CHAPTER 5
1665 Words
I ran until the world blurred. Snow kicked up around my paws, the cold slicing like knives along my fur. My wolf pushed harder with every stride, drinking in the wind, the pine, the wildness I had buried for years. My lungs burned, but it was the good kind of burn. The alive kind. The free kind.
For the first time since I was ten years old, I felt like myself again.
Or at least some version of myself I had forgotten how to be.
Ronan’s wolf stayed behind me, his dark form gliding through the trees like a shadow with teeth. He kept perfect distance, always far enough not to challenge me, but close enough to cut me off if I bolted toward danger. Typical Beta behavior. Annoying, stubborn, reliable Beta behavior.
We ran until the trees thinned and the world opened into the clearing by the frozen creek. My paws slowed on instinct. Memories flooded me. Skating with my mother. Falling. Laughing. Her warm hands helping me up.
My wolf whimpered.
It hurt. Everything hurt.
I shifted back without thinking, collapsing to my knees in the snow, breath fogging the air. My skin steamed in the cold, but I barely felt it.
Ronan shifted seconds after, landing on two feet like it was effortless. Of course it was effortless. He was good at everything except handling emotions like a normal person.
He walked toward me slowly, chest rising and falling from the run. Snow melted on his skin. His eyes stayed locked on mine with a focus that made something twist inside my stomach.
He slowly handed me some clothes that he had collected from inside one of the hollowed out trees that we had scattered through the pack for occasions just like this.
“Ayla,” he said quietly. “You should not have come out here alone.”
“I do everything alone,” I snapped. “Why would today be different?”
His jaw clenched. “You know why.”
“Oh right,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. “Because I need a babysitter. Or because you feel some heroic obligation to keep me alive.”
He stepped closer. “It is not like that.”
“Then what is it like,” I said. “Explain it. For once, explain something.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Classic Ronan. Say nothing, feel everything, bury it all.
I turned away from him, running my fingers through my hair. My wolf paced inside me, restless and sharp. Something else pulsed beneath the surface. Something I had been ignoring for too long.
“You left the house too fast,” he said behind me. “I thought you were going to shift out of control.”
“Maybe I wanted to.”
“No, you did not.”
“You do not know what I want.”
“Yes, I do.”
His voice cut through me. Firm. Unshaken. Certain.
I spun to face him. “Do not pretend you know me better than I know myself.”
He took one quiet step forward. “I always have.”
My breath hitched, and it made me furious. “Then why did you never tell me?”
He frowned. “Tell you what?”
Everything inside me snapped at once.
“That we are mates.”
Ronan went still. Completely still. His expression froze like the cold had turned him to stone. His throat worked once as if he swallowed something sharp.
“I asked you a question,” I said. “Why did you never tell me we were mates?”
His voice came out low. “Ayla. You were not supposed to know yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was not safe.”
“For who? Me or you?”
He did not answer.
I stepped closer, fury shaking through me. “You knew the whole time? Even last year? When we almost kissed?”
Ronan closed his eyes for a second, pained. “Yes.”
“And when we were best friends before your father died?” I asked.
“I was over 18. Of course I knew.” He answered.
“And you did not think I deserved to know what was happening to me?”
His eyes snapped open. “Ayla, listen. I thought I was cursed.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“I thought the bond chose you wrong,” he continued. “I thought if I got close, something terrible would happen. I thought I would ruin your life the same way my father ruined mine. I thought the Moon Goddess made a mistake.”
I let out a laugh that cracked in the middle. “You thought you were cursed?”
“Yes.”
“And that justified you hiding the truth from me?”
“I was trying to protect you.” He said softly.
“No, Ronan. You were trying to avoid me.”
His jaw tightened. “That is not true.”
“Then what is the truth,” I demanded. “Why did you run from me after almost kissing me? Why did you act like nothing happened? Why did you shut me out?”
He dropped his gaze to the snow. His voice came out rough. “Because the bond hit me so hard I could barely breathe. I was terrified I would lose myself the way my father did. You do not know what it feels like to want someone so much that it breaks you.”
I stepped forward until we were inches apart. “Yes, I do.”
His head snapped up. His eyes searched mine with a desperation I had never seen from him.
“You think you were the only one affected,” I said. “You think you were the only one confused? I always knew, Ronan. Even when I did not understand what it meant. Even before I had words for it. I felt you. I felt that pull every time I saw you. And when you pulled away, it felt like rejection.”
His breath caught.
“It felt like you looked at me and decided I was not enough. That I was not wanted. If my own mate did not want me, then why would anyone else?”
Ronan shook his head hard. “Ayla, stop. That is not true.”
“You made it true.”
“I never rejected you.”
“You acted like you did.”
He took a breath that trembled in his chest. “I was grieving. I was drowning. I thought if I touched you again, even once, I would break completely.”
“And instead you broke me.”
His face twisted, pain flashing through it. He reached for me, then stopped like touching me might burn.
“Ayla,” he said quietly. “I should have told you.”
“Yes. You should have.”
The wind whipped through the clearing. Snow swirled around us, thick and fast. My wolf surged again beneath my skin, pushing upward, urging me closer to him. She wanted him. She had always wanted him. She recognized him long before I did.
Ronan inhaled sharply. He felt it too.
“Ayla,” he whispered. “Your wolf is waking. You need to calm down before you shift again.”
“I do not want to calm down.”
“Please. Just breathe for me.”
I shook my head. “No. Not until you answer one more thing.”
He swallowed. “What?”
“Do you want me or not?”
His chest rose sharply.
Ronan’s breath still came hard, clouds of white fog rising in the cold air. His eyes were dark with something I could not name, something I was terrified to understand. The clearing felt too quiet, like the world was holding its breath with us.
He released my wrist slowly, fingers lingering longer than they should have. I did not move. I could not. My pulse hammered in my throat.
“Ayla,” he said quietly. “What you said before. About thinking you were unwanted. That is not something I can allow you to believe.”
I forced a laugh that cracked down the middle. “Too late.”
His jaw flexed. “You have no idea what you are to me.”
“Then say it,” I shot back. “Say what I am. Because I am tired of guessing.”
Ronan opened his mouth, then closed it again, frustration rippling across his expression. He stepped back like distance could save him. Or me. “It is not that simple.”
“It is exactly that simple,” I said. “You knew we were mates and you chose silence. Why? Why would you do that to me?”
He looked away, shoulders trembling from something that was not the cold. “Because I did not want you to feel trapped.”
“I already felt trapped. By confusion. By not knowing. By you.”
His eyes snapped back to mine. “I thought keeping the truth from you was mercy.”
“You were wrong,” I whispered.
Snow drifted between us, quiet and slow, like the sky itself understood the weight of what hung in the air.
Ronan took a step toward me.
I stepped back.
His face tightened. “Ayla. Do not run from me.”
“Why should I stay,” I asked.
“Because,” he said, voice breaking, “if you walk away now, I will tell you the one thing I have been trying not to say since the moment the bond hit.”
I swallowed hard. “Which is?”
Ronan hesitated.
And someone behind us said, very softly,
“Ayla? What bond?”
My father.
Standing at the tree line.
Watching everything.
And he had heard it all.
- Writer
