Chapter 6
Myra's POV
The wolf's jaws hovered inches from my throat, its teeth bared, eyes burning gold in the darkness.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. The weight of its massive body crushed me into the forest floor.
This was it.
After everything, this would be how I died, killed by a wild wolf.
I had run from the only home I’d ever known. Betrayed and rejected. Left to rot like discarded prey. And now nature would finish what my pack had started.
I blinked up at the wolf. Its breath blew hot and foul across my face. Its growl vibrated through my ribs, making the pain there pulse and throb.
No, I will not die here, sudden will sparked up in my chest.
Just as the beast lunged, that spark became a flame.
A strange light flared behind my eyes. Silver. And then I heard something in my mind not aloud.
A voice whispering.
"Speak, Chosen. Command."
My lips moved before I understood the words.
"Go. Leave me in peace."
The voice that came out of me wasn’t mine. It was layered, as if I spoke with a hundred echoes behind me. The forest itself seemed to still.
The wolf froze.
Its growl died. Its ears twitched. Its golden eyes widened. Then, slowly, it lowered its head.
And backed away.
I stared in disbelief as it slinked into the shadows, disappearing into the thicket as if it had never been.
Then the pain rushed back.
Everything crashed down again the freezing cold, the ache in my limbs, the burning in my stomach. I rolled onto my side, heaving, coughing up water and bile.
I was alive.
But I wasn’t sure that mattered.
I crawled until I couldn’t anymore.
Lightning flashed above, lighting up the forest like a terrible dream. Every crash of thunder felt like it cracked through my chest.
I found a tree with enough cover to crawl under. Barely. The branches above did little to block the rain, but it was shelter enough.
I curled into myself, wrapping my arms around my belly.
I was shaking. Not from fear this time.
From a fever.
Cramping rocked through me, fierce and relentless. I threw up again, the bitter taste sticking to my tongue. My hands shook as I wiped my mouth.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
To the baby growing inside me. To the life I hadn’t meant to create in this world of cruelty and cold.
"I'm so sorry."
The storm went on for hours. Or maybe minutes. Time was useless. All I knew was the rain, the wind, and the heat under my skin that made me feel like I was burning and freezing at once.
And then the memories came. Until I was delirious with the barrage of them. Malik’s voice as he rejected me.
Evelyn’s laugh in the hall.
The elders’ words.
The sound of my own sobs echoing in a stone cell.
The laughter of children when I failed to shift. When I stood there, on my sixteenth birthday, while everyone else transformed and I... didn’t.
My mother’s gentle hands. My father’s voice calling me brave.
"Why?" I screamed into the storm. Why had everything changed so much.
The wind carried my voice away.
"Why did you choose me? What am I supposed to be without a home, a mate, or a wolf?"
I swore I saw her again.
The Moon Goddess.
Silver light in the trees. A figure standing with eyes full of sorrow.
But she didn’t speak this time.
She only watched and then she was gone. The world slipped away and I let it.
Warmth.
That was the first thing I felt.
Softness under my head. A blanket over my body. The smell of herbs and something cooking.
I opened my eyes.
Wooden walls. Straw on the floor. A small window letting in the golden light of morning. A fire crackled softly in a nearby stove.
I was inside a house, not in the forest. Not dead.
I sat up too quickly. Pain shot through me, but I didn’t care.
Where was I?
A folded cloth dropped from my forehead to my lap. I clutched the edge of the mattress.
The door creaked open.
A tall figure stood in the doorway, a man with broad shoulders, shaggy hair and rough clothes.
Not pack.
A rogue.
And he was staring right at me.