Serena was frozen, turned away from Elias, tears still streaking down her face. She didn’t hear him go, didn’t notice when he withdrew, but she felt the retreat that accompanied his leaving — the stillness following him like a tail. The air around her turned stagnant and heavy in her chest; there was a weight on her heart.
Lucian had appeared next to her, as imposing as before. There was a glint in his eyes, a combination of contentment and interest as he regarded her. “You did the right thing,” he said in a low, somehow indifferent-sounding voice. “You belong to me, under my protection now.”
Before she could even respond, Lucian walked off without another word, leaving Serena drowning in the cold silence of the room, feeling more lost than she'd been moments ago. She stood torn between the life she had chosen and the life that could have been, the path she had taken and the gnawing sorrow that had caught the place in her mind where hope toed the line between optimism and despair. After that, the rest of the day flew by. Serena did not leave her room, feeling a hollow ghoul, still alive in an apparition lived. She couldn’t help but feel like she’d made a terrible mistake—that rejecting Elias and the Silver Ridge pack had cut off a part of her.
With a heavy heart and a turbulent mind, she lulled herself to a fitful sleep, emotionally fried and drained.
The following morning, Serena stirred with a dull thrum through her body. Her eyes fluttered open and the pain was instant, immediate and sharp. She looked at her upper arm, and the mark that had been a small faded thing had swelled in size, now vivid, and the edges were a deep red. It radiated pain from there, a stark reminder of all her choices. Her bones were leaden; she couldn’t get out of the bed.
She made herself sit up, her limbs shaking with the exertion. Her eyes moved around the room and spotted a note lying on the bedside table. It was from Lucian, calling her for training.
A heavy sigh escaped her as she got herself back up. She had no option but to comply, still dazed from the events of the day before.
As Serena reached the training grounds, Lucian and the pack's inner circle were already present. The air was heavy with tension and Serena could feel the weight of their expectations in her bones. She swallowed hard, suddenly feeling tiny beneath their watchful eyes.
“Welcome, today we're going to work on your combat skills,” Lucian said, his eyes glimmering like sharpened blades, making her skin crawl. “You have have to learn how to defend yourself, Serena.”
He spoke with a firmness that left little space for doubt. "Shift," Lucian commanded. “You’re going to be fighting with some of our greatest warriors. If you can defeat them all, then you’re ready.”
The training was brutal, more so than Serena had expected. Her entire body screamed with pain after every move, every strike, but she pushed past all of it. She learned quickly, with sharp instincts — but she was raw inside, and it clouded her concentration.
“Focus, Onyx Wolf,” Dorian growled when Serena found herself on the defensive again from Dorian’s merciless onslaught. She had already vanquished the other warriors, and now it was Dorian’s turn. His scent, sharp and earthy and devastatingly intoxicating, overwhelmed her senses, blurred her ability to think.
And when the training dragged on, Serena noticed she was slowing down, her action becoming cumbersome and uncoordinated. Her responses were slow, and she could feel the pack’s disappointment bearing down on her. She could feel the skepticism in their eyes — that she would never be able to meet their expectations.
“Serena, set your sights on your target!” Lucian called out from the sidelines, his tone sharp and snappish. Dorian tossed her to the ground yet again, his iron grip easily over powering her. She struggled to breathe, her limbs twitching with effort to rise.
"ENOUGH!" When she was breathing less and less, when her body couldn’t keep up, Lucian’s voice was sharp and absolute. “How will she ever prove herself to the Council if she can’t defend herself?” Dorian growled with an exasperated tone as he returned to human form in his place.
“I am the Alpha, Dorian,” Lucian said, low but filled with authority. "And I said stand down. Well, that's all training for today."
“Yes, Alpha,” Dorian gritted through his teeth before he morphed into his human form and bolted out of the training ground.
Serena strained against the corner of the room; she kneeled and shuddered. All she felt she could do was stare hunched down to the floor as if the statements running through her head would return to her one by one, innumerable as they were — confusion, to be sure, and then, regret.
“Leave the room, all of you,” Lucian said sharply. The members of the inner circle filtered out, one by one, and soon, it was just him and Serena, facing each other across the empty training grounds.
Lucian stared at her for a long moment, eyes measuring, as if reading her soul. Then, with slow and measured steps, he walked up to her. When he caught up to her, he squatted in front of her, bringing himself down to her level.
“Look at me, little wolf,” he said, his voice low and firm. Serena didn’t respond. She was not really there, her eyes focused on something in a distant place.
"I said look at me, Serena!" Lucian’s voice became sharper, more demanding. This time, Serena listened, her eyes rising to meet his.
She spoke with a cracking voice. “I can’t do this,” she said, shaking her head back and forth rapidly, tears welling again.
“Have you forgotten the agreement we made? Lucian’s voice was severe, but there was a note of something else, maybe frustration, maybe something deeper. “You protect me, and I help you take out the Silver Ridge pack. You knew what you were signing up to.”
“They were my family,” Serena said, her voice bitter with pain.
“Not now,” Lucian snapped. “Are you forgetting how they hunted you like game? How they betrayed you? I SAVED YOU!" His voice was a shout into silence, an urgent effort to pull her back into his world.
Serena recoiled at his outburst, yet the cold hollowness in her chest only swelled. “I cannot go in front of the Council. They will never accept me," she whispered, doubt drenching her voice.
"Then just focus on summoning and reigning in your power," Lucian said, his tone softer yet surely flooded with confidence. "Leave the Council to me."
Back home, however, all was not well at the Silver Ridge pack. Elias also sat at his desk, fingers pressed into the edges as he thought of Serena. One person he had promised to protect — Serena — and that was almost unbearably heavy.
He was shaken out of his thoughts by a knock on the door. It was his beta, Owen, entered and sat before he was invited.
"You sent for me?" And then Owen asked with a heart full of curiosity.
“I have to see Isolde again,” Elias said, running his fingers through his hair in frustration, his eyes blurred with uncertainty. "Serena refused to come back. There might be a way to reverse it, and Isolde might know how.”
“I knew this was going to happen,” Owen whispered, his eyes going big as he understood its significance. “You can’t bring her back, Elias. She's made her choice."
"Can you take me to Isolde?" Elias said with growing desperation in his voice.
The smile on Owen’s face faded. "She can’t help you, Elias. This is Serena’s fate."
Elias’s hands tightened into fists. "How is that even possible? She is meant to be here with us, in Silver Ridge.”
Owen’s gaze hardened. "No. She was never yours to take, Omega. Long before you, the darkness picked her.” Elias blinked and confusion set in. “I… I don’t understand.”
His voice lowered, laced with equal parts pity and anger. "She is not just a werewolf. She is the direct descendant of the ancient ones. The darkness is not a curse — it’s a gift.
The words landed on Elias like a physical blow. His anger and frustration only grew as he understood what Owen was saying. Doom was falling upon Silver Ridge, and all the werewolf world. He wasn’t about to let Serena go—not now that he understood the truth.
As Elias tried to digest Owen’s words, another knock on the door broke the silence.
“Come in,” Elias said, his voice taut with tension.
The door opened, and there stood his beta, again.
“Elias,” the beta said with urgency in his voice. “There’s a meeting of the Council, the Night Fang pack is getting ready to go see them. They’re seeking Serena."
Owen and Elias’s eyes met. The gravity of the moment loomed large in the air.
“Doom awaits,” Owen muttered darkly.
