Something Waiting

Naya’s POV

The dawn was super quiet, like it was plotting something. I hadn't slept, but I was stuck, you know? Not like I was scared... more like I was holding my breath. What if I looked up and he was there? What would happen if I really saw him? Then the first light crept over the balcony, this soft, gold glow that felt kinda magical... and my chest just tightened.

He was already there, not speaking, just standing a few steps behind me. I could feel him…

There was this low hum, like he was holding back, waiting... and it was so fucking comforting. I hated that I liked it. I hated wanting it.

“You’re awake early,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.

He didn’t flinch, and he rarely did. “I don’t sleep much,” he said.

I didn’t care to ask why, I didn’t want the answer to sound like an excuse, Instead, I turned fully to him, letting my back straighten, letting my shoulders show what they could. “I want to walk,” I said.

I was stating it. No demands, no begging. Just... stating it as it is.

The way he froze for a second, then stepped closer to me without closing the space, as though he was being careful, almost reverent…made my stomach knot. He didn’t say a word to me; didn’t fucking need to. That silence said more than words to me, that silence asked me questions I know I wasn’t fucking ready to answer.

The gardens were freezing, dew soaking through my shoes, biting at my ankles but i kept walking, keeping my hands loose at my sides, while he followed, steady, quiet, and very patient. It should have felt suffocating…it should, but alas, It didn’t. Somehow, it felt… so fucking bearable.

We reached the fountain, and I let my fingers brush the edge of the stone, tracing the grooves, the smoothness of the stone. While at it, I didn’t look at him, I asked instead;

“You built this?”

“Yes.” he responded

I nodded, thinking about the hours, the labor, the thought he must have put into building it.

“It’s beautiful.”

He said nothing, he just stood there, the way he always did…like he was aware of everything, every little movement, every twitch, and every thought. This time, I found myself staring at him…looking straight into his damn eyes, instead of the fountain i was touching.

I felt it cut through my veins, it was dangerous, magnetic, so fucking frustrating at the same time…oh my heart….My chest squeezed again.

You would have felt the same, if you were in my shoes.

“You’re quiet,” I said with a soft and tentative voice.

“Is that a bad thing?” he asked.

I shrugged slightly. “You’re usually not this quiet.”

He almost smiled, and that almost fucking broke me.

I turned my gaze swiftly back to the fountain, anything at this point, to avoid looking at him for too long.

“Why do you look at me like that?” he asked quietly.

I didn’t answer, because I didn’t want to. There were too many answers, and all of them were too dangerous to let out.

While at it, the wind moved a strand of my hair across my face, and he immediately reached for it, he took it slowly, carefully, and tucked it behind my ear, that made my fingers twitched. I wanted to step back, but I didn’t. I wanted to feel that so bad, even if it terrified me.

“Do you… not hate me?” he asked suddenly.

I hesitated, because the truth was so complicated and messy, as with everything else between us.

“I don’t know what I feel anymore,”

I admitted softly.

He took a deep breath

“That’s worse.”

“Why?”

“Because hate is simple,” he said.

And I remembered why simple felt… safe. It felt safe and pointless all at once.

“And what do you feel?”

I paused for a bit, I didn’t answer right away, I just couldn’t. I looked at his hands, and then, slowly, carefully, my fingers brushed his. I was deliberate, and testing the bond.

Heat coiled low in my stomach, my chest felt so fucking tight as the bond hummed between us. I pulled back first, not in fear, but because I had to. Giving in to it, even a little, felt like surrender.

I’m… trying,” I whispered.

I don’t even know if he heard me properly, because the moment the words left my mouth, something shifted in me, and I felt it before I understood it, like when the air changes before a storm but the sky still looks calm, that how best to explain it.

It wasn’t the wind, It wasn’t the garden, It was us. The bond didn’t hum the way it usually did, warm, low and steady but this time, It hurt so bad that I sucked in a sharp breath, my hand flying up instinctively like I could press the pain back inside, like I could stop whatever was happening if I just held myself together hard enough.

It felt wrong so damn wrong, not intense, not overwhelming…just fucking wrong.

That moment, Kade went completely still, and that scared me more than the pain did, because he never freezes unless something serious is happening. His head turned slowly toward the forest beyond the pack borders, and I looked at his face…I wish I hadn’t. I have seen him angry, i have seen him cold. I have seen him controlled, calculating and terrifying in a quiet way, but this was different.

This wasn’t anger, it was something older, something instinctive.

A low sound rumbled out of his chest, not loud, but deep, the kind of sound you don’t just hear but feel in your bones.

“That’s impossible,” he said under his breath.

And then the pain hit me again, stronger this time, so sharp that my knees nearly gave out beneath me, and suddenly things were flashing through my head, not memories, no…not really, but pieces of something I didn’t understand.

There was blood, Smoke in the air, a tree with a mark carved into it, deep and deliberate..and then a voice. It wasn’t Kade’s, not Dorian’s, not anyone I had ever heard before. But it was saying my name, and I was screaming.

Kade caught me before I hit the ground, his hands gripping my arms tightly, almost too tight, like he thought I might vanish if he didn’t hold on to me hard enough.

“Naya,” he said firmly. “Look at me.”

I tried to look at him…I really did, but I couldn’t. Because the bond wasn’t reaching for him anymore, neither was it

wrapping around him the way it always did. It was pulling away….pulling so hard away from him toward the border, toward something waiting in the trees…that felt like it had been there long before I ever knew it existed.

And the worst part was… it didn’t feel like a stranger.

And whoever it was…

They knew exactly who I was.