Chapter two
1283 Words
Eira 'S POV
I rent a studio apartment from a human landlord, the kind who never asks questions and never looks too closely at his tenants. It’s small one narrow room with a kitchenette shoved against the wall and a bathroom barely large enough to turn around in but it’s clean, quiet, and blessedly anonymous.
It works.
I’ve gotten good at hiding what I really am over the past few months. Better than good, actually. Hiding the wolf isn’t much harder than hiding my fae side, not when secrecy has been a survival skill for as long as I can remember. Layers of restraint settle over me like armor every morning before I step out into the world.
It would have been easier if I’d grown up knowing what I was.
Most shifters do. They learn control early, guided through their first shifts, taught how to coexist with the animal rather than fear it. But my childhood didn’t come with lessons or mentors or warnings. There was no one to explain why my blood sometimes burned or why the forest seemed to whisper back when I spoke to it.
You can’t have everything.
I check the time and grimace. Morning will come far too soon. Tomorrow or rather, today I need to be alert, sharp, ready. The interview alone could decide whether I remain hidden in the human world forever or finally claw my way into something resembling a future.
I make myself a cup of tea and drink it standing at the counter, the warmth seeping into my hands. Then I crawl into bed without bothering to Sorenge, cocooning myself beneath thin blankets.
I worry, briefly, that sleep won’t come.
It always does.
Darkness rolls over me like a tide, pulling me under before I can brace myself, and I slip into a dream I know too well.
I’m beneath the willow tree again.
The nest is soft and familiar, woven from leaves and branches and magic, just as it always was. Sunlight filters through hanging green fronds, dappling Cassian’s skin as he lies beside me. His hands move over my body with practiced ease, reverent and possessive all at once.
We have all the time in the world.
There’s no urgency here, no fear lurking at the edges of my mind. We’ll spend the entire day like this touching, laughing, drifting in and out of sleep. The encampment is celebrating tonight. It’s the eve of one of our blood festivals, and joy hums through the air like a living thing.
Cassian says something to me.
In my dreams, I never remember the words. They don’t matter. What matters is the way his mouth traces my jaw, the way his fingers part my thighs with unhurried certainty, the way my body responds as if it has always belonged to him.
What matters is the absolute knowledge that I cherish.
I think he tells me I’m beautiful.
I feel luminous, as if magic itself is threaded through my veins. I feel powerful. Desired. Safe.
And then
I know what’s coming.
I always know.
The certainty coils in my chest before the sky splits apart, before heat and flame rip through the air. Someone screams, a dragon, and the sound shatters the illusion.
Cassian is on his feet in an instant, already reaching for weapons, already pushing me away.
Something strange stirs inside me.
Defensive. Ancient. Wrong.
My body begins to Sorenge.
At first, it’s confusion an unsettling pressure beneath my skin, a sense of wrongness that makes my breath hitch. Then the pain hits, sharp and grinding, my bones shifting with sickening force. Agony consumes everything else, so overwhelming I can’t even scream.
When the pain recedes, the world looks different.
Lower.
Closer.
I try to speak, to call Cassian’s name, but my tongue doesn’t move the way it should. My mouth won’t shape words I’ve known my entire life.
And Cassian is staring at me.
Not with love.
Not with shock.
With revulsion.
As if I’m something rotten dragged into the light.
Behind him, I hear the sounds of battle shouts, the clash of power as the others fight the dragon, working together to subdue it. I know exactly how this part goes. I’ve watched it happen before.
When a shifter wanders into the encampment, they don’t kill it outright.
They imprison it.
They bleed it.
Tonight is the ceremony. Tonight, they’ll take the dragon’s blood. Tomorrow, they’ll all carry its strength.
Except Cassian isn’t looking at the dragon.
He’s looking at me the way he looks at enemies.
“You’re a shifter,” he says.
Even now, even wrapped in dream logic and memory’s haze, those words hit like a blade. My mind has erased the sweet things he once whispered to me, the promises and laughter and shared warmth.
But this?
This it kept.
“You’ve been lying to us all this time,” he says, horror and disgust threading his voice. “I should kill you right now.”
I want to argue. To tell him he’s wrong. That this isn’t me. That something is happening to me, something I don’t understand.
But I can’t speak.
I can’t form words.
“I reject you, Eira ,” he says coldly, stepping closer. “You’ll give the host the power of the wolf. You deserve what comes next.”
He’s talking about drinking my blood.
He lunges.
Instinct takes over.
I leap back and the realization hits me like lightning.
I’ve tasted wolf blood before. I know the borrowed strength it gives. But this is different. This is my body now. Muscles coil and release with breathtaking power. The world sharpens. My heartbeat roars in my ears.
I can outrun him.
I have to.
Because if I don’t, he will kill me. He will drain me and share my blood like a resource, and they’ll all walk away with what should have been mine.
I didn’t even know I had this wolf until now, but the moment it’s revealed, I know one thing with terrifying clarity
It belongs to me.
I run.
Branches whip against my face as I tear through the forest, but the pain barely registers. This body was built for this. Built to endure. Built to survive.
Cassian shouts my name behind me.
I won't stop.
I’m horrified. Betrayed. Heartbroken beyond repair.
But I’m free.
I wake with a gasp, lungs burning, body tense as if I might bolt from the bed at any second. Moonlight spills across the ceiling of my apartment, pale and harmless.
I press a hand to my chest.
I’m safe.
I repeat it until my breathing slows. Cassian and the others might still be hunting for me they almost certainly are but they won’t find me here.
They’ll assume I went to Shifter Town.
Everyone does.
Shifter Town is where rejects go. A place for those without packs, without homes. In theory, it would be perfect for someone like me.
Except it isn’t.
Because I’m still part of the fae.
And the shifters would kill me just as quickly as the fae would.
I sit up slowly, exhaustion settling deep into my bones. Sometimes I wonder about my father. What kind of wolf would dare involve himself with a fae woman? How did they survive each other long enough to create me?
Maybe they didn’t.
I can’t rule that out.
The sky outside is beginning to pale. Dawn is coming. There’s no more time for wondering.
If I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hiding among humans, I have to take this Sorence. I have to get this job.
It’s the only way forward.
And failure isn’t an option.
- Writer
