The Awakening

The crowd gasped. Accepting a rejection was rare, most wolves fought it, hoping the bond could be salvaged but accepting it... that severed the bond completely with no chance of reconciliation.

The moment the words left my mouth, the bond snapped with a sound only I could hear. The pain doubled, tripled, until I was sure I would collapse right there in front of everyone.

But I didn't.

I stood there, meeting Asher's gaze, and watched something flash across his face. Surprise? Regret? It didn't matter.

"You don't deserve me," I said quietly, but my voice carried in the stunned silence. "You never did."

Then I turned on my heel and walked away.

Behind me, chaos erupted. Voices shouted. Someone called my name but I kept walking, my head high, my spine straight, even though every step felt like walking through fire.

Maya caught up with me at the edge of the courtyard. "Rhea, wait..."

"I'm fine," I lied.

"You're not fine. You're in shock. Come back to my place, let me..."

"I need to be alone."

"Rhea..."

I stopped and turned to face her, and whatever she saw in my expression made her step back. "Please, Maya. I just... I need to be alone."

She searched my face for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "Okay but I'm checking on you tomorrow, and you can't stop me."

I managed something that might have been a smile. "Okay."

Then I walked away from the clearing, from the pack, from the only life I'd ever known.

I made it back to my tiny cabin on the outskirts of pack territory before the tears came.

They hit me all at once, heaving sobs that tore from my chest and left me gasping for air. I collapsed onto my bed, curling into myself as the pain rolled over me in waves.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Mate bonds were sacred, and chosen by the Moon Goddess. You didn't just... reject them not unless something was seriously wrong.

But nothing was wrong with me. I was just... not enough.

Not strong enough. Not pretty enough. Not high-born enough.

Not enough.

The bond was gone now as I could feel the empty space where it used to be, like a missing limb. My wolf was silent, withdrawn so far into my consciousness that I couldn't feel her at all.

Maybe Asher was right. Maybe I was weak.

I cried until I had no tears left, until the sky outside my window started getting bright then I dragged myself off the bed and looked around my cabin with new eyes.

There was nothing here worth keeping. A few pieces of secondhand furniture, some clothes,books and trinkets.

I pulled out the backpack I'd used in school and started shoving things into it.

A change of clothes went in, followed by my mother's jewelry which was the only thing I had left of her together with some cash I'd been saving and my phone.

I didn't have much so it all fit in one bag.

The sun was just starting to peek behind the clouds when I slung the backpack over my shoulder and took one last look at the cabin and at the life I was leaving behind.

"They'll never see the weak omega again," I whispered to the empty room then I walked out the door and into the forest, heading away from Ravenlaw territory, away from Asher and Vivienne and everyone who'd stood by and watched while he destroyed me.

I didn't know where I was going, I just knew I couldn't stay here.

****

Three months later

The rogues smelled me before they saw me.

I'd gotten careless. Three months of running, of barely eating, of sleeping in caves and under bridges and anywhere else I could find shelter, had worn me down to nothing.

I was exhausted, half-starved, and so numb inside that I'd stopped being careful about covering my tracks.

Now I was going to pay for it.

"Well, well,well," a gravelly voice said from the darkness ahead. "What do we have here?"

I froze, my hand tightening on the branch I'd been using as a walking stick. Not that it would do much good against three full-grown werewolves, but it was better than nothing.

Three figures emerged from between the trees, their eyes glowing in the darkness. Most rogues were harmless, just loners who preferred solitude but these three didn't look harmless at all.

The one who'd spoken was massive, with a scarred face and teeth that were pointy even in his human form. His companions, were a lean male with dead eyes and a female whose smile made my skin crawl.

"What's a little omega doing all alone in rogue territory?" Scarface asked, taking a step closer. "Either you're stupid, or you've got a death wish."

"Just passing through," I managed, hating how weak my voice sounded. My wolf didn't even stir to help me—she'd been silent since the rejection, buried so deep inside me that sometimes I wondered if she'd ever come back.

"Passing through our territory without permission," the female rogue said, circling around to my left. "That's disrespectful."

"I didn't know..."

"Well, it doesn't't matter." The lean male moved to my right, cutting off that escape route. "You're here now and you smell... interesting."

Someone standing from a mile away could hear my heart beat as I calculated my chances of escape.

Zero. My chances were zero.

"Look," I said, trying to keep my voice steady, "I don't want any trouble. I'll leave your territory right now and you'll never see me again."

Scarface laughed, and the sound made my dear double. "Oh, we're way past that, little omega. See, we can't just let you walk away now. What kind of message would that send? That rogues can be disrespected and we'll just... let it go?"

He took another step closer, and I could smell the violence on him, the barely contained aggression that all rogues seemed to carry.

"So here's what's going to happen," he continued, his voice dropping to a menacing purr. "You're going to shift. We're going to have a little... fun and if you survive, maybe we'll let you go."

The female rogue giggled, and the sound was worse than Scarface's laugh.

"I can't shift," I blurted out, because it was true. My wolf hadn't responded to me in three months. For all I knew, the rejection had broken something inside me permanently.

"Can't or won't?" The lean male asked.

"Can't, my wolf is... gone."

They exchanged glances, and for a moment, I thought maybe they'd lose interest. A wolf who couldn't shift wasn't much of a challenge, after all.

Then Scarface smiled. "Even better, means you can't fight back."

The female grabbed my arm, her claws extending and digging into my skin. I screamed and swung the branch at her head. It connected with a satisfying crack, and she stumbled back with a snarl.

"You stupid bitch!" she spat as blood trickled from her temple.

Scarface backhanded me, and I went flying, my back slamming into a tree trunk hard enough to drive the air from my lungs. Pain exploded across my ribs which caused the branch to fall from my numb fingers.

"You should've just accepted it," Scarface said, advancing on me. "Now we're going to make this hurt."

The lean male grabbed my hair, yanking my head back as his claws pressed against my throat, and I felt a trickle of something run down my neck.

This was it. I thought. So this was how I died? Alone in the woods, killed by rogues, unmourned and not missed?

Maybe Asher was right. Maybe I was too weak to survive in this world.

The thought made something inside me snap.

This wasn't anger or determination. This was something... else. I felt a crack in whatever had been holding me together for the past three months.

And through that crack, something else poured in.