CHAPTER2- The Awakening.

The silence after my question wasn't peaceful—it pulsed, heavy and wrong, pressing against my skin like an invisible hand tightening around my throat. Angela’s fingers twitched where they hung by her side, her eyes flickering to Damian, then to Elder Rowan, as though trying to measure who would speak first. No one did. That was answer enough.

I took a step back, the floorboards creaking beneath my bare heel, heart thudding like a war drum inside my chest. “You’ve all known something about me my whole life,” I said quietly, the realization dawning like a slow-burning fire. “And you kept it hidden. Why?”

Elder Rowan shifted uncomfortably, his wrinkled hand clutching the edge of the altar like it was the only thing anchoring him to this world. “It was for your protection,” he finally said, voice brittle. “There are truths older than our laws, Selena. Truths that, once known, cannot be undone.”

Damian’s jaw tightened, but still he said nothing. Not to defend me. Not to offer the truth. Not even to lie.

The light from the moonstone in the ceiling flickered, casting wavering shadows on the walls. “Protection from what?” I asked, though deep down I already felt the answer. Something ancient stirred in my blood now—something no rejection could silence. “From who I am?”

Angela stepped forward then, her voice low. “From what you are.” She glanced at Damian again, her voice hardening. “And from what others would do if they ever found out.”

I was tired of riddles, tired of secrets that were stitched into my very veins. “Say it plainly. What am I?” My voice didn’t waver—it thundered.

They looked at one another again, the weight of years and guilt passed silently between them. But it was Rowan who finally spoke the words I knew I would never forget.

“You carry the blood of the Primordial Alphas. The first bloodline—the original rulers of our kind.”

The air around me seemed to contract, pulling tight like the breath of the forest before a storm. My lips parted, but no words came. Primordial Alphas? The myth? The story parents whispered to scare pups into behaving?

“That blood has been dormant in your line for generations,” Rowan continued, as though the truth could now spill freely. “We thought it lost. Until now.”

Damian finally moved, his voice low and broken. “I knew the moment I touched you that night. Your scent… it wasn’t just intoxicating. It was ancient. Powerful.”

I staggered back another step. The earth under my feet no longer felt real. My rejection had triggered something, yes—but not just heartbreak or defiance. It had cracked open a sealed door inside me. “So that’s what this is?” I whispered. “I’m some… relic of power you kept hidden until it was too late?”

“No,” Angela said quickly. “You’re not a relic. You’re a threat.” The words slammed into me harder than Damian’s rejection ever could.

She tried to soften them. “Not to us, Selena. But to the Council. To the order they’ve maintained for centuries. If they find out what’s awakened in you…”

“They’ll kill her,” Damian finished, voice grim. “Or worse—bind her.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, as if trying to contain the heat that had begun to churn under my skin. It wasn’t anger—it was something more. Like fire waking from a thousand-year slumber. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“No one does,” Rowan said. “But it’s inside you now, fully awakened. That kind of power… it doesn’t go unnoticed.”

The temperature in the room dropped. Goosebumps rose along my arms, but I wasn’t cold. I was burning from within. I could feel the crackle of it beneath my skin, coiling and uncoiling like serpents of flame, waiting to strike.

“Selena,” Angela said cautiously, “you need to stay calm. The more emotional you become, the more unstable the power will be.”

“How convenient,” I snapped, turning to face Damian. “You reject me and now you act like my protector? Why didn’t you just tell me from the beginning?”

His voice broke. “Because I didn’t want to lose you.”

“You lost me the moment you threw me aside like I was nothing.”

The shadows in the room deepened, the candle flames flickering even without wind. Something inside me stretched, snarling awake, and I felt it ripple through the air like a wave of heat. I gasped. The altar behind me cracked, its ancient stone splitting as if reacting to my fury.

Angela took a step back. “Selena—” But it was too late.

The air snapped with static. My hands glowed, a faint ember at first—then flame. Gold, bright and unnatural. My heart raced as I stared down at them. The fire didn’t burn me. It danced across my skin like it had always belonged there.

Everyone stared in stunned silence. Even Damian.

“What… what’s happening to me?” I asked, voice trembling. Rowan looked like he had seen a ghost. “You’re manifesting. It’s begun.”

The flames around my fingers twisted into shapes—symbols I didn’t recognize, yet somehow understood. They hovered in the air for seconds before disappearing into nothing. And still the power surged.

“I can’t stop it,” I whispered, though part of me didn’t want to.

“You must,” Angela urged, her voice sharp. “If the Council senses that kind of release, they’ll come. And they won’t ask questions.”

I closed my eyes, trying to breathe, trying to contain the storm. But images flashed behind my lids—forests burning, wolves kneeling, an ancient crown made of obsidian and bone.

I stumbled back into Damian’s chest before I could fall. He caught me without hesitation, arms tight around me. “You’re not alone, Selena,” he murmured, the words strangely honest. “I swear I won’t let them hurt you.”

But I didn’t answer. My chest was tight, and something darker was stirring beyond the flames. Something buried deeper than blood.

Because as the fire began to calm, a whisper echoed in my mind—soft, feminine, but not mine.

“They lied to you, child. Just like they did to me.” I froze. That voice… it wasn’t memory. It wasn’t imagination.

Someone—or something—was inside me. And she was wide awake. Who was the voice inside Selena—and what buried truth was about to rise with it?