Resentment

Chapter 6- Becoming

Ariah Eden

Three months.

That’s how long it had been since Ariah Eden disappeared from everyone’s radar. No pack meetings. No pack events. No Moon Pack drama. Alpha Layton could rage all he wanted—she was done dancing to their tune.

The whispers, the accusations, the humiliation? Over. All the people who had sided with the moon pack were too scared to try and bully me in my own lands.

She had carved out a new life, and for the first time in years, she felt… free.

Her days followed a rhythm that made sense, one that healed the jagged pieces of her. Dawn training with Zuri—two hours of sweat, breathing, and focus. Then college lectures streamed on her laptop: magical theory, supernatural law, leadership strategy. While her peers partied through senior year, Ariah was halfway to a degree.

Afternoons were for her father—Alpha David Eden. He no longer held her at arm’s length. Now he guided her steps into his world, the weight of pack politics heavy but familiar. Diplomacy, hunting, the language of wolves—he taught her all of it.

Evenings belonged to Zuri again. Moonlight training in the clearing, energy shimmering at her fingertips as the forest whispered in response.

Zuri had become more than a mentor. She was a force of calm and knowledge, carrying secrets older than the packs themselves. Under her guidance, Ariah coaxed flowers to bloom, summoned fire without burning, bent wind to her will. Small victories, but each one tasted like power—and freedom.

Her mother kept her grounded. Her brother sparred with her relentlessly, never easy on her. Victor cracked jokes between lectures. Her family became a fortress—and inside those walls, she thrived.

Almost.

Because no matter how hard she worked, some things didn’t change. The whispers in the pack. She hasn’t shifted yet. She’s not a real wolf. Magic is a curse.

She ignored them. Or tried to. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t explain. She just trained harder, pushed further, fought like hell to prove she was everything they said she wasn’t.

But late at night…

Late at night, when the world went quiet, her thoughts drifted. To a waterfall. To laughter that used to feel like sunlight. To Tobias Moon’s eyes—storm-grey and burning with something she didn’t dare name.

She hated that she still cared. That some piece of her still longed for the boy who once pulled her from a freezing river, who once made her feel like she belonged.

Now that boy was gone. Replaced by a man who would rather kill her than try to understand her.

So why did her chest ache every time she remembered his voice? His touch? His rage?

She didn’t have an answer.

But she did have a plan.

She was leaving. Soon. Zuri called it The Path. A journey beyond Eden lands. A quest to uncover her bloodline, her magic, her destiny.

The thought both terrified and thrilled her.

That night, Ariah stood barefoot in the garden, the wind combing through her loose curls like wild flame. The moon watched her, silver and silent, as energy rippled through her veins, humming against her skin like a heartbeat.

They had cast her out.

But she was not broken.

She was becoming.

And when she returned, it would not be as the girl they mocked or feared.

She would return as Alpha.

On her own terms.

Tobias Moon POV



Tobias hated her.

He told himself that every day.

He told himself Ariah was a threat, a freak, a curse wrapped in red curls and glowing blue eyes. He told himself she was the reason everything was falling apart—the treaty, the peace, the fragile balance between the Eden and Moon packs.

But no amount of hate could silence the truth clawing at his chest.

He thought about her anyway.

And he hated that most of all.

Home wasn’t a sanctuary anymore. It was a battlefield.

Alpha Layton Moon had always been a hard man. But lately? He was something else. Something monstrous. The rage that once came in sharp bursts now hung like a storm cloud over their home—violent, unpredictable, lethal.

Everyone walked on eggshells. Clara, their Luna, wore long sleeves in the heat of summer, her silence screaming truths no one dared say. Cece stayed in her wing like a shadow. The younger pack members kept their heads down, terrified of the man who was supposed to protect them.

Even Talia was breaking.

His twin. His other half. She had always been the calm to his storm, the anchor when his temper threatened to pull him under. But now? She was slipping. Headaches. Memory gaps. A hollow look in her eyes that scared him more than his father’s fists ever could.

Tobias didn’t ask. Because if she admitted what he feared—that something was poisoning them from the inside—he didn’t know what he’d do.

So he buried it. Buried everything.

Until Ariah came back into his life like a wildfire.

Sometimes, when the walls of the Moon estate started to feel like a cage, Tobias ran. Shifted into his wolf and let the forest swallow him whole, his paws pounding against the earth, lungs burning as he pushed further and faster than before.

He always ended up at the edge of Eden territory.

Just beyond the wards.

Close enough to smell her.

Close enough to see… glimpses.

A flicker of firelight between the trees. The rustle of leaves where there shouldn’t be wind. And once—he swore he saw her. Standing barefoot in the moonlight, red curls tumbling wild down her back, power rolling off her in waves so strong it made his wolf want to kneel.

It wasn’t fear that gripped him in that moment.

It was something far more dangerous.

He told himself it was strategy. That he needed to know where his enemy was, how strong she’d grown. That it was duty. Loyalty. War planning.

But when he lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, his jaw clenched until it hurt, Tobias couldn’t deny the truth.

He missed her.

The girl who once laughed with him under waterfalls, who once looked at him like he was more than Layton’s son. He missed her so much it made him sick.

And it infuriated him.

Because that girl was gone.

Now there was only the witch. The threat. The curse.

Leila didn’t notice. Or maybe she did, and chose to ignore it. His girlfriend was everything the pack expected—a perfect future Luna. Elegant, loyal, desirable. She played her role well, and he tried to play his.

But every time his lips touched hers, every time her nails raked down his back, there was something missing. Something raw and untamed that only existed in the space between him and Ariah Eden.

He hated her for that, too.

For the way she haunted him.

For the way her magic made the air hum and his skin burn like he’d been marked.

For the way her eyes—gods, those eyes—looked at him like she knew every secret he tried to bury.

Tobias stood now at the edge of the forest, fists clenched, chest heaving. The night smelled of pine and rain, but underneath it lingered something sweeter. Something he couldn’t stop chasing no matter how much he despised it.

She was out there.

Becoming stronger. Bolder. Untouchable.

And the next time they met?

It wouldn’t be as children. It wouldn’t be as friends. It wouldn’t even be as enemies pretending civility.

It would be war.

And Tobias would be ready.

Or he would fall trying.