3.

Rayna POV

The stream wasn't far.

I heard it before I saw it - the gentle rush of water over smooth stones, the occasional splash as it tumbles across shallow dips. It cuts through the trees like a silver ribbon, catching the moonlight in quick, glimmering flashes.

I drop to my knees at the bank, my legs weak, trembling. My fingers dip into the water and I hiss at the cold. But I don’t stop. I roll up the remains of my sleeves and splash my face, rinsing away blood, dirt, ash - all the pieces of tonight I can’t bear to carry a second longer.

The icy sting jolts me fully awake.

I scrub gently at the dried blood on my arm and across my collarbone, watching pale pink swirl into the current and disappear downstream. The scratches are already beginning to close, the bruises fading as my wolf’s healing kicks in. But I clean them anyway. Not because I need to.

Because it makes me feel like I still have control over something.

For a while, I just sit there, breathing, dripping, letting the silence wrap around me like the cloak on my shoulders.

I think I’m afraid to cry. Because if I start… I might not stop.

He rejected you.

The words circle like crows in my head. No matter how I try to push them away, they keep coming back. Sharp and cruel and final.

Aiden rejected me. My mate. My fated one. He looked me in the eye and threw it all away like it meant nothing.

Like I mean nothing.

Tears sting at the backs of my eyes, but I blink them away. I don’t want to sob here like some broken girl in a dress that’s barely holding together, hiding in the woods with blood drying on her skin and a stranger’s voice echoing in her mind.

"You were never meant to be his."

That voice wasn’t my wolf. It was colder. Older. And it knew something.

The same voice that stirred something when the rogue looked at me. When the moonlight felt too bright. When I touched the earth and it felt like it watched me back.

Something inside me shifted tonight.

Not my wolf this time. Something deeper.

I lean forward, cupping the water again to splash my face - and then I froze.

What the ....

My reflection shimmers in the ripples. And there it is. - Not on my skin. But beneath it. - Right above my heart, barely visible in the watery reflection - a faint glow, like silver ink beneath the surface. A crescent moon cradled by thorns. It pulses once, twice, then fades.

Gone.

I lurch backward, heart pounding. I yank the collar of my dress aside, but there's nothing there. No mark. No light.

But I saw it. I know I saw it.

My wolf stirs. She doesn’t speak, but her silence feels… alert. Watchful.

The air changes. I glance at the stream again. The water is still flowing. Still ordinary. But something is different now.

Something is awake.

The stream eventually dulls to background noise as I stand, water dripping from my hands, my skin cooling too fast in the night air. I don’t look at my reflection again.

I don’t want to see what’s written in my eyes.

The forest is dense, unfamiliar, but I trust my instincts - or maybe it’s my wolf’s. I let her guide me. She’s still quiet, wounded, but not defeated. She never is.

A short climb takes me to higher ground, where the trees are thicker, older, their trunks like sentinels keeping watch. The air smells like damp moss and old roots. Somewhere in the distance, a fox screams - high and sudden - and the sound makes me flinch.

I keep going.

Then I see it. An old hunter’s shelter, half-hidden by brambles and low brush. It’s little more than a crumbling stone hollow built into the hillside, with a sagging wooden overhang and signs of long abandonment. A place meant to keep out wind and snow. Barely.

But right now, it looks like salvation.

I push inside, brushing cobwebs from the entry and testing the half-collapsed bench with a cautious hand. It creaks under my weight but holds.

The cloak is still around my shoulders, and now I’m more grateful than ever for it. I curl up with it wrapped tightly around my body, tugging it up to my chin. The scent of rosemary lingers - oddly calming - and something warmer underneath it, like firelight and earth.

The ache in my chest hasn't gone away.

Neither has the hollowness where the bond used to be.

But here, in the dark, I let the weight of exhaustion press me down. I let my body surrender to the pain and confusion, to the crack in my world I can’t yet name.

I don’t cry. But I don’t dream either.

I just drift - half-awake, half-broken - as the wind moves through the trees like breath, and the moon watches me from behind clouds I can’t see.

Something is coming. I can feel it. Even if I don’t know what it is yet. And then I hear a noise.

A crack.

Louder than a branch snapping. Sharper. Right outside the shelter. I bolt upright, heart pounding, eyes wide.

Footsteps. Not animal. - Two-legged. - And then a voice - low, unfamiliar, and far too close.

“She’s here.”