Chapter Four
470 Words
A Wolf Without a Pack
E . Peaceleigh
The first night outside the border, Alina slept in a rundown shed behind a gas station.
It smelled like old oil and cigarettes, and the wooden floor creaked with every breath, but it was shelter. The human town wasn’t far—just across the hills—but she didn’t dare go straight in. Not yet.
Her wolf remained silent, buried somewhere deep within her. That scared her more than anything.
She used to feel everything. The rustle of leaves. The pull of the moon. The hum of energy under her skin. Now, she felt… nothing.
No pack.
No bond.
Just silence.
By day three, she was starving.
Alina wandered into town just before sunrise. The streets were still sleepy, the bakery barely opening, the scent of warm bread making her stomach ache.
She hovered near the back door until the baker—a middle-aged woman with flour on her chin—noticed her.
“You alright, honey?” she asked.
Alina hesitated. Her throat was dry. “Do you have leftover bread?”
The woman stared, then nodded slowly and handed her a paper bag. “Come back tomorrow. I’ll save some for you.”
Alina blinked. She hadn’t expected kindness.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
That night, she cried for the first time since the rejection. Not because she was weak—but because someone saw her. Spoke to her. Gave her something warm without asking for anything back.
Weeks passed.
Alina found part-time cleaning work at a rundown motel. The owner didn’t ask for her ID. He paid her in cash and let her sleep in one of the unused rooms.
It wasn’t much, but it was something.
She scrubbed floors, cleaned beds, and avoided eye contact. Her past clung to her like shadows—always just behind her.
Sometimes, when the moon was high, she’d sit on the motel roof and stare at the stars.
“Are you watching me?” she’d whisper to the sky. “Do you regret it?”
Kael’s name never left her lips. But he was always there. In the silence. In the hollowness of her chest.
Three months after she left the pack, her wolf stirred again.
It was faint. Like a heartbeat in the distance. But it was there.
And in that moment, Alina knew: she wasn’t broken. Not anymore.
She started to run again—just short distances in the woods behind the town. Her body got stronger. Her steps lighter. She never shifted. Not yet. But something inside her was healing, slowly.
Each day, she grew a little bolder. A little wiser.
And by the sixth month, Alina Rivers was no longer the girl who’d been rejected.
She was becoming the woman who would never let it happen again.
- Writer
