Wolves don't break

Selene

My hands were shaking again.

Not from fear, not anymore—but from fury, from exhaustion, from the storm clawing beneath my skin with nowhere to go. The beast inside me stirred with every breath, restless and coiled tight like a spring wound too far. Something in me was changing. Something old and wild. Something that had been waiting for a moment just like this.

Killian stood across from me in the clearing, arms folded over his chest, expression unreadable. He hadn’t said much this morning. He just handed me a dagger—real steel this time—and walked into the forest like he expected me to follow.

And I had.

Because I wanted answers. Because I wanted more than just pain. I wanted purpose.

He pointed to a crude circle drawn into the dirt with ash and herbs. "Step in."

I did. The air shifted the second my foot crossed the boundary. It pressed in—dense, almost electric. My wolf growled low in my chest, uneasy.

"What is this?"

"An old rite," he said simply. "Not all power is born. Some of it is claimed. This is how you start."

"By standing in a circle?"

He gave me a look. "By facing what’s inside it."

The wind moved. No—not the wind. The shadows. They thickened. Deepened. Then moved.

A creature—too large to be human, too twisted to be anything else—stepped out of the darkness, molten eyes glowing like dying embers. My breath caught. I knew this thing. I’d seen it in my dreams. I’d felt its teeth in every nightmare since Damon’s rejection. Since I’d been thrown to the ground, cast aside like I was nothing.

"What the hell is that?"

"Your fear," Killian said. "Your past. Your weakness. Call it whatever you want. If you can’t defeat it, you don’t deserve to lead yourself—let alone anyone else."

The beast charged.

I didn’t have time to scream. Only move. My dagger met flesh—if you could call it that. I ducked, twisted, sliced. It howled. But it didn’t bleed.

Because it wasn’t real.

But the pain was.

It hit me across the chest and I flew back, crashing against the circle’s edge. It burned. The line pulsed against my spine like a brand.

"Get up," Killian barked. "Again."

I did. Over and over.

Each time, it knocked me down. Each time, it whispered my deepest doubts: You weren’t strong enough for Damon. You weren’t chosen. You were nothing.

Until something in me snapped.

Not broke. Snapped.

Like a leash had been cut.

I screamed—not in pain, but in fury—and lunged. I didn’t aim. I didn’t think. I felt. And for the first time, I moved like a wolf. Fast, brutal, instinct-driven. I drove the dagger through the creature’s chest and didn’t stop until it vanished into ash.

The circle cracked.

I collapsed, panting, the dagger clutched so tightly it bit into my palm.

When I looked up, Killian was watching me with something almost reverent.

"You felt it," he said. "Didn’t you?"

I nodded, throat tight. My skin was still buzzing, lit from the inside. "What was that?"

He stepped into the circle, knelt beside me. Reached out and brushed ash from my cheek. The touch sent a shiver through me. Not from fear. From something else entirely.

"That," he said quietly, "was the beginning."

And I believed him.

Because something inside me was awake now.

And it would never sleep again.

I stayed on the ground longer than I should have, but not because I was weak. I needed to feel the earth beneath me. Needed to know I’d survived. I rolled my shoulders, pain dancing like electricity through my bones. Killian didn’t offer to help me up. And I didn’t want him to.

When I finally stood, I looked at the ash staining my skin, my arms, my chest. It was like wearing my pain. But I wasn’t ashamed anymore.

"What happens next?" I asked.

Killian stood too, taller than the trees, shadows clinging to him like a cloak. "Now we sharpen the blade."

I frowned. "I just fought a shadow beast. You want me to fight more illusions?"

"No," he said. "That one came from inside you. The next ones won’t."

My heart skipped.

"We’re not alone in these woods, Selene. And your old pack... they’ve started to notice you’re missing."

A beat of silence passed between us.

Then I smiled, slow and sharp.

"Let them come."

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