The Rejected Bloodline

Chapter Three: crossing the border

The road leading out of Ridgewood stretched long and empty ahead of Rowan the next morning, the kind of quiet that made every step sound louder than it should have. He carried a canvas bag over one shoulder, packed with a few changes of clothes and whatever money he had managed to save from months of work at the garage. His mother had given him directions the night before in a voice that kept shaking the entire time, like every word leaving her mouth cost her something she did not want to give up.

Nightfall territory sat two days walk from Ridgewood if he avoided the main roads and cut through the quieter paths along the tree line, the way his mother had shown him on a worn paper map she kept hidden in the back of a kitchen drawer for reasons he was only now beginning to understand.

By midday his legs had already started to ache, and his mind refused to settle no matter how far he walked. Every rustle in the branches around him made his whole body tense, certain for a moment that his skin was about to twist and change again without warning. He still did not understand the rules of what he had become the night before. He only understood that fear kept his chest tight and his breathing short the entire walk.

He stopped near a narrow stream sometime in the early afternoon, kneeling down to splash cold water over his face, when the sound of footsteps behind him cut through the quiet. He spun around fast, half ready to run and half ready to fight, and froze completely when he saw who was standing there.

It was her. The girl from the woods the night before. Same dark red hair pulled back tight. Same calm expression that gave away nothing about what she was actually thinking underneath it.

You, he said, still crouched by the water.

Me, she said, stepping closer with an ease that made him feel foolish for being so tense a moment earlier. Small world, it seems.

You knew this would happen to me, Rowan said, standing up slowly. You knew exactly what I was the moment you saw me out there.

I did not know everything, she said. I knew what you were the second I watched you change in front of me. That part was not exactly difficult to figure out on my end.

What is your name, he asked, finally getting out the question he had wanted to ask the night before.

Wren, she said. Wren Calder.

Rowan, he said. Rowan Ashford.

She studied him for a long moment, the way someone studies a puzzle they are still deciding whether or not to bother solving.

I am headed toward Nightfall territory as well, she said. There is business between my pack and theirs that needs settling soon. Ashwood and Nightfall are not exactly friends, but calling us enemies would not be accurate either. Complicated might be the better word for what we are.

I am going there to find my father, Rowan said, the words slipping out before he had fully decided to share them with anyone. Something about the way she looked at him made it hard to keep things buried the way he normally would have.

Wren lifted her eyebrows slightly, clearly not expecting that particular answer. Your father is part of Nightfall, she said.

Dorian Voss, Rowan said. Apparently, according to what I was only told last night for the very first time in my life.

Wren went quiet for a moment, studying him with a sharper focus now, like she was seeing him differently than she had only seconds before.

That is not a small thing to walk into blind, she said. You should be careful who you say that to once we cross into their land. Not everyone reacts well to surprises, especially ones carrying that much weight behind them.

Why does it matter so much, he asked.

Because pack politics are rarely simple, she said. There is history in Nightfall that most outsiders never hear about, and showing up claiming to be the son of their Alpha is the kind of thing that changes how people look at you overnight, for better or for worse depending on who you ask.

They fell into step together after that, walking side by side without either of them really deciding to make it official between them. The road ahead did not feel nearly as long or as lonely with someone else walking it beside him for once. Rowan found himself glancing over at her more than once throughout the afternoon, trying to understand why her presence made the fear sitting in his chest feel quieter than it had been all day on his own.

Why did you help me last night, he asked eventually. Out there in the woods, when you had no real reason to.

Wren was quiet for a beat before answering him. Because you looked like someone who had absolutely no idea what was happening to his own body, she said. I understand what that feels like better than you might think I do.

Rowan did not push her for more of an explanation. Something told him she would share it when she was ready, if she ever decided she truly was.

They walked until the sun began sinking low behind the trees, the dark outline of Nightfall territory finally visible somewhere ahead of them on the horizon line.

This is as far as I go with you for now, Wren said, stopping where the road split into two separate paths. I have somewhere else I need to be first before I head into Nightfall myself. But something tells me our paths are far from finished crossing each other.

Rowan was not entirely sure why that thought settled something uneasy and warm inside his chest all at once.

I hope you are right about that, he said.

Wren almost smiled again, the same small, controlled smile from the night before in the woods. Then she turned down the other path without another word and disappeared into the trees, leaving Rowan standing alone at the edge of the territory that held every answer he had been searching for his entire life up to this point.