CHAPTER SIX
1179 Words
Blackridge did not forgive curiosity.
By morning, the pack had decided what Liora was.
Not dangerous enough to fear openly.
Not weak enough to ignore anymore.
Which made her convenient.
She felt it the moment she stepped outside.
The air was tighter. Conversations stopped when she passed. Wolves who once only dismissed her now watched with narrowed eyes, as if waiting for proof of something they had already decided.
She kept walking.
She always did.
At the edge of the clearing, Elder Moru stood with two warriors and a bundle of leather straps laid across a table. His presence alone sent a ripple of unease through the pack.
“Gather,” he ordered.
The command carried authority older than kindness. Wolves obeyed instinctively, forming a loose circle around the central fire pit.
Liora’s stomach sank.
Tests were not common.
They were reserved for threats.
“Where is the Ashen Ridge Alpha?” someone murmured.
Kael arrived before the question finished forming.
He stepped into the clearing with measured calm, Rafe beside him, eyes sharp. Kael’s gaze moved quickly—too quickly—to Liora. The moment their eyes met, that familiar pull tightened in his chest.
Something was wrong.
Elder Moru inclined his head stiffly. “Alpha Kael. You may observe.”
Kael didn’t sit. “Observe what?”
Moru gestured to the table. “A confirmation.”
Liora’s breath faltered.
Moru turned toward her. “Step forward.”
Her legs felt heavy, but she obeyed. The circle tightened slightly as she moved to the center. She could feel Kael’s gaze like a steady weight on her back.
“What is this?” Liora asked quietly.
Moru’s voice carried clearly. “A trial of truth.”
Kael’s jaw clenched. “You didn’t inform me.”
“This is internal pack business,” Moru replied. “Unless you plan to interfere.”
Kael met his gaze coldly. “I plan to stop cruelty disguised as tradition.”
A murmur spread.
Moru’s lips thinned. “Then you misunderstand our ways.”
“Then explain them,” Kael said.
Moru turned back to Liora. “You will enter the circle alone,” he said. “You will open yourself to the pack. If you are hiding something—if you are a threat—it will reveal itself.”
Liora stared at him. “You want me to lose control.”
Moru smiled thinly. “Control is a privilege. Not a right.”
Fear crawled up her spine.
Kael stepped forward. “Enough.”
Moru raised a hand. “You said you would observe.”
Kael stopped.
That restraint cost him more than anyone there understood.
Liora looked at Kael then—not pleading, not asking to be saved—but searching. As if wanting to know whether she truly stood alone.
Kael held her gaze steadily.
Whatever you are, he thought, they will not break you.
She stepped into the circle.
The moment the leather straps hit the ground, Liora’s heartbeat thundered.
She could feel the pack pressing in—not physically, but emotionally. Their fear. Their suspicion. Their resentment.
It soaked into her skin.
“Breathe,” she whispered to herself.
She closed her eyes.
The pull stirred.
Soft at first. Like a hand resting against her chest.
Then stronger.
Kael felt it too.
His breath caught as something flared painfully in his ribs. Not power. Not dominance.
Pain.
Her pain.
“She’s struggling,” Rafe muttered under his breath.
Moru’s voice rose. “Open yourself!”
Liora’s hands clenched.
Images surged—memories she didn’t remember living. Blood on leaves. A child screaming. A forest on fire.
She gasped, dropping to her knees.
“Stop,” Kael snapped.
Moru ignored him.
The pull snapped tight.
Liora cried out—not in agony, but in fear—as something inside her surged awake.
The ground trembled.
Just slightly.
Enough.
That was all it took.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
“She did it—”
“She’s unstable—”
Kael moved.
He stepped into the circle without asking permission, without warning.
The leather straps burst into ash beneath his boots.
“Enough,” he said.
The word was not loud.
But it landed like thunder.
Moru stiffened. “You violate—”
“I claim responsibility,” Kael said coldly. “For this moment. For her.”
The clearing went dead silent.
Liora stared up at him, stunned.
“You don’t get to do that,” Moru hissed. “She is not yours.”
Kael didn’t look away from Liora. “She is not yours either.”
He extended a hand toward her—not touching, not forcing. An offer.
Liora hesitated.
Then she took it.
The moment their skin brushed, the pull eased.
Not vanished.
Balanced.
Liora sucked in a breath, steadier now. Her legs shook, but she remained standing.
Kael released her hand immediately.
Deliberately.
“This trial is over,” he said. “If you persist, you will answer to me.”
Moru’s eyes burned. “You protect her without knowing what she is.”
Kael’s voice dropped. “I protect her because I see how you treat what you fear.”
That night, Liora sat alone near the forest edge, knees drawn up, staring at the moon.
Her body still hummed faintly, like a string plucked too hard and left trembling.
She hadn’t lost control.
But she had come close.
Footsteps approached slowly.
She didn’t turn.
“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” she said softly.
Kael stopped a few paces away. “You didn’t.”
Silence settled between them.
Then, quietly, “They were hoping you would fail.”
She nodded. “They always are.”
Kael’s chest tightened.
“You shouldn’t have to survive your own pack,” he said.
She laughed weakly. “Survival is all I’ve ever been taught.”
He studied her profile—the tension in her shoulders, the way she kept herself folded inward like taking up space was dangerous.
“You don’t know what you are,” he said carefully. “But you are not broken.”
She finally looked at him. “You don’t know that.”
“I know strength when I feel it,” Kael replied.
Her gaze dropped. “Then you felt wrong.”
“No,” he said gently. “I felt pain that didn’t belong to me.”
That startled her.
Neither spoke for a long moment.
“What happens now?” she asked.
Kael looked toward the pack house, where lights flickered uneasily. “Now,” he said, “they will watch you harder.”
Her shoulders slumped. “And you?”
“I stay,” he said simply.
Her breath caught.
“Why?”
Kael met her eyes steadily. “Because whatever woke in you didn’t do so alone.”
The words settled deep in her chest.
And for the first time since she was a child, Liora felt something unfamiliar bloom beneath the fear.
Not safety.
Not love.
But the fragile, dangerous hope of not being alone.
- Writer
