A Cold Departure

Chapter 7

A Cold Departure

POV: Adelina McKenna

Silence has a shape in a place like Silver Fang.

It isn’t just the absence of noise it’s a weapon. A precision tool designed to cut without a blade, wound without leaving blood.

And this morning, it carved me open.

I stepped into the hall after sunrise and immediately felt it: the shift in temperature, the subtle tension in the air. Doors that had been open yesterday were now shut. Conversations halted the moment I approached. Eyes followed me, calculating, assessing, dismissing.

If last night’s Gathering of Blood had made me a curiosity, today I was a liability.

A half-blood. An unknown. A mate their Alpha didn’t claim.

That made me dangerous. Unstable.

Worse unwanted.

I walked alone through the west wing toward the private dining hall, following Maren’s terse instructions from the note slipped under my door.

Breakfast. Mandatory. 8:00 sharp. East Hall.

Don’t be late.

As if punctuality might save me from being swallowed whole by a world I didn’t ask to be part of.

The dining hall was straight out of a medieval dream long tables, vaulted ceiling, iron chandeliers. Wolves, in their human forms, gathered in tight clusters, laughing softly, sharing food and power with subtle glances and hushed tones.

I was the only one standing alone.

The moment I stepped inside, the temperature dropped at least five degrees.

No one spoke to me.

No one greeted me.

No one even gestured toward an empty seat.

My presence was met with quiet disdain, like I’d walked in covered in blood.

A few younger wolves glanced my way with wide eyes and whispered quickly behind raised mugs. One woman blonde, elegant, sharp-boned smirked outright as I passed.

I wanted to ignore them.

I wanted to keep my chin up, play the stoic omega walking among wolves.

But my wolf growled beneath my skin.

We are not prey.

I took the furthest seat from the Alpha table, back against the stone wall, and focused on breathing evenly.

Food was served by humans, oddly enough. Staff, I guessed. The omelet was perfect, the toast crisp, the tea fragrant.

I couldn’t taste a single bite.

I caught only one familiar face at the Alpha table.

Caleb Vane.

I remembered him from the Gathering. Dax’s second-in-command. Tall, wiry, with eyes like storm clouds and a scar that cut through his right brow.

He watched me now, his expression unreadable.

Not cold. Not warm. Just… curious.

I dropped my gaze. I didn’t want curiosity. I wanted answers.

Why had Daxon brought me here only to hesitate?

Why hadn’t he explained the Claiming Ceremony?

Why was I being paraded in front of the pack like some loose thread they didn’t know how to trim?

After breakfast, I wandered the lower grounds alone. No one stopped me.

But everyone noticed me.

Every guard I passed nodded stiffly, professionally. Every wolf I encountered turned slightly away, just enough to signal that I wasn’t part of this place. Not truly.

I was beginning to wonder if this was the plan all along alienate me, isolate me, pressure me to leave on my own.

It was smart. Cold, but smart.

If the Alpha didn’t reject the bond, he didn’t lose status with the Moon Council. But if I left of my own will? No blood, no scandal, no consequences.

Just another mate gone silent.

By mid-afternoon, I found myself standing on a stone balcony overlooking the training fields. Dozens of wolves in human and shifted forms ran combat drills under the watchful eye of an instructor with arms like tree trunks and a voice that carried through stone.

The energy down there was real. Alive.

My wolf stirred, intrigued.

We should be down there.

Why? I asked her. To prove something?

No.

To remember who we are.

I didn’t respond.

Because a small part of me agreed with her.

I wasn’t raised in this world. I didn’t know its customs. Its politics. Its rules. But I felt things. Deep, primal things I didn’t understand yet. Strength that trembled in my limbs. Power that hadn’t fully bloomed.

And a mate bond that refused to fade.

Later that evening, as twilight soaked the sky in purple and silver, Maren appeared again.

She didn’t knock this time. Just opened the door, stepped in, and said, “The Alpha requests your absence.”

I blinked. “My what?”

She tilted her head, her tone neutral. “He asks that you not attend the Council dinner tonight. It will be a closed session.”

I stared at her.

I wasn’t just being isolated I was being excluded.

I nodded once.

She turned to leave.

But before she reached the door, I said, “Tell him I’ll leave tomorrow.”

She paused.

Turned back slowly.

“You are free to go,” she said. “No one is forcing you to remain.”

“I know,” I replied. “And that’s the problem.”

Her gaze narrowed just for a second. Then she was gone.

I spent the night packing.

Not because I had nowhere to go.

But because I couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

The unanswered questions.

The suffocating politeness.

The slow drip of shame disguised as procedure.

If Daxon Reyes wanted to play power games, he could do it without me.

But just as I zipped the last bag shut, another knock echoed through the room.

I tensed.

Then opened the door.

It wasn’t Maren.

It was Caleb.

He stood with his hands in his coat pockets, a calm look on his face. Not pitying. Not condescending. Just… calm.

“I heard,” he said.

I leaned against the doorframe. “Gossip moves fast here.”

“Wolves don’t need telephones,” he said, almost smiling. “Our kind smells change before decisions do.”

I didn’t answer.

“You’re leaving?”

“Seems like the preferred outcome.”

He studied me. “You’re not weak.”

“Never said I was.”

“Then don’t run.”

That stoppe

d me.

“Excuse me?”

“Leaving before you understand what you’re walking away from that’s fear,” he said. “And you don’t strike me as someone who scares easily.”

I’m here for the truth.