Chapter 11 - Binding Solutions

••• Seleste’s POV •••

Back in my dorm room, I faced the daily challenge of concealing my feminine form. 

Since Ezekiel was still avoiding me, I wasn’t afraid for him to suddenly walk in on me. I didn’t even know if he was still sleeping in the room because his bed was always made every time I woke up, and he never came back before I fell asleep.

I frowned as I sat on my bed and looked at the strip of cloth in front of me.

I had used too much of it when binding my wounds, and now it was the last piece I had left.

It had also started to fray from constant wear and washing, especially after I had to bind myself tighter during the swimming lesson.

If I kept using it, it would eventually break.

I needed a new solution.

Freya, for once, suddenly offered a useful solution.

“You can use an undershirt to make a new one.”

“Oh, thank the Goddess,” I said in relief. “Thank you for being useful for once.”

“Hey! What do you mean by that?” she asked, sounding offended. “I helped you with the socks solution.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I started rummaging through my suitcase for an old undershirt. “You told me to wear more than I should. I would have looked like I was packing a potato down my pants.”

“And you should have!” she argued. “Then everyone would think you were more manly.”

I stopped searching and rubbed my temple.

“If I followed your advice, I would look ridiculous.”

“Still, I was trying to help.”

I stopped my search entirely, pressing the heels of my hands against my throbbing temples. “If I had followed your exact specifications, I would have been turned into a walking comedy routine before I even hit the water. Go away, Freya. I need absolute silence to focus on this stitching.”

She muttered a string of incoherent, wolfish grumbles and reluctantly retreated back to the deep spaces of my mind.

I swear there was something wrong with my wolf. Sometimes she just made me…speechless.

I finally found an old undershirt at the bottom of my suitcase. Thankfully, I had brought my sewing kit with me.

I cut the fabric, folded the edges, and stitched them together to make it stronger.

After I finished, I tried it on.

The entire process was pure, unadulterated torture. Because I had to work completely by trial and error, I had to repeatedly rip open my fresh stitches and re-sew the heavy cotton panels just to find the right physical balance. 

I stood in front of the mirror and checked myself.

Too loose… I could still see the curves of my body.

I tightened it and checked again.

Too tight… I could barely breathe.

“Damn it.”

I loosened it slightly and tried again.

I needed something tight enough to hide my body but not so tight that I couldn’t breathe during training.

There had to be a perfect, golden ratio between hiding the anatomy of my body and still being physically capable of doing all the trainings needed. 

I couldn't afford to make myself look so physically restricted that my movements turned clumsy during drills; that would only invite the instructors to take a closer, diagnostic look at my torso.

I let out a heavy, ragged sigh, my forehead resting against the cool glass of the mirror. This entire masquerade was utterly exhausting.

Before packing my bags for Ravenwood, I had never once imagined that pretending to be a young male werewolf would require this much meticulous, hyper-vigilant labor. 

It wasn't just a simple matter of masking my genetic scent profile or chemically altering my lavender eyes. 

I had to spend every single second of the day actively overthinking how I walked, how I sat, how I moved my limbs, and even how my face reacted whenever the rowdy Alphas started shouting about women and mating seasons.

A single, careless mistake—a fluid movement, a soft tone, a natural reaction—would instantly expose me to the execution squads.

I looked down at the blood-spotted needle in my hands, a sudden wave of longing tightening my chest. 

I wondered how many more months I would have to endure this cage. 

How many more times would I be forced to stand naked in front of a mirror, critically checking whether my body looked flat enough to pass as a boy named Aiden?

Sometimes, I deeply missed the simple luxury of moving my body without analyzing the trajectory of my steps.

I missed walking naturally down a path without wondering if the sway of my hips looked too soft or too feminine to a tracking Alpha. 

I missed throwing on whatever comfortable clothes I wanted, entirely unbothered by whether the fabric would outline the shape of my chest. 

Most of all, I desperately missed not having to constantly remind my own brain that I wasn't allowed to be Seleste within these stone walls.

In this hellhole, Seleste had to completely disappear.

I was Aiden—a proud, aggressive male heir from a fractured pack, starving to prove his dominance to the elders.

I touched the reinforced cotton binding carefully, testing the strength of the thread with my thumb.

It wasn't comfortable. 

In fact, it felt like a heavy band of iron clamping around my lungs. 

But comfort wasn't what I needed to survive. 

I needed absolute reliability. I needed a system that would allow me to train brutally, sprint, sleep, and eat among predators without a single seam popping.

I knew the disguise wasn't flawless. Nothing about my identity at Ravenwood was perfect.

But as I tied off the final knot of the thread, I reminded myself that perfection wasn't necessary to win a war.

I only needed the lie to hold together long enough to secure my birthright.

I focused my mind back on the sole reason I had walked through those iron academy gates in the first place. 

I was the last hope of the Lighttail Banes Pack. 

I wanted to claim the Alpha seat, to rebuild our broken territory from the ashes of the war, and I utterly refused to let the physical biology of my own body stop me from achieving my destiny. 

Even if it meant enduring a suffocating physical discomfort every single day.

Even if it meant locking parts of my soul behind iron walls. 

I had survived a total pack massacre; I could easily survive a tight piece of cloth. I would adapt. I always did.

Once I was entirely satisfied with the new binder, I pulled a loose uniform shirt over my head and practiced walking, sitting down on the wooden chair, and aggressively raising my arms above my head to ensure nothing shifted or became visible through the heavy linen fabrics.

My breasts and ribs still ached from the tight binding, but I couldn’t loosen it.

Not now.

Not when Tristan was already watching me so closely.

I had noticed him during training more than once.

His eyes would follow me whenever we practiced with weapons or ran our endurance drills.

It felt like he was waiting for me to make a mistake.

I couldn’t give him one.

I looked at myself in the mirror again, checking my shoulders and the way my shirt fell over my body.

As long as my chest looked flat, I could pass as Aiden.

My height was something I couldn’t change, but I could always pretend I was simply a smaller Alpha.

The pain from the binding was becoming harder to ignore, but I pushed it aside.

I had come to Ravenwood for one reason.

I wanted the Alpha seat.

I wanted to return to the Lighttail Banes Pack and rebuild what had been lost.

I wasn’t going to let something as simple as my body stop me.

Even if I had to suffer a little every day.