Claimed by The Wolf l Ran From のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 21 - チャプター 28

 The seal broke quietly, in the end.After everything — the sanctuary, the blood, the Oracle's ritual carried out beneath a sky just beginning to pale toward morning — I'd expected something violent. A final surge, a scream, some dramatic collapse. Instead it simply lifted, like a held breath finally released, and for the first time since this had all started, I felt like my own body belonged entirely to me and no one else.Talking to Seraphina had helped more than I expected it to. I still didn't know what to call her, still didn't know how to fold eighteen years of missing her into a handful of hours of finally meeting her, but something about hearing her voice, watching her face soften every time she looked at me, had settled a part of me I hadn't realized was still braced for another betrayal.I thought, foolishly, that the hard part was over.It wasn't Damien who raised the idea of the pack. It was Se

I couldn't sleep.I lay there in the dark replaying the same two sentences over and over until they'd worn a groove into me.*Having a mate doesn't mean he has to make her Luna.**That's the part you're going to have to earn.*The longer I turned them over, the angrier I got, until the anger wasn't really about the words anymore. It was about the fact that nobody — not one single person in this entire exhausting supernatural mess — had ever actually asked me whether I wanted any of this. I'd found out werewolves existed a few weeks ago. I'd found out *I* existed, in some real sense, only a little while before that. And now an entire pack was quietly voting on whether I deserved to lead them.I gave up on sleep somewhere around two in the morning and went looking for somewhere quiet enough to think.---Damien found me sitting on the back steps of the lodge, staring out at the dark tree line, and he didn't say anything at first. He just sat down beside me, close but not touching, like

I'd barely finished accepting Victoria's challenge before Damien pulled me away from the crowd, his grip on my arm somewhere between gentle and furious."Have you lost your mind?""Good morning to you too.""Victoria has trained her entire life to become a warrior," he said. "You barely know how to control your own strength.""Then I'll learn.""In two days?"I lifted my chin. "Would you prefer I ran away instead?"He went silent at that, and I knew exactly why. Running was how all of this had started — me, fleeing through Blackwood Forest, him chasing me down before either of us understood what we were to each other. I watched it land, and something in me softened despite myself."I'm not doing this because I want to become Luna," I said, quieter now. "I'm doing it because I'm tired of everyone treating me like I'm too weak to make my own decisions.""I don't think you're weak.""Then stop treating me like I am."Neither of us said anything for a moment. Finally, he exhaled, some of t

I stood outside the training arena, every muscle in my body registering a complaint it fully intended to file again tomorrow, and I should have been celebrating. I'd won a fight almost everyone in that crowd had expected me to lose.Instead, I was staring at a folded scrap of paper.*You were right to fight her.**But the person you should be questioning isn't Victoria.**ELDER MARCUS.*I read it again, like the words might rearrange themselves into something that made more sense the second time. Who had slipped it into my hand? Why warn me at all, and why wait until after the fight to name him? What did an elder I'd barely spoken to have to do with any of this?Damien approached before I'd gotten anywhere close to an answer."Come on," he said. "The healer wants to check your ribs."I folded the note and slipped it into my pocket in the same motion. He noticed anyway, because of course he did."What was that?""Nothing."He raised an eyebrow. "Emily."I gave him a tired smile. "Damie