CHAPTER 2

The scent of pine and amp earth filled Aria’s nostrils as she stirred beneath the blanket. Her mark throbbed, a sharp reminder of what had happened. Her fingers brushed her neck instinctively, hissing at the raw and tingling burn Kael’s mark had left behind. The rogue’s mark… Her wolf stirred inside her uneasily, confused whether to fight or surrender again.

Aria sat up quickly, taking in the dim light of a new day filtering through the makeshift tent walls. In the rogue camp everything was so different when compared to the Silverpine pack. There was no golden halls, no tiled walls, and no fireplaces. Just canvas tents stretched across the edges of a dense forest. With crude wooden stakes marking their territory. This was survival. Gritty, raw and really terrifying.

“Morning,” came a soft voice. Aria turned around, startled, only to find a little girl standing at the flap of her tent with a very bright smile and tangled curls.

“Hi…” Aria managed to say, her voice dry and hoarse.

“I’m Nessa,” the little girl said, stepping closer. “Kael said I could check up on you.”

Aria blinked. “You live here?”

Nessa nodded proudly. “Everyone does. Except you… You’re new here. And you smell like him.” She wrinkled her nose playfully.

Aria found it cute and let out a breath of amusement, though her chest still felt like it had been crushed under the weight of everything. “He’s not mine,” she muttered softly.

Nessa tilted her head confused. “He marked you.”

The words made Aria’s stomach knot. She didn’t want to remember the events that occurred that night. The chaos of the Moon Ceremony, the crowd screaming, Rhys’s betrayed expression, Kael’s golden eyes locking with hers as his wolf took control.

“I didn’t ask for this,” she whispered mostly to herself.

“She didn’t have to,” came a deeper voice.

Aria froze.

Kael stood just outside, his tall form casting a shadow over them. His hair was slightly messed up, his shirt slightly torn near the shoulder, revealing the jagged tattoo that curled over his collarbone…one of the rogue sigils. His expression was unreadable, as always.

“You shouldn’t be talking to her,” he told Nessa, but the softness and gentleness in his tone suggested he wasn’t truly angry.

Nessa rolled her eyes and skipped away, leaving the awkward silence between the both of them.

“I didn’t mean to wake everyone,” Aria said stiffly.

“You didn’t. This place never sleeps.”

She stood wrapping the thin blanket around her. “How long do you plan to keep me here?”

Kael’s jaw flexed. “Long enough.”

“Long enough for what?’” she snapped. “For me to forget who I am? Or just enough time for you to ruin my life completely?”

He stepped inside the tent without invitation. “They already did that. I just pulled you out.”

“You don’t know anything about my life!”

“I know more than you think Aria.” His voice dropped an octave, almost like a warning. “You don’t belong there. Not anymore. And most especially not with that mark on you.”

Her wolf whimpered, pulling towards him involuntarily. Aria tensed, hating that her instincts betrayed her rage. Kael noticed and stepped back, breathing heavier than before.

“You’re reacting to the bond,” He said flatly.

“No,” she whispered. “That’s you reacting to me.”

His eyes darkened, and for a moment, heat passed between them like a flame flickering to life. Kael’s wolf pushed closer to the surface, and Aria could f*e his restraint slowly slipping away.

He turned around abruptly and walked out, the flap swinging shut behind him, not from fear….but from confusion.

The day passed in a haze of wary glances and whispered conversations. Rogues walked in small groups, most keeping their distance from her. But not everyone.

Aside from Nessa, a woman named Maela had been the first to offer her food, a warm bowl of rabbit stew and mushrooms, and her skin was weathered, her gray-streaked hair braided tightly.

“You’re not the first she-wolf brought here,” Maela said simply, placing the bowl in Aria’s hands.

“Really?”

“No. but you might be the first who changes things around here.”

Aria wasn’t sure what she meant, and Maela didn’t explain.

She wandered to a clearing near the edge of the camp just before sunset. The smell of cooked meat wafted through the air. She could hear Kael barking orders to two male rogues, Dren and Vex about border patrol.

“You let a pack girl stay, now we have to babysit her?” Dren muttered.

“She’s not a threat,” Vex replied. “Yet.”

“She’s my mate,” Kael said through gritted teeth. “You’ll treat her with respect.”

His words hit Aria hard like a punch. She wanted to scream that she wasn’t his anything. That she belonged to no one. That she had a choice. Didn’t she?

“Hey,” came a voice from behind her.

It was Nessa again, this time clutching something in her hand. “Maela said you should have this.”

She passed a folded cloth bundle, and nestled inside was a small weathered envelope. Aria frowned, brushing her thumb over the faded wax seal.

It had her name on it.

Her chest tightened as she tore it open.

The paper inside was thin, aged… but the handwriting was her mother’s. That soft, looping script she remembered from years ago.

“My sweet Aria,

If you’re reading this, it means I’m no longer by your side, but you must listen to me now. Don’t trust everything you were told. There are things hidden in your blood, things even I could not protect you from.

Run. Before they find out. Before it’s too late.

Take care of yourself my sweet little Aria.”

Aria’s knees buckled.

She collapsed to the ground, heart pounding, vision blurring. The paper fluttered to the dirt beside her.

Her mother had known.

Known something.

And now… Aria had no idea who she could trust.