CHAPTER 2: THE CONFUSION

CELINE

The moment I was finally outside that house, everything hit me at once.

My knees nearly buckled. I grabbed the gate post to steady myself and then the first sob tore out of me, ugly and uncontrolled, and once it started I couldn't stop it.

My shoulders shook violently. I pressed my back against the cold wall and slid down slightly, fingers digging into the strap of my bag like it was the only solid thing left in the world.

Images of Doland kept flashing through my mind. The crack of the lamp against his skull. The blood. The way he had crumpled sideways onto my floor.

Had I killed him?

No. I squeezed my eyes shut. It wasn't my fault. He came into my room. He touched me. He tried to—

A fresh wave of nausea swallowed the thought whole.

For years I had endured his stares, his comments, his hands where they had no business being. Tonight I had finally fought back. So why did I feel like a criminal?

I straightened up and wiped my face roughly. Crying out here in the dark wasn't going to save me. I needed to move, far away from this house before Muize sobered up enough to come looking.

My mind scrambled for options and landed on the only one that felt like solid ground.

My father, my only hope.

I pulled out my phone with shaking hands and scrolled until I found his name. It had been sitting there untouched for two years. No calls. No texts. For all I knew he had moved on completely and forgotten he had a daughter who had chosen her cheating mother over him.

Maybe he hated me for it. My thumb hovered over the call button, then I pressed it. The line rang once. Twice. Three times.

"Elin?"

The breath left my body. That voice. Deep and warm and achingly familiar. And that name — my pet name, the one only he had ever called me, hit me somewhere behind the ribs and cracked something wide open.

For a moment I couldn't speak at all, but only sobs.

"Elin? What's wrong? Why are you crying? Did someone hurt you?"

"F-father—" My voice came out fractured and small. "Father, I want to leave. I don't want to be here anymore. I can't stay—"

Silence swallowed the line. One second. Two. Three.

I stood in the dark with my heart in my throat, bracing for rejection. Bracing for you made your choice or deal with your own problems.

"Come home, Elin."

Three words and I completely fell apart.

"I'll send you the address and some money right now. Try to wait until morning before you travel, sweetheart. It's safer."

"Okay," I managed. "Okay."

The moment the call ended my phone buzzed. Money first, then the address — Savage Moon Pack.

I stared at it for exactly three seconds. Then I opened my travel app and booked the first available flight.

*

Two hours later I was in the air, face turned toward the window, watching the city I had spent years surviving shrink into nothing below me.

No more Muize. No more Doland. No more swallowing insults and calling it survival.

For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt like I could breathe.

Dawn was breaking when I landed at Savage Moon Pack.

I stepped outside the airport and stopped. The air here was different — cleaner, heavier with pine and something wilder underneath. Everything felt bigger somehow.

As I pulled out my phone to call my father, a car came out of nowhere. It knocked me hard and sent me spinning off my feet. I hit the ground with a sharp crack, pain exploding up my ankle like fire.

"Argh!" I let out a sharp scream and held my hurting leg.

I pushed myself up onto my elbows, to lash out at whoever the careless driver was, but found a man already crouching in front of me.

‘Damn! He was huge.’ I was stunned for a second.

His dark hair falling carelessly over his forehead, jaw sharp enough to cut glass, features so sculpted they barely seemed real. And his eyes — silver, clear and intense as a winter morning, with something warm flickering underneath the sharpness.

He examined my ankle with both hands, his touch impossibly gentle for someone his size.

His scent reached me then, dark wood and rain and something warmer, and something strange happened low in my chest. A pull. Faint but unmistakable.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "It was an accident." He raised those silver eyes to my face and my heart did something completely unreasonable.

He actually apologised, and heart was calm. A strange giddy relief moved through me. Instantly the anger I had felt disappeared.

"You can't heal?" he asked, watching my ankle with a slight frown.

I was forced to look away, because every wolf healed from a minor sprain within minutes. But the fact that mine wasn't already closing told its own embarrassing story.

Before I could protest, his arms slid beneath my knees and around my back and he lifted me like I weighed absolutely nothing.

“What—“ A gasp escaped me. Every instinct built from years of unwanted hands snapped to high alert instantly.

But then I saw the difference, and it was glaring.

His hold was firm but careful.. Like he was paying close attention to exactly how much pressure he used. Like he was genuinely afraid of hurting me further.

I couldn't remember the last time someone had held me like I was worth being careful with.

Slowly, reluctantly, I stopped fighting and relaxed against him. I just couldn’t help it, my ankle hurt so bad.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked.

"To see a doctor," he said simply, and started the engine of his car and drove away.

*

His car passed through enormous iron gates and stopped in front of a building that made me forget entirely about my ankle.

The mansion was too small for a word. It was like a palace, with towers and arched windows. Everywhere looked incredibly beautiful.

He walked over to the side of the car, and he scooped me back into his arms, carried me through the entrance, and the staff inside stopped moving instantly.

"Greetings, Alpha Zithan." The words came in perfect unison, heads bowing as he walked past.

I went completely rigid in his arms.

Alpha?

I turned my head and stared at the side of his face. The sharp jaw, and the total calmness shook to the bone. The complete ease with which he carried me through a palace full of bowing servants like it was entirely ordinary.

He hadn't acted like one, not even slightly. He apologized to me on the side of the road. He had opened the car door. He had carried me like I was something worth protecting.

I didn't know what to do with that information, so I buried my face against his chest and pretended I hadn't heard anything.

He set me down in a large quiet room and walked out without a word. A doctor arrived shortly after, examined my ankle, applied ointment, and left just as quickly.

I grabbed my bag. Time to find my father.

I was halfway down the corridor when someone's shoulder collided hard with mine. I grabbed the railing just in time.

"Excuse me?" I snapped, spinning around.

The man stopped, and slowly turned.

I opened my mouth to give him the piece of my mind, but the words died completely.

It was Alpha Zithan, and I smiled. I was relieved to see him. After all, I needed to thank him.

“Alpha—“

"Are you blind, or something?" He coldly cut me off. His eyes roamed from my head down to my toes in disgust.

I stood there with my jaws dropped, staring back at him. My brows furrowed in confusion, as I looked at him very well to check what was wrong.

But he’s Alpha Zithan. Same face, same dark hair, and same jaw. Everything about him was identical to the man who had just carried me in from the street.

Wait! Something was wrong. His eyes were different.

Not silver, it was Ice blue. Cold and flat and utterly disinterested, sweeping over me with barely concealed irritation — as though my existence on these stairs was a personal inconvenience.

He turned around and walked away.

That was not the same man. That could not have been the same man who had apologised on the side of a road, carried me through his own palace, and asked in the softest voice whether I could heal.

I gripped the railing and stared after him.

What on earth was wrong with Alpha Zithan? Does he have personality disorder?