CHAPTER 5
1380 Words
For a long moment, I couldn’t breathe.
The storm, the courtyard, Kael’s humiliation—everything faded as a new sensation rippled beneath my skin. Warm. Electric. Like veins igniting one by one. My hearing sharpened further; I could hear the wind curling around the trees, the distant shuffle of wolves, even Aidan’s heartbeat—slow, deep, steady.
That shouldn’t have been possible.
I stared at my hands. They trembled, but not from cold this time. Something pulsed under my fingertips, a strange vibration humming through my arms. I curled my fingers into fists, but the sensation didn’t stop.
“Aidan,” I whispered. “This isn’t real.”
“It is.” His voice was low, careful, as if any sudden movement might break me open. “Your wolf is starting to surface.”
“No. That can’t happen. I’m nineteen. Awakenings happen at sixteen.” My breath hitched. “It should’ve happened years ago.”
“Not always.”
“That’s what they told me.” I laughed weakly, though nothing felt funny. “Or what they told themselves to make sense of it.”
Aidan stepped closer, stormlight catching in his golden irises. “There are late awakenings. Rare. Powerful. Wolves who don’t surface because something in their lives suppresses them.”
My stomach tightened. “Like what?”
His jaw shifted slightly. “Oppression. Abuse. Trauma. Being constantly pushed down until your wolf has nowhere to breathe.”
That hit too close to home.
I looked away. The rain fell harder now, an unrelenting curtain around us.
Aidan’s voice softened. “You’ve spent your life being told you were weak. And your wolf listened.” He paused. “But she’s listening to something different now.”
I swallowed. “To what?”
“To me,” he said simply.
The words landed like a blow. Not a painful one—more like the air had been knocked from my lungs.
“Aidan—”
He stepped even closer, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his bare skin despite the rain. His presence wrapped around me like a physical force. Not suffocating—stabilizing.
“When I carried you out of the forest,” he murmured, “your scent hit me with full force. Not just your human scent. Your wolf’s. She’s near the surface. Closer than she’s ever been.”
My pulse raced. “I don’t feel like a wolf.”
“You feel everything,” he said. “More than before. Or you wouldn’t have heard Seraphine.”
I froze.
He noticed.
“Your senses are sharpening,” he continued. “That’s the first sign. Next comes speed. Strength. The bond pulling you toward what’s yours.”
“I don’t want a bond.”
“Wanting has nothing to do with it.”
I flinched. Aidan’s expression shifted instantly—less edge, more restraint.
He let out a slow, controlled breath. “Lina. I’m not asking you to accept me. I’m telling you what your body already knows.”
“I don’t want my life decided for me,” I whispered.
Aidan’s gaze softened—barely, but unmistakably. “It already was. Long before I returned.”
Those words sank deep.
He stepped back finally, giving me space, though the air still buzzed with the strange energy between us.
“You’re freezing,” he said. “We need to get out of the open.”
I hesitated. “Where are you taking me?”
“My camp.”
“That’s not pack territory.”
“Exactly.”
My chest tightened. “Aidan, if I leave the grounds—”
“Kael loses any claim he thinks he has,” he finished. “Which is exactly what I want.”
“But the elders—”
“The elders have had five years without a real Alpha. They’ll survive a night more.”
I followed his gaze to the forest. Dark. Wild. Deep. The storm churned overhead, the rain relentless. Part of me wanted to turn back, hide, vanish. Another part—new and terrifying—felt pulled toward the trees.
Pulled toward him.
Aidan turned, offering me his hand.
Not grabbing.
Not demanding.
Just offering.
“Can you walk?”
My legs trembled, but I nodded. “Yeah.”
He didn’t believe me. I could see it in the way his eyes narrowed slightly. But he didn’t question further. He just stayed close enough that his warmth brushed my soaked skin as we started toward the forest.
Each step made the new sensation inside me thrum harder—like a heartbeat under my heartbeat. A rhythm out of sync. A drum trying to find its place.
The courtyard’s torches disappeared behind us. Pack voices faded. Only the forest remained, vast and alive with sound. Branches creaked. Leaves trembled. Thunder rolled overhead.
Aidan kept his stride steady, alert, scanning every shadow. His senses were everywhere, his body taut with readiness.
“Do you always watch your surroundings like that?” I asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“Even now?”
“Especially now.”
“Why?”
His gaze flicked toward me. “Because you’re with me.”
Something in my chest flipped.
We followed a barely visible trail until the trees thickened enough to swallow the stormlight. The world turned dim and blurred. My vision sharpened instinctively, picking up details I never noticed before—the way moss glowed faintly on bark, the scent of pine carried by the wind, the heartbeat of a rabbit somewhere to the left.
I stumbled.
Aidan caught my elbow before I hit the ground.
I gasped at the jolt that shot up my arm.
His touch.
The bond.
It was like fire spreading under my skin.
He pulled his hand back immediately, jaw tightening. “It’s getting stronger.”
“No,” I whispered. “I’m just… cold.”
He didn’t argue, but his expression said everything.
We kept walking until a soft glow appeared through the trees. Lanterns. Old ones. Three of them hanging from a thick branch above a clearing.
A cabin stood beneath it—larger than the pack’s outposts, smaller than a home. Smoke curled lightly from the chimney. Wooden steps led to a porch. It looked lived-in but hidden, like it belonged to someone who didn’t want to be found.
Aidan.
He motioned me forward. “Inside.”
I climbed the steps, breath trembling as thunder cracked behind us. He opened the door, and warmth washed over me instantly—a roaring fire, soft light, the faint scent of herbs and rain.
I stepped inside.
Aidan followed and shut the door behind us.
The cabin felt too small all of a sudden. Or maybe Aidan felt too big.
His chest rose, fell. His eyes tracked every movement I made.
“You should change,” he said. “There’s dry clothing in the chest by the bed.”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
I turned toward the chest, but before I took two steps, something ripped through me—hot, sharp, explosive. I gasped, dropping to my knees as my vision blurred.
Aidan was beside me instantly.
“Lina!”
A second pulse of heat hit, rolling under my skin, twisting my stomach, tightening my muscles like they didn’t belong to me.
“What—what is—”
Aidan’s eyes widened, golden and bright.
“It’s happening,” he whispered.
“What’s happening?!”
“Your wolf,” he said, voice rough. “She’s waking now.”
The heat surged again, stronger, almost unbearable.
My fingers dug into the wooden floor.
Aidan knelt in front of me, hands hovering near my arms but not touching.
“Lina,” he said softly, voice steady despite the storm of panic rising in me. “Look at me.”
I forced my eyes up.
“Don’t fight it,” he murmured. “Let her through.”
Another wave of heat crashed over me, tearing a cry from my throat.
Aidan leaned closer.
“She’s coming,” he whispered. “And when she does, nothing in this pack will ever be the same.”
Lightning split the sky outside.
My body convulsed—
—and something ancient and wild rose inside me like a scream.
- Writer
