CHAPTER 4 — The Bond That Never Existed
1320 Words
Avana closed her eyes instinctively.
Deep within herself, she reached for the familiar warmth she had spent years longing to feel. The presence every werewolf was born with. The invisible connection that tied them to their true nature. The companion that lived within their soul.
Her wolf.
The second heartbeat that should have always existed inside her.
The silent presence gifted by the Moon Goddess.
The bond that connected every werewolf to their instincts, their strength, and the deepest part of who they were.
Avana searched for it.
She reached inward, past the pain, past the fear, past every memory that had wounded her.
She waited for something.
A response.
A flicker of warmth.
A sign that she was not truly alone.
But nothing came.
There was no answering howl.
No comforting presence.
No spark of life awakening within her.
Only silence.
Only the same emptiness she had known for years.
It had been like this since she was twelve years old.
Since the day she first realized that the wolf everyone else carried so naturally was missing from her.
A painful truth she had been forced to live with for half of her life.
Yet, even after all these years, a small part of her still hoped.
Perhaps this time would be different.
Perhaps after everything she had suffered, after every humiliation and every wound she had endured, the Moon Goddess would finally answer her.
Perhaps something inside her would finally awaken.
With trembling determination, Avana reached deeper.
She searched every corner of her soul.
She called silently.
She pleaded.
She waited.
But nothing answered.
The emptiness inside her felt greater than the prison surrounding her. The cold stone walls, the iron bars, and the darkness of the dungeon suddenly seemed smaller than the hollow space inside her own chest.
Her head lowered.
“Why?”
The word escaped her lips in a broken whisper.
“Moon Goddess…”
Her voice trembled as she looked into the darkness above her.
“What did I do?”
“What sin could a twelve-year-old child have committed?”
“Why did You leave me?”
The dungeon remained silent.
No divine voice answered.
No warmth surrounded her.
No miracle came.
Only the endless sound of water dripping somewhere in the distance.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Her questions disappeared into the cold air, swallowed by the darkness that surrounded her.
They traveled through the empty tunnels, searching for an answer that never arrived.
It felt as though even the ancient walls of the dungeon refused to listen.
As though the very place where she had been imprisoned had become another witness to every prayer that had gone unanswered.
Then suddenly, laughter broke through the silence.
Avana opened her eyes but did not move.
Beyond the iron bars of her cell stood two prison guards.
One of them leaned casually against the stone wall, chewing on a piece of dried meat with a careless expression. He looked completely unaffected by the fact that a wounded woman was locked inside the cell before him.
To him, her suffering was nothing more than entertainment.
“I’ll give her two days,” he said.
The second guard laughed mockingly.
“Two days?”
He glanced toward Avana’s cell and shook his head.
“You’re being too generous.”
His gaze moved over her weakened body.
“She doesn’t even have a wolf.”
A cruel smile formed on his face.
“I doubt she will survive until sunrise.”
The first guard chuckled.
“Maybe she’ll save everyone the trouble and give up before then.”
Their laughter filled the corridor.
It was cold.
It was careless.
It carried the kind of cruelty that came from people who had forgotten how to see others as human beings.
Avana remained silent.
She had learned long ago that cruel people depended on reactions.
They wanted anger.
They wanted desperation.
They wanted tears.
They wanted to see proof that their words had reached inside her and broken something.
She refused to give them that victory.
Her silence was the only thing they could not take away from her.
But eventually, even the strongest walls began to weaken.
And Avana’s body had reached its limit.
The strength holding her upright slowly disappeared.
Her legs gave out beneath her, and she slid down the cold stone wall until she was sitting on the freezing floor.
The moment her back touched the ground, pain tore through every wound across her body.
Her fingers tightened around the torn fabric of her servant dress.
A sharp breath escaped her.
She quickly pressed her lips together, refusing to allow herself to make a sound.
Her breathing became uneven as every injury reminded her of the same cruel reality.
She was still alive.
Even when she wished she could escape the pain.
Avana closed her eyes.
But darkness did not bring peace.
Instead, it opened the door to memories she had spent years trying to bury.
She saw her mother’s funeral.
She remembered the absence of comfort.
The absence of kindness.
The absence of anyone willing to stand beside a grieving child.
She remembered stones.
Not flowers.
Not prayers.
Not gentle hands offering protection.
Only stones thrown by children who laughed as they watched her suffer.
She remembered the adults standing nearby.
The ones who saw everything.
The ones who did nothing.
Some had even joined.
She remembered reaching toward a grieving woman, desperate for even the smallest sign of compassion.
A single touch.
A single word of kindness.
But the woman had pulled away immediately.
As though Avana carried something dangerous.
As though her pain itself was something contagious.
Then another voice had spoken.
Loud enough for everyone around them to hear.
“Stay away from the cursed girl.”
Those words followed her everywhere.
Cursed girl.
Monster.
Abomination.
Names people had given her before she was even old enough to understand why they hated her.
Even the gifts brought for her mother’s funeral had disappeared before the day ended.
Bianca had taken everything.
Every basket.
Every blanket.
Every coin.
Every sack of grain.
Every small act of kindness that had been meant for a child who had just lost her mother.
And no one stopped her.
No one questioned her.
No one returned a single thing.
Because everyone had already decided what Avana was.
A curse.
A mistake.
Someone who did not deserve mercy.
Another memory rose from the darkness.
Alpha Damon.
Standing before the entire pack.
Tall.
Powerful.
Untouchable.
Every person watching him as though his judgment was the final truth.
Avana remembered looking up at him.
She had been only a child.
A frightened child searching his face for something she desperately needed.
A sign of kindness.
A sign that someone would protect her.
But she found nothing.
Only coldness.
His voice had been calm.
Controlled.
Completely without mercy.
“You are less than human.”
Those four words had destroyed something inside her.
More deeply than every punishment.
More painfully than every insult.
More permanently than every wound inflicted upon her body.
A tear slipped down her cheek.
Avana immediately lifted her trembling hand and wiped it away before it could fall.
She stared at the small drop of moisture on her fingertips.
“No.”
Her voice was quiet, but there was strength beneath it.
“No.”
She repeated the word again, refusing to let herself break.
She refused to let the past define her.
She refused to become the broken girl everyone expected her to be.
Yet deep within the darkness of the underground prison, one question refused to leave her.
Avana slowly lifted her eyes to the endless darkness.
"...Tell me..."
"...when you've stripped a person of everything they thought they could lose..."
She fell silent.
Then, almost as though she feared the answer —
"...what is it that you always come back for... in the end?”
- Writer
