The questions we can't ask

The air in the house had grown colder in the past week, or maybe it was just me finally feeling how sharp the chill truly was.

I sat at the kitchen table that Sunday morning, staring at the untouched mug of tea in front of me. The faint tendrils of steam curled and disappeared, just like the warmth in my parents’ glances whenever they passed me.

Not that there were many glances at all.

My father sat across from me, scrolling through his phone. My mother flitted around the kitchen, rearranging the fruit bowl, wiping down spotless counters, and clucking at nothing in particular.

And Ethan—he was leaning against the doorway, his arms folded over his chest. I caught him watching me more than once. Not with the kind of open cruelty I’d come to expect from the world outside, but with something that looked uncomfortably like guilt.

It was worse, somehow, than indifference.

Because if he saw me now—if he really saw me—then what excuse did he have for every time he’d chosen Savannah over me?

I looked down at my tea, my fingers tracing the rim of the mug, my chest tightening with that old ache that never quite went away.

I wondered what it was about me that made it so easy for everyone to turn their backs.

Later that afternoon, I slipped out of the house and walked aimlessly toward the park. My ribs still ached faintly when I breathed too deeply, and my arm felt clumsy in the sling, but the sharpest pain was in my chest.

I sat on a low bench near the duck pond, pulling my coat tighter around me as the wind picked up. The water was calm, mirroring the pale winter sky above, and I wondered—not for the first time—if I’d ever feel calm like that again.

A familiar voice broke through my thoughts.

“I figured I’d find you here.”

I glanced up and found Lucas standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets, his expression soft.

“Hey,” I murmured.

He dropped down onto the bench beside me, his shoulder brushing mine.

“You look like you’re carrying the weight of the world,” he said after a moment.

I let out a humorless laugh. “Feels that way sometimes.”

He didn’t press. He just sat there quietly until the words came tumbling out of me.

“I don’t understand them,” I whispered. “My parents. Ethan. I nearly died, Lucas. And they… they just act like nothing happened. Like I’m the one who did something wrong. Like I’m a burden they wish they could forget.”

Lucas’ jaw tightened. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Avery. Don’t ever think you deserved what happened to you.”

But a part of me still wondered.

Maybe I wasn’t enough.

Maybe I’d never been enough.

I hesitated before asking the next question, my voice barely more than a whisper.

“Do you think… there’s something wrong with me?”

Lucas turned to me sharply, his expression fierce. “No. Don’t you ever say that again.”

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat, but the thought still lingered.

And then, before I could stop myself, I blurted, “And what about Jaxon?”

Lucas blinked, taken aback. “What about him?”

Heat rushed to my cheeks as I fumbled for the words. “I don’t know. He… he confuses me. One second he’s distant, cold. The next he’s—”

My voice faltered as I remembered the way his hands had felt on me, the way his gaze seemed to strip me bare.

Lucas studied me for a long moment before answering. “Jaxon’s… complicated. But whatever you’re feeling? You’re not imagining it. He feels it too.”

His words sent a shiver through me, though I wasn’t sure if it was relief or something closer to fear.

Because if Jaxon felt it too… what did that mean?

Jaxon

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

I sat on the roof of my uncle’s house, staring up at the moon as it rose high and full above me, casting a cold silver light over the quiet streets.

My wolf stirred restlessly beneath my skin, pacing, clawing at the edges of my control.

I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, trying to breathe through it.

It was always worse after seeing her.

Avery.

Even just her name in my thoughts made my pulse spike, made my hands clench into fists at my sides.

I’d known from the very beginning—long before that party—that she was mine.

The first time I’d seen her, walking alone through the hallway at school, her hair loose around her shoulders, her eyes downcast and distant, something inside me had snapped awake.

And it had terrified me.

Because she was human.

I wasn’t.

And the idea of claiming her—of marking her—when she didn’t even know what I was…

It was unthinkable.

I thought back to that night in the janitor’s closet, when she’d caught me with Savannah.

Even now, the memory made my stomach turn.

I hadn’t meant for it to happen.

But when Avery had walked in, the scent of her hurt and humiliation had hit me like a punch to the gut, and I’d hated myself more in that moment than I ever had before.

Lucas hadn’t minced words about it later, either.

“You’re a damn fool,” he’d growled through the mind link. “She asked me to stay away because she didn’t want me to get hurt. You did that to her. Fix it, Jax. Or you don’t deserve her.”

He was right.

But I didn’t know how to fix it.

Not when every instinct in me screamed to take her, to sink my teeth into her soft skin and make her mine forever.

Even now, I could still feel the way her body had fit against mine when I kissed her that first night.

The way she’d wrapped her legs around my waist, her breath coming in short, desperate little gasps as my hands gripped her hips.

It had taken everything I had in me not to lose control right then and there.

And if Savannah hadn’t barged in…

I let out a low growl, raking a hand through my hair.

It was getting harder to hold back.

Harder to ignore the pull.

And the worst part was, my wolf didn’t want me to ignore it.

He was howling for her, demanding I stop pretending.

Demanding I claim her.

Earlier today, I’d caught sight of her at her locker.

She’d looked so small standing there, her shoulders drawn tight, her face pale but set in that stubborn way of hers.

Even bruised, even broken, she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

And every time someone sneered at her in the hallway, every time I caught Savannah’s minions whispering and giggling behind her back, it took everything in me not to shove them into the nearest wall and make them understand.

But I couldn’t.

Not yet.

Not until she knew what I was.

Not until she chose me—not just the part of me that she could see, but all of me.

I thought back to the first day I’d arrived here—my father’s hand heavy on my shoulder, his voice low and firm as he’d said, “You’ll learn what it means to lead. And when you’re ready, you’ll come home as Alpha.”

I hadn’t understood then just how much of a test this would be.

Living among humans.

Pretending to be one of them.

Fighting every day to keep my instincts in check.

But now…

Now I wondered if this trial had always been about her.

Because somehow, everything I was—everything I would be—came down to her.

I sat on the roof until the first streaks of dawn crept across the sky, painting the world in pale gold.

And as I climbed down and slipped back inside, one thought echoed in my mind, louder than all the rest.

I couldn’t keep pretending.

Not forever.

Not when she was mine.