Aria
I ran.
Not with the quiet of sorrow, but with the fury of a storm.
The healer’s walls had barely stopped echoing by the time I was already sprinting barefoot across the courtyard, past the stables, past the edge of the Blue Stone Pack’s grounds and into the woods that had once offered me shelter.
Not this time. This time, I didn’t want peace. I wanted to scream. To burn. To break something.
Tears blurred my vision, but they didn’t slow me. I pushed deeper into the forest until the sound of the Pack House disappeared and all I could hear was the pounding of my own heart.
Then I let go. I shifted.
Silver light exploded from my skin as my wolf took control. The moment my paws hit the dirt, I was gone. No thoughts. No control. Just rage.
I lunged at trees, tearing bark from trunks with my claws. I snarled at the moon, howled until my throat felt raw. My body moved on instinct—slashing, crashing, ripping the pain out of my chest and throwing it into the world.
The bond pulsed violently under my skin. The mark on my neck throbbed with betrayal. And still I ran.
I don’t know how long I ran before I felt him.
His presence was like heat through the cold—a pressure in the air, in the ground, in my blood.
Matthew.
I didn’t want to see him. Not ever again. But there he was.
He stood a few feet away in the clearing, his chest rising and falling like he’d run after me. His clothes were rumpled, his eyes wild with something between panic and pain.
“Aria,” he called softly.
I shifted back with a snarl, hair messy, skin raw, breath coming in gasps. “Stay away from me.”
“I didn’t kiss her,” he said quickly. “She kissed me. I stopped it.”
I laughed—sharp and broken. “The problem isn’t that she kissed you, Matthew.”
His jaw tensed. “Then what—”
“It’s that you didn’t run the second she got close!” I shouted, stepping toward him. “You let her touch you! You stood there and let her try! You knew what I was going through, what Ryle said, what I saw! And you still—”
“I didn’t do anything!” he yelled back. “You think I wanted her near me?”
“No,” I snapped, “but you didn’t stop it either. You let her treat me like garbage. You let your father strip me of my title. You let the pack mock me and did nothing.”
He stepped closer, eyes blazing. “I defended you. I carried you. I’ve fought this bond every second since I marked you, and I’m still here, aren’t I?!”
My hands balled into fists. “You don’t get points for showing up late, Matthew.”
“This whole time, you’ve made yourself a victim,” he spat. “You act like everyone’s out to break you—”
“They are! And you stood at the front of the line!”
He flinched. And still I kept going.
“You’re the reason I can’t look in the mirror without flinching,” I said, voice cracking. “The way you looked at me that first day—the way you said ‘cow’ like it was my name—you branded that into me. Every insult after that just confirmed what I already knew: that I wasn’t enough.”
His chest rose and fell. “That’s not true.”
“It is!” I cried. “You broke me in ways you don’t even see, and now you want to patch it with a sorry look and excuses.”
“I never meant to—”
“I don’t care what you meant!” I screamed. “You did it. You made me small, and then punished me for staying small.”
He took a shaky step toward me. “Aria—”
“No,” I said, quieter this time. My voice wobbled, but it didn’t break. “I’ve been waiting that one day you’d look at me and not see a mistake. But I’m done waiting for something you’ll never give.”
He stared at me like the ground had just crumbled beneath him. I straightened my spine. My voice is calm now. Clear.
“I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Reject me.”
He froze.
“What?”
“Reject me. Right now.”
“Aria—”
“I’d rather die free,” I said, stepping into his space, “than live claimed by someone like you.”