The wind carried nothing but emptiness.
I had left the clearing hours ago, yet the echoes of the rejection clung to me like smoke. Each step across the forest floor felt heavier than the last, my boots sinking slightly into the damp earth as if the ground itself wanted me to stop. I wanted to stop. I wanted to curl into the hollows of the woods and disappear completely.
But I couldn't.
Not yet.
His voice had lingered long after the words left his mouth. "I reject the bond." Not: I'm hurt. I don't understand. I need time. No, that would have been easier. This was deliberate. Final. Public.
The bond throbbed beneath my ribs, relentless. I hated it. I hated him. I hated the way my body betrayed me, stirring with a heat I couldn't name, a need I would not allow. My pulse, uneven and insistent, reminded me that part of me had been tethered to him since the beginning. That part of me was not gone.
I stumbled onto a small clearing surrounded by thick pines. Sunlight speared through the branches in shafts that made dust float like sparks. I sank to the ground, knees drawn to my chest, and finally let my hands fall from fists to open palms.
I replayed the scene in my mind, over and over. Every detail, every whisper, every flash of the pack's eyes. I could almost hear the hum of their judgment, sharp and invasive.
And then, in the quiet, a shadow appeared at the edge of my awareness. Not him. Not yet. Just a memory: the brush of his hand when we thought no one was looking, the weight of his gaze that could burn without touching.
I gritted my teeth and shoved it away. I refused to let him exist in my thoughts any longer. I was supposed to hate him. I was supposed to leave this forest and never return.
And yet, even as I sat there, my body betraying me with restless heat and the aching pulse of the bond, I realized something frightening. He had not been entirely wrong. I had been underestimated. But not by the pack. By myself.
I had allowed him to define my worth. And that ends now.
I rose, stretching long and slow, feeling every muscle awaken, every nerve on alert. I wasn't broken. Not entirely. Not yet.
But I would be strong. Stronger than they imagined. Stronger than he expected. Strong enough to return one day and confront the damage he had done.
The wind stirred again, rustling the leaves like a whisper of warning. Something in it told me the world was waiting for me, waiting to see whether I would rise or crumble completely.
I would rise.
And when I did, I would not ask for permission.
The bond pulsed again beneath my ribs, sharp and insistent. He was still there. Always there. And I hated him all the more for it.
But hatred alone was not enough. Not anymore.
Somewhere deep in the woods, I swore to myself: I would return. And when I did, I would not be the girl who allowed herself to be rejected.
I would be someone else entirely.
Someone dangerous.
And he would know it.