Chapter Two – The Silence Before It Breaks

He didn’t ask if I could walk.

He didn’t ask if I was hurt.

The Alpha seized my waist and ran.

The world fractured around us. Trees blurred into black pillars. Wind cut across my face, tangling in my hair, stealing the air from my lungs. His grip was iron—unyielding, controlled, as if my weight meant nothing.

He wasn’t just strong.

He was built for dominance.

Broad shoulders. Thick muscle beneath dark fabric. Power coiled in every movement like a predator barely contained inside human skin.

“Put me down!” I demanded.

His jaw tightened.

A vein pulsed at his temple.

He moved faster.

The forest seemed to part for him.

Then he stopped so abruptly that I nearly collapsed when he released me.

We stood in a clearing where the trees arched high above us. The air felt heavier here, older—like this place belonged to him.

He stepped away immediately.

Distance.

Deliberate.

Moonlight slid across his face, sharpening the angles. His chest rose and fell slowly, but there was nothing calm about him.

“I will not accept this,” he said.

The words were low, controlled—but something beneath them trembled.

“I didn’t ask for it,” I shot back.

His eyes lifted to mine.

Gold.

Not reflective.

Burning.

“Do you feel it?” he demanded.

The heat in my chest flared before I could answer.

I gasped and dropped to one knee as fire lanced through my ribs. It wasn’t surface pain. It was deeper. Inside bone. Inside blood.

The Alpha stiffened.

His fingers curled slightly at his sides.

He took one step back.

The pain exploded.

At the same time—

He swayed.

Just barely.

But I saw it.

The smallest fracture in an otherwise immovable figure.

His hand braced against the trunk of a tree. Bark cracked beneath his grip.

His breathing shifted—no longer steady, no longer controlled.

“If I push you away…” he said slowly, like he was forcing the realization into shape.

“You weaken,” I finished.

His jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked beneath his skin.

“This curse does not control me.”

He straightened.

Forced himself upright.

Forced his shoulders back.

But the effort showed now.

In the slight tremor of his fingers.

In the tightness around his eyes.

In the way his wolf growled beneath the surface, unstable.

He stepped farther away.

The burn inside me doubled.

A cry tore from my throat before I could stop it.

Heat surged down my spine, spreading into my limbs. The forest tilted. The ground felt too far away.

Something stirred beneath my skin.

Not wolf.

Not human.

Old.

Watching.

Waiting.

The Alpha swore and closed the distance in a single stride.

His hand locked around my arm.

The relief was immediate.

The fire dimmed.

His shoulders lowered.

His strength steadied.

We both felt it.

The connection wasn’t poetic.

It was mechanical.

Cause and effect.

“If I reject you,” he said through clenched teeth, “my power fractures.”

“And if you accept it?” I whispered.

His gaze darkened, something dangerous sliding into place.

“Then I lose control.”

For the first time, I saw it clearly.

Control was everything to him.

The way he stood.

The way he held his shoulders.

The way the forest responded to him.

He was not just Alpha in title.

He was Alpha in instinct.

And the bond threatened that.

A branch snapped behind us.

Wolves emerged from the shadows.

They stopped when they saw him.

Saw the tension in his posture.

Saw the way he stood too close to me—and not close enough.

“Alpha,” one of them said carefully. “We felt the surge.”

His hand slid from my arm to the back of my neck.

Firm.

Possessive.

Instinct before thought.

“She crossed into my territory,” he said.

The wolf’s gaze moved to me.

Then narrowed.

“No,” he replied. “It wasn’t just that.”

Silence pressed down around us.

“The curse reacted,” the wolf continued. “It answered.”

My pulse faltered.

Answered?

The Alpha’s grip tightened slightly.

His thumb pressed against the base of my skull, as if anchoring himself.

As if anchoring me.

“What is she?” another wolf asked.

A flicker pulsed beneath my skin.

Not pain.

Not fear.

Something that felt like recognition.

The wolves recoiled.

Not from him.

From me.

The Alpha felt it.

I saw the shift in his expression.

The moment suspicion replaced anger.

“What are you?” he demanded.

“I don’t know.”

But my voice didn’t sound certain.

The heat inside me shifted again.

Not chaotic.

Not accidental.

Intentional.

The Alpha’s breathing slowed.

His posture changed.

He wasn’t just reacting anymore.

He was calculating.

If I was the trigger—

Then I was also the threat.

“The council will demand answers,” one wolf said quietly.

“And if they believe she’s connected to the origin—”

“Enough.”

His voice cracked across the clearing like thunder.

Mine.

This time the claim was deliberate.

Defiant.

He pulled me closer.

Not gently.

Not cruelly.

Decisively.

“No one touches her,” he said.

The warning was clear.

The promise even clearer.

And somewhere deep inside my chest—

Something answered him.

Not with fear.

But with something far more dangerous.

Recognition.