chapter two
1550 Words
“They say you’re a traitor. Is it true?” Liam held her hands. “Talk to me, Aela.”
“You’re alive. How?”
“This is not the time for games, you’re in real trouble. What if you’re exiled?”
“I didn’t do anything, I swear.”
Liam didn’t respond; instead, he picked up his shirt and swung it over his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Aela traced the patterns on her bedframe as if she hadn't seen them before. “I don’t know. I saw-”
“You saw what?”
Aela knew her story would sound crazy; she had yet to see the evidence the Gamma spoke about. She couldn’t possibly explain that she fought someone who looked exactly like her, and she watched him die. “My mate, I think he’s close.”
“Are you serious?” he rubbed his chin. “It still doesn’t explain what happened yesterday. I couldn’t reach you through the link, everyone was scrambling about, the dining area suddenly bursting into flames, and then I heard you’ve been taken to the dungeons.”
“I want you to trust me when I say I have no idea what’s going on.”
“I need to send a petition to the Gamma and Beta still, if this is serious. The Alpha may be our cousin, but we’re not off the hook yet.” Liam ran his fingers through his dark hair. “I’ll be back”
Aela sat hunched at the edge of her bed long after Liam left, her fingers trembling as she rotated the severed finger in the cloth like it was some cursed relic. The crescent tattoo stared back at her, tiny, cold, identical to hers. The room felt too still. Too neat. Like it didn’t remember the smoke she choked on last night.
Maybe she imagined it.
Maybe she didn’t.
“Aela.” Theo’s voice was sharp, clipped, and had no space for arguments. “Alpha wants
you. Now.”
Perfect. Because she hadn’t been traumatized enough today.
Aela rose and followed him through the packhouse. She felt eyes on her, wolves pausing mid-conversation, their scents tightening with caution. Her wolf pressed against her ribs, restless. People always thought the Alpha gave her preferential treatment because she was a close cousin.
Theo didn’t look at her once. He opened the Alpha’s door and stepped aside
without speaking.
Rhen’s office was dim except for the thin stripe of sunlight slashing across the polished floor. He didn’t sit instead watched her come in, his expression unreadable but heavier than usual as though he had already spent hours trying to solve something he couldn’t admit out loud.
“Close the door,” he told Theo.
The click of the lock ladden with finality.
“Aela,” Rhen said, softer than expected. “Sit.”
Aela sat, heartbeat uneven. Rhen didn’t speak at first. He just studied her like he was memorizing every twitch in her face.
Finally, he moved. Not much, just a shift of his arm, a controlled inhale. “Tell me what happened.”
Aela opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked at her hands, at her nails, faintly cracked from clawing a barrier that shouldn’t have existed. Talking felt like exposing a wound she hadn’t even looked at properly.
But she started anyway. Not quickly. Not cleanly. The words came rough, uneven, scraped out of her chest. She told him about the smoke sliding under the door like a living thing.
The handle was burning her palm. The two figures pulling her out like she was already dead. The runes hovering in the air. The woman’s voice. The burning, the stopping of her shift. The man exactly like Liam dying. The mask slipping. The face underneath. Her voice cracked once. Rhen didn’t react. She described the barrier. The black hole. The icy fingers inside her chest. The link mimicking Liam’s voice. Waking in the dungeon. She didn’t show him the finger.
Not yet.
Rhen leaned back slowly, his jaw tight enough she saw a pulse jump near his ear. He rubbed a thumb along the edge of his desk, thoughtful.
“Aela…” His voice was softer now. “Did she speak to you through the link?”
Aela nodded. “Sounded like Liam. Sounded,…real.”
Rhen let out a breath like someone had shoved a weight into his lungs. He pushed away from the desk and walked towards the window, tugging the curtain open. Morning light cut across his face, catching shadows beneath his eyes she’d never noticed before.
“No physical scent trails were found last night,” he said. The tone wasn’t
disbelief. More like frustration. “No external tracks. No wolfsbane. Nothing
connecting any intruder to the packhouse.”
Aela swallowed. “But you believe me.”
His hand tightened around the curtain before he let it fall. “Yes.”
The answer dropped heavily between them.
Aela’s voice was quieter when she asked, “Why?”
Rhen’s gaze flicked to her-brief, sharp, like something had slipped through
his mask before he caught it. “Because I’ve seen that kind of magic before.”
Aela’s breath hitched. “Where?”
He hesitated. A fraction of a second. But she saw it.
“Far from here,” he said. “A long time ago.”
Something cold slid down her spine. He wasn’t lying. But he wasn’t saying the whole truth either.
Aela stared at the floor. “Theo thinks I did it.”
“Evidence was planted,” Rhen said plainly. “Your scent was everywhere in the east wing. Too strong. Too exact. That’s not natural.”
“So someone wants me blamed.”
Rhen didn’t answer. His silence said enough.
Aela lifted her eyes to him. “Why me?”
He didn’t meet her gaze. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”
She waited for more. He said nothing.
Aela looked at her hands. “I think my mate is close.”
That got him. He didn’t gasp or freeze dramatically-just the tiniest tightening in his jaw. His fingers curled slightly at his side before he forced them still. Aela would’ve missed it if she weren’t watching him already.
Rhen blinked once. Slowly.
“Oh?” he asked, voice controlled.
“I saw him,” she murmured. “Or should I say felt him. Last night.”
Rhen’s throat bobbed. “And?”
“He apologized.” Aela’s brows pulled together. “Why would someone apologize the first time they meet their mate?”
Rhen looked away too quickly. “Aela… your mate will find you when it’s time.”
She stared at him. “Rhen. You know something.”
“I know enough to say this isn’t the moment.” His voice sharpened, not
unkindly-protective, but strained.
“But-”
“No,” he said. “There are truths that complicate things unnecessarily when you
don’t have the foundation to carry them yet.”
Aela’s jaw tightened. “You sound like you’re hiding something.”
Rhen exhaled, shoulders dropping. “I’m trying to protect you.”
Silence hummed between them. Thick. Full of things unsaid. Rhen returned to his desk and finally sat. “Your case will be reviewed tonight by the elders, Beta, Gamma, and myself. I’ll argue that you were framed, but you need to stay put. No wandering. No talking. No shifting.”
Aela frowned. “Why no shifting?”
Rhen didn’t answer right away. Instead, he leaned forward, elbows on the
table, fingers interlocked. His eyes held hers, steadier than before, but with a
softness she’d only seen a handful of times growing up.
“Aela… what you ran into last night, it wasn’t meant for anyone else. Only you.”
The air in the room thickened. The way he said it felt like he wasn’t guessing. Like he knew.
Aela licked her dry lips. “Rhen… am I in danger?”
His expression didn’t move, but something in the room did. Energy shifted. Air seemed to still.
“Aela,” he said quietly, “there are threats older than this pack’s history. Older than anything you’ve been taught. And one of them… has taken interest in you.”
Goosebumps crawled up her arms. “Why?” she whispered.
Rhen’s eyes dropped to the floor for a heartbeat. When they lifted again, his
voice was steady but cold. “Because she knows who you become.”
Aela blinked. “What does that mean?”
Rhen looked away. “It means you’re staying in your room until we sort this
out.”
Before she could push, he stood and opened the door.
Conversation over.
“Aela,” he said without turning, “don’t trust anything that looks like you. Don’t
trust anyone who sounds like they’re trying to keep you calm. And don’t trust
anyone who tells you they’re Liam unless you can smell him.”
Aela froze. “Why would you say-”
“Go,” he repeated.
Her pulse hammered as she walked out. Behind her, the door closed with a quiet, heavy click.
For the first time in her life, Aela realized something terrifying.
Rhen wasn’t being strict. Or controlling.
He was scared.
And that scared her more.
- Writer
