Three Years Later

Pain had a way of sharpening memory.

Even now—three years later—I could still remember the moment my body gave out beyond the pack border. The way the trees blurred into streaks of shadow. The way my wolf’s cries grew faint inside me. The way the ground seemed to tilt beneath my feet.

And then—

Nothing.

I didn’t remember hitting the earth.

I remembered waking up.

“Again.”

The word cracked through the training grounds like a whip.

I rolled to my feet before the command fully left his mouth, ignoring the fire racing up my thighs and the ache settling deep into my bones. Sweat drenched my shirt, clinging to my spine. My lungs burned as I lifted my blade just in time to block the strike aimed at my ribs.

Steel clashed against steel.

The impact rattled down my arms.

Sparks flickered between us.

“Too slow,” Ronan said calmly, circling me with predatory precision. “If that had been an enemy, you’d be dead.”

His voice wasn’t cruel.

It was factual.

I tightened my grip, jaw hard. “Then hit harder.”

A faint flicker passed through his silver eyes—approval, perhaps. Or satisfaction.

Three years ago, I couldn’t even stand without trembling.

Three years ago, my body had been weak from grief, from shock, from the violent severing of a bond I had believed unbreakable.

Three years ago, I had collapsed at Nightfall’s border like something discarded.

Now, I didn’t flinch.

Ronan moved again—faster.

His blade sliced through the air, a clean arc aimed for my shoulder. I pivoted on instinct, ducking beneath the swing. Gravel crunched beneath my boots as I twisted and drove my elbow into his side.

He grunted—not in pain, but surprise.

He stepped back, raising a hand.

“Enough.”

My chest rose and fell sharply as I lowered my weapon. Sweat dripped from my chin onto the packed stone beneath us.

The Nightfall training grounds stretched wide and severe, carved from black stone and edged with towering pine. Wolves lined the perimeter—warriors, sentinels, fighters who once looked at me with suspicion.

With doubt.

With quiet resentment.

I had not been one of them.

I had been a rejected Luna from a rival pack.

An exile.

A potential threat.

Now, their gazes held something different.

Not warmth.

Not friendship.

Respect.

I wiped my brow with the back of my arm and stared briefly at the pale scars crossing my forearms—marks from sparring blades, from misjudged strikes, from nights when exhaustion nearly claimed me.

I had not arrived here strong.

I had arrived broken.

Half-conscious. Fevered. My wolf barely responsive.

I hadn’t even known where I was when my eyes first opened to unfamiliar stone ceilings and the scent of foreign wolves.

Only that I wasn’t alone.

Only that someone had decided I was worth saving.

Ronan studied me in silence, arms folded loosely across his chest. He rarely praised. Rarely criticized beyond necessity. His leadership wasn’t loud—it was measured. Controlled. Dangerous in its restraint.

“You’re distracted,” he observed.

“I’m fine.”

The lie tasted metallic.

Some wounds didn’t bleed.

They echoed.

The rejection still lingered in places I didn’t let myself examine. In the quiet moments before sleep. In the way my wolf sometimes stilled when the moon was highest.

Ronan didn’t push.

He never did.

Perhaps he understood that pushing too hard would shatter something still healing.

“Tomorrow,” he said instead, voice carrying easily across the stone. “We move to live combat.”

A shiver slid down my spine—not fear.

Anticipation.

Live combat meant unpredictability. No rehearsed strikes. No controlled pacing. It meant proving that my strength wasn’t just technical—it was instinctual.

“Good,” I replied steadily.

His gaze lingered on me for half a second longer than necessary.

Assessing.

Measuring.

Then he turned away, issuing orders to the other warriors.

I let my attention drift beyond the training yard—to the treeline that marked Nightfall’s outer territory. The forest there was darker than most, dense and watchful. It was somewhere near that border that I had fallen three years ago.

I still didn’t remember how I’d been found.

Only fragments.

Dark fur moving through shadow.

Strong arms lifting me from cold earth.

A voice—low, firm—telling me to stay awake.

I had asked once, in the early days of my recovery, who carried me across the line.

No one answered directly.

“Rest,” was all Ronan had said then.

And I had learned not to press.

Because survival had required focus.

Because weakness had nearly killed me once.

Because I refused to be that fragile girl again.

The wind shifted across the grounds, carrying the scent of pine and iron. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled—a low, steady call that vibrated through my bones.

I inhaled deeply.

Three years.

Three years of rebuilding muscle.

Three years of sharpening instinct.

Three years of turning humiliation into fuel.

The girl who had stood in front of her pack and been rejected like an inconvenience would not have survived this place.

She would have broken.

She would have begged.

She would have waited for someone to choose her again.

I no longer waited.

I chose myself.

I bent to retrieve my fallen blade, running my thumb along its edge. The steel reflected the late afternoon sun, sharp and unyielding.

So was I.

Tomorrow would be live combat.

Tomorrow, I would bleed if necessary.

Tomorrow, they would see.

The rejected Luna had not disappeared.

She had transformed.

And the woman I was becoming?

She was not just stronger.

She was dangerous.