The Name I Left Behind
1147 Words
The humid Florida air wraps around me the second I step onto the porch.
The morning is already warm, thick with the smell of wet grass and pine. Somewhere beyond the trees, birds call to each other. It should be peaceful. Instead, my wolf paces beneath my skin.
She has been restless ever since the dream. Restless ever since I woke with words on the bathroom mirror.
The crown wakes.
I grip the porch railing and stare toward the tree line.
I should tell Rowan.
The thought comes fast and sharp.
I should tell him about the voice. The dream. The mirror. The way Elias’s fingers touched mine and something inside me answered.
But then what?
Rowan would worry. He would call a healer. He would call my father. He would wonder whether I was safe to leave alone after what happened to my mother.
The idea of my father hearing about any of it makes my stomach turn.
He would help me.
Wouldn’t he?
The back door opens behind me.
I stiffen.
“Libbie.”
Jace.
My heart does something stupid and painful at the sound of his voice. That old familiar flutter moves through me before I can stop it. The same one that used to hit whenever he called my name from the woods behind my childhood house.
I hate it.
I hate that some part of me still knows him.
“Rowan told me to stay away from you.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I had to.”
The answer is so quiet it steals some of the anger from my voice.
When I finally look over my shoulder, he’s standing just outside the doorway. He has changed into dark jeans and a black shirt, but he looks like he hasn’t slept at all. His jaw is tight. His blue eyes are shadowed.
For the first time since I saw him at dinner, he looks less like the boy who broke my heart and more like someone carrying the same kind of grief.
That doesn’t make me forgive him. It just makes it harder to hate him.
“Rowan suspended me,” he says.
I turn fully toward him. My chest tightens.
“He said I’m not allowed on patrol. I’m not allowed in pack meetings. I’m not allowed near you unless you ask for me.”
Guilt rises sharp and immediate. Not because I think Rowan is wrong. Because this is my fault, too.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Jace’s expression changes. “Don’t.” He takes one step forward, then stops himself. “This isn’t your fault, Firefly.”
The nickname strikes somewhere tender inside me.
“You lost your place because of me.”
“I lost it because I lied.” His jaw tightens. “Rowan had every right to be angry.”
“You didn’t know I was coming.”
“No.” His eyes hold mine. “But I knew better than to keep hiding from the truth.”
The words settle heavily between us.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” I ask.
Jace looks toward the woods.
“For a while, because I was scared.” His voice is rough. “Then because I thought I could fix it first.”
“Fix what?”
His gaze returns to mine.
“Me.”
My chest aches.
“My mom changed our name after we were banished,” he says. “Calloway was hers. It was clean. It had no challenge attached to it. No whispers. No reminder of what my father did.”
“You could have told Rowan.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
His throat works.
“Because I needed to stay.”
“With Rowan’s pack?”
“When Rowan split from his father and started building this pack, he needed someone he trusted.” Jace’s voice turns quiet. “Someone who could help him hold it together while he proved he could lead.”
I know that story. Rowan had left his father’s pack with wolves who believed in him and made a territory of his own. Jace had been there for all of it.
“He made me beta,” Jace says. “And I thought if I helped him build something real, if I proved I wasn’t my father, if I became someone your dad couldn’t dismiss as a stupid kid with a crush… then maybe I could come back for you.”
My breath catches.
“I wanted to walk into your father’s house as someone he had to listen to,” he whispers. “Not a banished boy with nothing to offer you.”
The ache beneath my ribs turns sharp.
“You should have just come to me.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
His eyes are bright now, but he does not look away.
“I thought I had time,” he says. “Then years passed. Rowan’s pack needed me. You were gone. And every time I thought about finding you, I imagined you looking at me the way you looked at me last night.”
Like a stranger. Like someone who didn’t deserve to be remembered.
The birds fall silent. And Jace’s head snaps toward the woods.
He sniffs the air and his shoulders tighten.
“Did something happen last night?” he asks.
I freeze. “What makes you ask that?”
“You smell different.”
My heart stutters. “What does that mean?”
He takes a slow breath through his nose, his expression changing. Not fear. Recognition.
“You smell like rain before lightning,” he says quietly. “Like smoke. Like…” He stops.
“Like what?”
His eyes drop to my chest. Then lift again.
“Like power.” His whole expression is different now. Pain is etched across his features. “Did he mark you last night?”
Before I can answer, something crashes in the woods.
Both of us spin toward the tree line. The sound is too heavy to be a deer. Too close to be nothing.
Jace moves in front of me without thinking.
I hate how natural it feels.
“Go inside,” he says.
“You’re suspended.”
“Libbie.”
Another crash. Closer. The trees shudder. Then the smell hits me.
Blood.
Old blood.
Rotting blood.
My wolf snarls so violently inside me that pain flashes behind my eyes.
Jace’s whole body goes rigid. “Stay behind me,” he says.
But I am already moving. Not toward the house. Toward the woods. Because something is out there. Something wounded. Something calling to the part of me I don’t understand.
And deep beneath my ribs, beneath fear and guilt and everything else, a voice whispers—
Come.
- Writer
