Chapter 13: The Girl Who Doesn't Look Back
1140 Words
POV Dorian
She walked away.
And I let her.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I couldn’t bear to watch her stop feeling anything when I opened my mouth.
I stood at the base of the stairs long after she disappeared. My hand rested on the railing like I could still feel the heat of her fingertips. The house felt colder. Not empty. Just… wrong. Like it had been made to contain something that no longer wanted to be contained. Like it knew she wasn’t going to stay.
I didn’t go to my room.
I went to the cellar.
Where the scent of her wasn’t.
Where the walls didn’t remember her.
Where I could be weak.
The fire was dead. The stone was cold. I sat in the chair by the corner wall and let the silence close over me like water. I didn’t move for a long time. Not because I was tired. Because I didn’t trust what would come out if I did.
I thought about Feli.
The last woman who had stood in this house and told me I wasn’t enough.
Only she hadn’t used words.
She used lies.
Secrets.
Another man’s hands on her when she thought I wouldn’t feel it.
But I did.
Because the bond doesn’t break quietly.
It shatters.
And I’d felt every piece.
I remembered the way she used to laugh when no one was listening. How she hated the way the wolves bowed. How she wanted freedom, and said it like a curse, like a challenge. She’d loved me. I think. Once. Or maybe she loved the power. The legend. The safety.
But not the beast inside.
Not the man.
And when she betrayed me, I didn’t rage.
I didn’t scream.
I buried it.
Like a good Alpha.
Then I banished her with a kiss to her forehead and a fire in her room.
I never looked back.
Not once.
Until now.
Because now there was her.
Beatrice.
Who didn’t need to betray me to hurt me.
She just had to leave.
And the worst part?
I wouldn’t stop her.
Because she was made for more than this house. More than this pack. More than me.
I’d known it the first time I smelled her blood in the forest.
But I’d ignored it.
Because I wanted her anyway.
Wanted her like a starving thing wants heat.
Like a dying man wants memory.
I thought I could control it.
But I couldn’t even look at her without forgetting who I was supposed to be.
Tonight, when she said maybe she didn’t want to understand me—
That was when I realized the truth.
If she left…
She wouldn’t come back.
Not because she hated me.
But because she’d survived without me.
And I wouldn’t survive without her.
Not this time.
POV Beatrice
I couldn’t sleep. Not from fear. Not from pain. From noise. Not outside, not in the house. Inside me. The kind of noise that doesn’t speak in words, but pulses in your blood until you forget what your own thoughts sound like. I sat at the window for hours. Watching the trees shift. Listening to the wind move like it was carrying secrets I wasn’t allowed to hear yet. I kept thinking about what Zane said. About the way Dorian looked at me—like I was already half-gone. About the fact that maybe I was.
But I didn’t want to be.
Not yet.
Not without knowing what the hell I was supposed to do with everything crashing around inside me.
So I got up.
Walked barefoot through the dark hall, quiet as breath, my hand skimming the wall like I needed something solid to remind me I still belonged to this place.
His door was closed.
I didn’t knock.
I didn’t have to.
He opened it a second before my knuckles touched the wood.
He looked tired.
Not angry.
Not guarded.
Just… surprised.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
He stepped aside.
I walked in.
The room was dim. The fire low. Papers scattered on the table like he’d been trying to busy his hands with anything that wasn’t me.
I stood in the middle of the floor and turned to face him.
“I’m not here to argue,” I said.
He nodded once.
“I’m not here to apologize.”
Another nod.
“I just… need you to tell me what to do.”
That broke the silence.
He blinked. “You’re asking me?”
“I’m not asking for answers,” I said quickly. “I’m asking for… something real. Something that isn’t power or instinct or rules or fear. Because I’m drowning in all of it, and I can’t tell what’s mine anymore.”
He moved closer, slowly, carefully, like I was a wounded thing he didn’t want to scare.
“I thought you didn’t want me deciding anything for you.”
“I don’t,” I whispered. “I want you to stay while I decide.”
That did something to him. I saw it in his jaw. In the way his breath caught just once, sharp and sudden like a heartbeat skipping a step.
He sat in the chair by the fire and didn’t look away.
“I’m scared too,” he said.
“Of me?”
“Of what you’ll become.”
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“And if I don’t become what you expect?”
“Then I’ll adjust.”
I laughed once—quiet, not cruel.
“I don’t believe you.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Neither do I.”
I moved to the edge of the desk, sat without asking.
“I feel everything now,” I said. “Not just emotions. Pressure. Energy. Like I’m full of something I can’t contain, and every time I try to push it down, it pushes back harder.”
“You’re not meant to contain it.”
“I’m not sure I’m meant to survive it.”
His eyes softened.
“You will.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re still standing.”
We sat in silence after that.
But it wasn’t heavy.
It wasn’t empty.
It was the first silence between us that felt like a choice, not a failure.
After a while, I whispered, “I don’t want to lose myself.”
He looked at me, and for once, there was no power in his gaze. No weight. No warning.
Just understanding.
“I don’t want you to, either.”
I reached for the blanket on the chair next to me, wrapped it around my legs.
“I’m staying,” I said, “for now.”
He nodded.
Not as Alpha.
As Dorian.
And maybe, for tonight, that was enough.
- Writer
