CHAPTER TWO: SECRETS THEY HID FROM ME

The voice in my head did not disappear after the rejection. I ran, not because I was afraid of them, but because I was afraid of myself. The forest swallowed me quickly, the cold air biting against my skin as I pushed forward, my breath uneven, my mind racing.

This is not real, I said under my breath. But the voice answered again. It is real. I stopped suddenly, my chest rising and falling as I looked around, searching for something I could not see. Who are you? I demanded.

It felt like something was waiting and watching. A sharp pain shot through my chest without warning, forcing me to grab onto a tree as I gasped.

Something moved inside me. Not like a wolf. Not like anything I had ever felt before. “You are not empty,” the voice said again.

My hands trembled. Then what am I? I asked. “You are unfinished.” The word stayed in my mind longer than it should have, and it did not feel like an insult or a mistake, but like a truth I had never been allowed to understand. My breathing slowed slightly as I tried to process it, but the more I thought about it, the more something inside me reacted.

Unfinished how? I asked, For a moment, nothing answered.

Then the pressure inside my chest returned, Images flickered briefly at the edge of my mind, too fast to fully see, but enough to leave behind a strange feeling of familiarity, as if I had lived through something I could not remember.

My fingers pressed harder against the tree as I steadied myself. “This does not make sense,” I said, but even as I spoke, I knew that was no longer true.

Because something about this felt real, and that thought unsettled me more than anything else.

The voice did not deny it. It simply waited.

My breath caught and before I could react, a presence entered the forest, Strong and dangerous. I turned and saw him.

Kael. He stepped closer, his golden eyes locked onto mine. “I should have noticed earlier,” he said quietly. My chest tightened.

Noticed what? I asked. His expression darkened, indicating that you are not normal. The words did not feel like an insult, but they did not feel harmless either, and the way he said them made it clear that he was no longer looking at me the way he used to.

I held his gaze, even though part of me wanted to look away, because I refused to appear weaker in front of him again. I was never normal, I said quietly. My voice came out steadier than I expected, but inside, everything felt uncertain, shifting in ways I could not fully control.

Kael studied me more closely, his expression tightening as if he was trying to understand something that no longer made sense to him.

This is different, he said. The air between us grew heavier and i could feel it again. That pressure. That strange awareness building inside me.

You can feel it too, I said. It was not a question. Kael did not deny it. His silence confirmed everything. For a moment, neither of us moved, but the distance between us felt sharper than before, not just physical, but something deeper, something that had changed the moment he rejected me.

I do not know what you are becoming, he said slowly. The words should have scared me, but they did not. Because the truth was, I did not know either.

The voice inside me stirred again, He is afraid of what you will become. But this time, I did not deny it. Because for the first time, I could feel that fear too.