Not Broken
1112 Words
Ravyn’s POV
I was on the ground, gasping, my fingers clawing at the dirt, slipping because it was wet with my blood.
It wouldn’t stop.
No matter how hard I pressed my hand to my waist, it just kept coming, thick and warm, soaking through my clothes, seeping into the leaves beneath me. I could feel it leaving my body, little by little, and I couldn’t stop it.
Every breath hurt.
Not a sharp pain. Just wrong. Like my lungs were burning instead of filling with air. My hands shook so badly my teeth started knocking together, and I had to bite down hard to keep from crying out.
Gods, it hurt.
And not just the knife.
That pain was clean. Sharp. Almost simple compared to the ache tearing through my chest. The rejection sat there, heavy and raw, like someone had reached inside me and ripped something out without bothering to be gentle.
I sobbed before I could stop myself.
I hadn’t wanted him to love me. I really hadn’t. I wasn’t stupid enough for that.
I just hadn’t wanted to be humiliated.
I hadn’t wanted the laughter. The looks. The way everyone stared at me like I was something embarrassing that had wandered into the wrong place.
I hadn’t wanted to be chosen just so I could be thrown away in front of everyone.
Tears slid down my face, into my hair, into the dirt beneath my cheek. I couldn’t lift my arms to wipe them away, My legs felt heavy, my whole body felt like it was sinking and the heat that crawled through my body felt like I was being placed ontop of a pyre.
I was so tired.
The forest around me seemed to blur, edges fading in and out. The darkness in the woods pressed closer, like it was waiting.
Then I heard it, the sounds of leaves crunching. Footsteps.
My heart jumped painfully in my chest. For a split second, I was sure they’d come back. To make sure I was really dead this time.
Panic surged through me, sharp and sudden. I tried to move, dragging myself backward with my elbows, inch by inch. Pain exploded through my side and I cried out, collapsing flat again.
“Please,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure who I was talking to anymore. “Please, I don’t—”
The sound changed.
The steps were heavier now. Faster. Closer.
Something moved through the trees like it didn’t care what was in its way. Branches snapped. The air shifted, thick and sharp, carrying a scent I didn’t recognize, something wild and the metallic smell of blood.
Fear hit me cold.
Whatever was coming wasn’t here to help.
I forced my hands under me, trying to push myself up. My legs shook, barely holding my weight. I leaned against a tree, biting back a scream as pain tore through me again.
I tried to scream anyway.
It came out as nothing, broken and barely louder than my breath.
My chest fluttered, my heart stuttering like it couldn’t decide whether to keep going.
Then I saw him.
He came out of the trees like something straight out of a nightmare.
Rowan Bloodshade.
He was massive. Bigger than I’d imagined. His eyes glowed silver in the dark, wrong and too bright. His body was half-shifted, bones clearly out of place, skin split where fur pushed through. He was covered in blood. Not all of it his.
I recognized him instantly.
The pack’s monster, the feral heir, the one they locked away and pretended didn’t exist.
He stopped when he saw me, just froze.
For a second, neither of us moved. I stood there, pressed against the tree, blood running down my side, staring at the thing everyone warned us about.
Then his head snapped up.
His nostrils flared. His eyes locked onto me with terrifying focus, my blood.
Something dark crossed his face. Hunger. Raw and uncontrolled.
“No,” I breathed. “No—” My voice broke, and another hot pulse of blood spilled from my waist.
"Please..." He'd already pounced onto me before I could react.
One moment he was standing there, the next his weight crushed me into the ground, the impact knocking the air out of my lungs.
Pain ripped through my body as his hands pinned me down, his claws digging into the earth beside my head.
I sobbed, struggling weakly beneath him. “Please—please don’t—”
He didn’t stop, his teeth sank into my neck.
The pain was blinding.
Not like the knife, his was deeper. Hotter. Like something tearing through my veins from the inside. I screamed, my body arching against my will as something inside me snapped open, like a door forced wide after being shut for years.
Then— he pulled back abruptly.
He staggered away from me, clutching his head, breathing hard like he was the one being torn apart now.
“What—” he choked.
I lay there, staring up at the sky, my heart pounding wildly. I should’ve been dead. I knew that. I could feel blood on my neck, warm and sticky, but it wasn’t getting worse.
I wasn’t dying.
Something else was happening.
Heat bloomed in my chest, spreading fast, rolling through me. My wound burned, then itched, then tightened, like my skin was pulling itself back together.
I cried out again, but this time it wasn’t with fear.
I could feel my bones crack.
My spine arched as pain tore through me, sharp and consuming. I screamed until my throat burned, until the sound that came out of me didn’t sound human anymore.
Fur burst through my skin.
Silver, bright and blinding.
Power surged through me, wild and overwhelming, stealing the breath from my lungs.
I was shifting...I was shifting!
Everything exploded at once. Sound. Scent. Awareness. The pain vanished as suddenly as it had come, replaced by strength so intense it made my head spin.
When I opened my eyes, the world wasn’t the same.
It was clearer. Sharper. Bigger.
I looked down at myself, Silver fur. Thick. Real.
I breathed in, and it felt too full, too strong. I lifted my head slowly.
Rowan was staring at me, not like a monster.
Like he was afraid of what he was seeing before him.“No,” he whispered. “That’s not possible.”
But it was, because standing before him, reflected in his eyes, was my wolf.
The same silver.
The same power humming between us, alive and aware.
And somewhere deep inside my chest, something finally settled.
I wasn’t broken, I never had been, I had a wolf.
- Writer
