The Alpha's Forgotten Daughter

What the Forest Remembered

I returned to the northern overlook before sunrise.

Not because Mara told me to.

Not because the Alpha sent me.

Not because anyone in Beaumont expected me anywhere at all.

I went because, for the first time in my life, I was tired of waiting for permission to understand myself.

The village still slept behind me.

Smoke curled lazily from a few chimneys, gray against the pale-blue hush of morning. Frost clung to rooftops and fence posts. The muddy paths from yesterday's rain had hardened overnight, leaving shallow footprints frozen into the ground like memories the earth refused to release.

My boots crunched softly with every step.

Too loud.

Everything felt too loud when I was trying not to be seen.

I kept my cloak pulled tightly around me and stayed close to the shadows between cottages until Beaumont disappeared behind the trees.

Only then did I breathe.

Really breathe.

The forest welcomed me with cold air and silence.

Not empty silence.

Listening silence.

The kind that made every branch seem aware of my passing.

I used to come here because the forest never asked anything of me.

Now I wasn't so sure.

Maybe it had been asking all along.

Maybe I simply hadn't known how to listen.

My hand drifted to my chest.

The warmth from last night was gone.

In its place was the familiar quiet I had carried for nineteen years.

Only it wasn't familiar anymore.

Before, the silence inside me had felt like proof that something was missing.

Now it felt like a covered well.

Deep.

Dark.

Hidden.

But not empty.

My steps slowed as the path climbed toward the overlook.

Snow still clung to patches of earth beneath the trees, though yesterday's rain had washed most of it from the open ground. The fallen log came into view first, dark and slick with moisture. Beyond it, the cliff dropped away into the valley, where Beaumont lay tucked between forest and stone like a secret trying to look ordinary.

I stopped at the edge of the clearing.

The air smelled of wet pine.

Cold earth.

And faintly...

Lavender.

My throat tightened.

"Talia."

Her name slipped from my lips before I could stop it.

It still felt new.

Fragile.

Like a candle flame cupped between both hands.

For nineteen years, my mother had been a blank space.

A locked room.

A scent.

A whisper.

Now she had a name.

And somehow...

That made losing her hurt even more.

I walked to the fallen log and sat where I had sat the night I first heard her voice.

The wood was cold beneath me.

Damp seeped through my dress almost immediately.

I didn't move.

Below, Beaumont slowly began to wake.

A distant door opened.

A dog barked.

Somewhere, a rooster crowed too early and far too proudly.

Normal sounds.

A normal morning.

The kind of morning that should have made yesterday feel impossible.

It didn't.

The rogue's words lived beneath my skin now.

They told us you were dead.

They erased you.

You were loved.

I closed my eyes.

My fingers curled into my cloak.

If you're there...

I spoke only inside my mind.

I'm listening.

Nothing.

Only the wind moving through the branches.

I swallowed the disappointment before it could grow teeth.

Maybe I was asking too much.

Maybe whatever had answered me last night had already used all the strength it had.

Maybe my wolf was buried so deeply that one flutter had been a miracle.

Still...

I tried again.

Not louder.

Deeper.

I imagined lowering my voice into the quiet place beneath my ribs.

The locked place.

If you can hear me...

I'm here.

For several heartbeats, nothing changed.

Then the air shifted.

Not outside.

Inside.

A warmth flickered low in my chest.

Small.

Unsteady.

Like a spark struggling against wet wood.

My eyes flew open.

I didn't dare move.

The warmth pulsed once.

Then again.

Not words.

Not a voice.

But not nothing.

A laugh caught in my throat.

It broke into something dangerously close to a sob.

"I felt you."

The warmth trembled.

Then faded.

"No."

My palm pressed hard against my chest.

"Stay."

A whisper.

"Please."

The plea embarrassed me.

I sounded desperate.

Maybe I was.

A soft pressure answered beneath my ribs.

Weak.

Tired.

But real.

The world blurred.

I blinked.

For a moment...

The overlook changed.

The trees remained.

The cliff remained.

But the light shifted.

Morning became twilight.

The air grew heavy with the promise of rain.

The fallen log beneath me disappeared.

I wasn't sitting anymore.

I was standing.

No...

Watching.

A woman stood near the cliff's edge, her cloak whipping wildly around her legs.

Dark hair streamed behind her.

One hand rested protectively over her stomach.

The other clutched something silver against her chest.

My breath stopped.

Talia.

I knew it without seeing her face.

Every part of me knew.

My mother turned her head slightly, as though listening to someone behind her.

Another figure stood beneath the trees.

Tall.

Cloaked.

Hidden by shadow.

I strained to see the face.

The vision trembled.

The warmth inside my chest flared in warning.

Talia's voice drifted through the storm.

Broken.

Distant.

"...she cannot stay hidden forever."

The shadowed figure answered.

The wind swallowed every word.

Talia shook her head.

"No."

A heartbeat.

"Not Ashley."

My heart slammed against my ribs.

The vision flickered.

I reached toward her, though I knew I wasn't truly there.

Talia turned just enough for me to see her profile.

Soft mouth.

High cheekbones.

Eyes like mine.

My eyes.

Then the silver object in her hand caught the moonlight.

A pendant.

No larger than her palm.

A star cradled inside a crescent moon.

The warmth beneath my ribs surged.

I gasped.

The vision shattered.

Morning returned all at once.

Cold air.

Pale sky.

The damp log beneath me.

My hands shook.

I stared at the empty place where Talia had stood.

"No."

My voice cracked.

"Come back."

Nothing.

The forest remained still.

I could still see the way her cloak had moved.

Still hear the broken echo of her voice.

Not Ashley.

I stood too quickly.

The world tilted.

I caught myself against the fallen log.

What did it mean?

Not Ashley...

Not Ashley what?

Chosen?

Hunted?

Protected?

My thoughts chased every possibility and caught none.

A horn sounded from the village.

Then another.

The search party.

I stepped back from the overlook.

My boot struck something hidden beneath the edge of the fallen log.

A hollow sound echoed upward.

Not wood against stone.

Wood against something buried.

I froze.