009
1561 Words
The Forbidden Forest
~VINA HALE~
If there was ever a time to regret not being a strong, independent Lycan warrior from birth, it’s while crawling through a waste tunnel that smells like the collective digestive failures of five hundred werewolves.
Note to the Moon Goddess: ‘Seriously? A sewer? This is how my grand escape began? You couldn’t have given me a secret passage through a library or a hidden garden? No, it had to be the tunnel where the laundry water and the kitchen scraps go to die.’
I was currently knee-deep in gray, lukewarm water that I refused to think about too hard.
My rucksack was held over my head like a holy relic, and my boots—the ones with the hole in the toe—were squelching in a way that was probably going to haunt my dreams for a decade.
But as the iron grate of the outer wall loomed ahead, I didn't care.
The air was getting thinner, cooler, and for the first time in eighteen years, it didn't smell like Jace, Sarah, or the suffocating expectations of the Silver Moon Pack.
It smelled like rain. It smelled like freedom.
I reached the final grate. It was rusted and covered in slime, but thanks to years of being the girl who had to fix the plumbing because the Alphas were too important to get their hands dirty, I knew exactly which bolt was loose.
I kicked it once, then twice. On the third hit, the grate gave way with a groan, falling into the muddy embankment outside.
I tumbled out after it, landing face-first on the wet grass.
I lay there for a second, gasping, the cool night air hitting my skin like a benediction. I turned onto my back and looked up.
The Blood Moon was still hanging in the sky, a bruised, angry red, but from out here, it looked different. It didn't look like a judge.
It just looked like a rock.
I looked back at the Silver Moon Packhouse. It sat on the hill like a massive, glowing tomb. I could still see the lights from the ballroom.
I could almost hear the music. Up there, they were drinking champagne and toasting to a future that didn’t include me.
Up there, Jace was probably leaning into Sarah, his golden eyes finally settling on a Luna with power.
‘Let them have it,’ I thought, pushing myself up.
The throne, the pack, the prestige. They’re all just pretty curtains in a house that’s rotting from the inside.
I stood up, my legs trembling.
The double pulse in my stomach was vibrating, a low-frequency hum that seemed to be pointing me toward the dark, jagged line of trees on the horizon.
The Forbidden Forest.
In pack lore, the Forbidden Forest is the place where the Moon Goddess lost her mind. They say the trees don't grow; they encroach.
They say the shadows have a habit of detaching themselves from the ground and following you.
It’s the boundary between the known world and the "Wilds"—a place so ancient and magically unstable that even the most arrogant Alpha wouldn't dream of claiming it as territory.
Which is exactly why I was heading straight for it.
The trek across the open meadow was the hardest part. I felt exposed, like a rabbit running across a golf course.
My "ghost bond"—the severed connection to Jace—was a raw, bleeding wound in my mind. Every step away from him felt like I was stretching a piece of my own skin until it tore.
That’s the "Rejection Sickness."
It’s designed to pull the Omega back, to make them crawl on their knees to their Alpha and beg for a scrap of attention just to stop the pain.
“No,” I hissed, clutching my stomach. “We don’t crawl. We don’t beg. We move.”
The Lycan heartbeat responded.
Thump-THUMP.
A wave of cold, numbing energy washed over me, dulling the rejection pain. It was like a natural anesthetic. It didn't make the heartbreak go away, but it made it manageable.
It made it something I could carry.
As I reached the edge of the forest, the temperature dropped ten degrees.
The trees weren't like the pines and oaks of the pack lands. These were gnarled, white-barked things with leaves that looked like black lace.
They didn't rustle in the wind; they whispered.
A large sign, rotted and hanging by a single chain, stood at the entrance: ‘BY ORDER OF THE HIGH COUNCIL: DO NOT ENTER. BEYOND THIS POINT, THE LAW OF THE PACK IS VOID.’
“Good,” I muttered, stepping over the rusted chain. “I’m pretty tired of pack laws anyway.”
The moment I crossed the tree line, the sound of the world changed. The faraway music of the packhouse vanished, replaced by an oppressive, deep silence.
The ground was covered in a thick carpet of silver moss that glowed faintly, illuminating the twisted roots that looked far too much like skeletal fingers.
I pulled out my map and a small flashlight I’d swiped from the laundry room. But as I clicked it on, the light blinked and died.
I shook it. Nothing.
I looked at the map. The ink was swirling, the lines of the topography shifting and dancing before my eyes.
“Right,” I said, tucking the map back into my bag. “The legends weren't kidding. Technology and logic don't work here. Great. Just great.”
I started walking, guided by nothing but the silver glow of the moss and that strange, magnetic pull in my gut.
The forest felt… alive. Not in nature is a beautiful way, but in a "this forest is currently deciding if I’m worth eating" way. I could feel eyes on me—hundreds of them—hidden in the hollows of the trees.
‘Dusty?’ I called out mentally. ‘A little help? Maybe a growl? A snarl? A supportive whimper?’
Nothing.
My wolf was still deep in her shell, paralyzed by Jace’s rejection. She was grieving, and honestly, I couldn't blame her.
She had lost her mate. She had lost her purpose.
“Fine,” I whispered. “I will do the growling for both of us.”
I reached for the black-bone hilt of the silver dagger at my waist. The cold metal felt grounding. It reminded me that I wasn't just a victim; I was a threat. Or at least, I was trying to be.
I walked for hours.
My feet were blistering, and my lungs felt like they were filled with cold lead. The "double pulse" was getting heavier, more insistent.
The babies were hungry, and they were taking everything I had. I sat down against a tree with bark that felt like velvet, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Just a minute,” I told my stomach. “Mom just needs a minute to not feel like she’s dying.”
I pulled out the hunk of dried venison and started chewing. It tasted like salt and cardboard, but it was the most glorious thing I’d ever eaten.
As I ate, I looked back toward the edge of the forest. I could see the faint, distant glow of torches.
They were coming.
Magnus wouldn't wait long.
He’d send the trackers the moment Kael reported my cell was empty. And while the average warrior was terrified of these woods, Magnus’s elite hunters—the ones who had no souls left to lose—would follow me.
But as I watched the torches, I realized something.
They weren't moving into the forest.
They were pacing the perimeter.
They were afraid. Even the elite warriors knew that the Forbidden Forest didn't just kill you; it erased you.
I leaned my head back against the velvet bark and closed my eyes for just a second.
The forest whispered to me, a thousand tiny voices speaking a language I didn't understand but somehow felt it in my bones.
‘The Silver One has returned,’ they seemed to say.
‘The lineage of the moon is back in the shadows.’
I didn't know what it meant, and honestly, I was too tired to care. I just knew that, for the first time in my life, I wasn't being watched by people who hated me.
I was being watched by something far older, far more dangerous, and strangely… curious.
Note to the High Council: ‘You can keep your signs. You can keep your laws.’
I looked at my hand, which was glowing faintly silver in the moss-light. I wasn't the flea anymore. I was a ghost in the murder-woods, and I had two heartbeats in my belly that were going to change everything.
I was lost. Exhausted. Smelling like a sewer. But officially, 100% un-findable.
Let them pace the borders. I’m moving into the deep dark. I stood up, hoisted my rucksack, and disappeared into the fog.
Wait… did that tree just move?
Yeah, it definitely moved.
“Move again and I will stab you,” I told the tree, clutching my silver dagger.
The forest went silent. Even the trees, it seemed, weren't expecting the rejected Omega to have a sharp tongue and a silver blade.
I kept walking.
Into the forbidden.
Into the unknown. Into my new life.
- Writer
