CHAPTER FIVE

By the time Rhea reached the outskirts of the human city, the soles of her boots were worn nearly through, her cloak still damp from days ago, and her limbs so tired they trembled with each step. But none of that mattered—not in the face of what lay ahead.

She stood behind a crumbling stone wall, peering down into the valley where the city sat. Smoke curled from chimneys. The faint clatter of horse hooves echoed up the road. Vibrant stalls lined cobbled streets in a mishmash of colors, noise, and life.

Humans.

So many of them.

She’d heard stories of their markets, of their obsession with coin and trade. Of their fragile bodies, blind to scent and bond. But standing here now, watching from the woods as people laughed, argued, bartered, and moved through their lives freely, Rhea felt something twist in her chest.

Envy.

They didn’t live by blood oaths or sacred bonds. They chose who to love. They built homes, traveled, and questioned everything. No Elders dictating destiny. No forced pairings masked as duty.

Just... living.

Rhea tugged her hood low over her forehead and stepped onto the dirt road, her heart hammering against her ribs like a caged bird.

Keep your head down. Don’t speak unless you must.

The city gate was barely guarded. A single man slouched on a stool, chewing what looked like a reed. He gave her a passing glance, eyes flicking to the satchel at her side, then back to the road.

“Traveler?” he asked.

She nodded, her voice caught in her throat.

He grunted. “Ain’t from around here.”

“No,” she forced out quietly. “Passing through.”

He didn’t press. Just gestured her in with a lazy wave.

And then she was inside.

The world exploded around her.

Vendors called out prices. Children darted between carts, chasing each other with sticks. Bells chimed from a clock tower. A woman with a woven basket handed out warm buns in exchange for coin.

The smells overwhelmed her—baked bread, spices, oil, sweat, perfume. She stumbled to the side, trying to breathe through her sleeve.

Human cities were chaos. No scent trails. No order. And no one noticed her.

She could vanish here.

She wandered through the market, staying in the shadows, watching how people moved, how they spoke. Their clothes were simpler, looser than the formal silks she grew up in. Tunics and trousers. Boots meant for walking, not status.

She needed to blend in.

An older woman with gray streaks in her braids sat by a stall draped in secondhand clothing. Rhea approached slowly.

“Help you, dear?” the woman asked kindly, her eyes wrinkled with age and warmth.

“I need...” Rhea looked down at herself. “Something plain. For traveling.”

The woman eyed her carefully, then nodded. “Bit small for a traveler, aren’t you?”

Rhea stiffened. “I’ve been on the road. I don’t want attention.”

The woman gave a soft hum, rummaging through a trunk. “A lot of girls your age come through here thinking the same thing.” She pulled out a folded bundle—brown trousers, a linen tunic, a dark vest. “These’ll hide you fine.”

Rhea reached into her satchel and offered a silver coin. Mira had slipped a handful into her hand the night she fled.

The woman’s brows lifted, impressed. “You running from trouble, or toward something better?”

Rhea hesitated, fingers tightening on the bundle. “Maybe both.”

The woman chuckled. “Well, you’ll find both here. Don’t lose your coin, and don’t trust a smile with too many teeth.”

Rhea nodded and moved on, tucking the clothes into her satchel.

Next, she found a general store—creaky-floored and dimly lit, with shelves lined with combs, soap, thread, small knives, and canteens. The shopkeeper was asleep behind the counter.

She tiptoed through, selecting only what she needed: a dull blade for trimming, a comb, cloth wraps for binding, and a plain brown cap. She added a thin rope belt and small jar of salve for her blistered feet.

“Four silvers,” the man grunted, eyes still half-closed.

She handed it over and left quickly.

By the time she found a quiet alley tucked behind a bakery, the sun was beginning to dip. She crouched in the shadows, finally letting herself breathe.

The city was loud, unpredictable—but no one cared who she was. No one could smell her lineage or demand obedience.

She peeled off her soaked cloak and began layering on her new clothes. The trousers were stiff, and the tunic scratched at her skin, but they fit well enough. She wrapped the cloth tightly around her chest, grimacing at the pressure. Then she pulled the vest over it all and stuffed the cap into her satchel for later.

In the window of a nearby shop, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass.

Still Rhea—but dulled, hidden beneath shadows and coarse fabric. A girl vanishing by choice.

She whispered to herself, barely audible over the clamor behind the wall.

“Soon.”

She didn’t know how she’d get into the Academy, or if they’d believe her forged papers. But she would find a way.

She had to.

She pressed her hand once more over the spot where her mother’s crest lay hidden beneath her clothes.

Not just a runaway.

Not just a girl refusing a cruel fate.

She was something more.

She would become something more.

Even if she had to become someone else to do it.

The sky bled into dusk, casting coppery light over the alley where Rhea sat crouched beneath the overhang of a shuttered tailor’s shop. Her breath came in shallow bursts, fingers trembling around the small blade she’d bought earlier that day.

It was dull. Duller than expected. Fitting, somehow. Nothing about this transformation would be clean.

The sounds of the human city hummed behind her—laughter spilling from taverns, carts rattling down stone streets, the occasional bark of a dog or shout from a vendor packing up. But here in this narrow place between the world and her fear, Rhea felt suspended in silence.

She unfolded the cracked hand mirror she’d found discarded beside a pile of old crates, holding it in one hand as she studied her reflection in the waning light. The girl staring back at her looked... tired. Hollow-eyed. Her once-lustrous dark hair hung limp down her back, a tangled, uneven curtain of ink. Her lips were cracked. Her skin dull.

“You’re not her anymore,” she whispered to the reflection. “You can’t be.”

Because her—the girl known as Rhea Stormclaw, daughter of Alpha Garrick Stormclaw, noble blooded and well-groomed for a cage—was being hunted. Promised to a man who would break her in body and spirit. That girl had wept over her mother’s cooling body and begged the moon for mercy. That girl had no place left in the world that expected her to obey or vanish.

She took a deep breath and reached back, gathering her hair into a thick, trembling fist.

Do it.

Her fingers tightened on the blade.

One hack. Two. The blade snagged more than it cut, and the first few strands tore out before slicing. Pain bloomed at her scalp, but she didn’t stop. Couldn’t. She gritted her teeth, sawing through the thick mass, uneven, ragged, desperate.

With each lock that fell, she shed more than hair—she shed Rhea. The daughter. The pawn. The girl who smiled for show and held her tongue in the face of tradition.

She dropped the long bundle of dark hair into a burlap sack, hands shaking as she leaned back against the cold stone wall. She didn’t cry. There were no tears left for mourning. Only this quiet ache in her chest, hollow and vast.

She picked up the mirror again.

Her new reflection startled her.

Short-cropped, her hair now framed her face with wild, uneven waves. It made her eyes look larger, her cheekbones sharper. Her features, always soft with femininity, now carried a rough edge—still unmistakably beautiful, but no longer delicate.

This was Rian.

A boy in the eyes of the world.

A runaway.

A survivor.

She adjusted the bandages across her chest and pulled the vest tighter, then shoved the cap over her hair. Her scent—her real scent—was already masked with crushed mint and ash, smeared across her skin to dull the identity that might betray her to any passing wolf.

Rian wouldn’t wear perfume.

Rian wouldn’t curtsy or walk with a measured step.

Rian would speak little, observe much, and learn everything.

He would pass the Academy’s test.

He would earn a place among Alphas.

He would vanish in plain sight.

She stood, brushing off her trousers and tightening the rope belt. She adjusted the satchel and pressed one hand against the spot where her mother’s crest now hung from a leather cord beneath her tunic.

A symbol of power long forgotten.

“Your blood is more than chains,” her mother had whispered.

Now Rian would prove it.

Rhea—no, Rian—stepped from the alley into the flickering torchlight of the streets. A cold wind tugged at the edges of his tunic, biting through the fabric, but he didn’t flinch.

He didn’t look back.

The human city no longer felt so big. Not when he carried something larger than fear—purpose. A new name, a stolen identity, and the fire of a bloodline that would not be caged.