavy silence followed. The forest felt too still now, like everything was waiting.
I sank onto the ground, the damp soil seeping into my fur. “He really wants me dead, doesn’t he?”
Ember didn’t pretend not to understand who I meant. ‘He’s afraid of you.’
“My father?” I let out a humorless laugh. “He used to carry me on his shoulders when I was five. Told me I’d lead the pack someday.”
‘Things changed.’
“Yeah, that’s true. Things were never the same after the prophecy was told. They told him there would be a greater Alpha than him in the future, and his eyes darkened when he looked at me. It felt as if I had stolen something from him, but he brushed it off.”
We both went quiet again. Somewhere in the distance, a hawk cried, and the sound echoed sharply.
Ember finally broke the silence. ‘We can’t stay here, Estelle.’
“I know.” I pushed myself up, shaking off the dirt. “But where do you go when nowhere wants you?”
‘Forward,’ Ember replied. ‘That’s all that matters right now.’
I hesitated, and the truth slipped out before I could stop it. “Even if we go forward, we’ll always be alone. We’ll never be mated.”
Ember’s voice softened. ‘You don’t know that.’
If a werewolf were rejected, the chances of it finding another mate were very slim unless it mated with a chosen mate. A bond that would never feel as great and as powerful as that of fated mates.
“Yeah, I do,” I sighed. “Knox made sure of it. He rejected me and married my cousin.”
Ember stayed silent, but I felt the ache ripple through her, too. She’d felt every bit of that pain with me.
***
We stopped at the edge of the clearing, panting. I shifted back slowly, collapsing onto my knees in the grass. My body ached, but my mind and heart felt alive.
Ember’s presence lingered softly. ‘You did well.’
I closed my eyes, breathing in the morning air. “What now?”
‘We keep moving,’ Ember answered.
“And if someone finds us?”
‘They won’t,’ she promised. ‘Not yet.’
I looked down at my hands again. They glowed faintly, the same way my fur had. It didn’t scare me this time.
I stood, brushing dirt from my legs. “Alright, Ember. Lead the way.”
She laughed in my head, bright and certain. ‘Gladly.’
- Writer
