004

(Lyra’s POV)

I hadn’t slept.

Not really.

The hours dragged like a slow, suffocating tide pressing into my bones.

It wasn’t the kind of ache that bruises or cuts can explain—this was something deeper, rawer, like a hollow echo inside me trying to claw its way out.

My wolf still lingered beneath my skin, flickering like a candle flame fighting to survive in a merciless storm.

Some moments I could feel her breath—soft and steady—nestled just beneath my ribs, a fragile rhythm matching my own heartbeat.

Other times, when I reached for her, she slipped away like mist.

Afraid.

Just like I was afraid.

---

A soft knock came at the door.

Quiet. Purposeful.

Rael’s summons.

My body obeyed before my mind could form words.

I rose slowly, joints stiff, muscles aching from endless stillness.

The floor was cold beneath my bare feet, biting through the thin tunic.

I was hollow, empty.

Cold—but not numb.

 Outside, the air was sharp with frost, the wind whipping around the ancient stones of the tower, carrying a low, mournful howl.

The sky was bruised—purple bleeding into gray, streaked faintly with pink as dawn’s first light bled over the horizon.

I stood on frost-kissed grass, toes curling numb against the frozen earth.

The thin tunic clung to my skin, sweat dampening it despite the chill.

My breath came ragged.

My hands—raw and scraped from countless falls—ached fiercely.

Twice I had fallen trying to shift. Twice I had failed.

And still, I was nothing but human.

 Rael stood at the edge of the training yard, a shadow carved from stone and darkness.

His cloak billowed behind him like a black wave swallowed by the night.

His golden eyes were sharp, fierce, locked on me with a stillness that chilled me deeper than the cold.

“This is where it begins,” he said softly. His voice was calm.

Steady. Terrifying.

“I don’t understand,” I snapped, the frustration and desperation in my chest knotting tighter, choking me. “Why can’t I shift?”

Rael tilted his head, lips pressed hard into a thin line.

“Because you’re fighting it.”

“I’m not!” My voice cracked, trembling with the truth.

He stepped closer, and I felt the weight of his gaze as if it was pulling pieces of me loose.

My wolf stirred beneath my skin—a faint tremor—then shrank back, as if afraid.

“She’s scared,” Rael said quietly, his voice soft but knowing, like he could see inside my fractured soul.

“You don’t know anything about her.”

“I know she’s broken,” he replied, “and you’re both trying to protect each other by hiding.” I hated how he said it like compassion.

Like he understood the pain that gripped me.

---

“You think if I shift, you’ll get your answers?” I challenged, breath catching in my throat. He didn’t blink.

“I think you’ll finally remember who you are.” I crossed my arms tight across my chest, as if to hold myself together.

“You talk like I’m some puzzle piece to be solved. Like you want me to be useful.”

His voice dropped low, a slow rumble deep in the silence.

“I want you to survive.”

The word landed like a stone.

Heavy. Suffocating.

Carrying memory. Regret.

Something deeper that cut me to the bone. I flinched.

 Rael turned and gestured sharply.

Two wolves stepped forward—tall, silent, eyes sharp as hawks.

“This is no lesson in kindness,” he said, voice cold and low. “It’s a trial. I can’t protect you forever.”

“Is that a threat?” I asked sharply.

“No,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “It’s reality.”

One guard stepped forward and threw something onto the frozen ground.

Raw meat. Still warm.

Blood dripping.

The scent was sharp, fierce—fire in the cold air.

My knees buckled without warning.

My hands dug into the cold earth, claws—no, fingers—digging deeper without my control.

A low growl rumbled from deep in my throat. Not mine.

Hers. My wolf.

She was waking.

Hungry.

And beneath that hunger, something darker stirred.

Suddenly, a flash.

Teeth bared. Blood spilled.

Not mine. Not theirs.

Screams swallowed by night.

My hands—claws?—dragging across damp leaves.

A howl rising raw and guttural from my throat. And then—

Gold eyes.

Rael’s voice, distant but urgent.

“Stop. Gods, stop—she’s not in control—”

I blinked.

Shook my head.

“What—what was that—?”

Rael’s voice stayed steady, grave.

“Your truth.”

---

 Pain tore through my spine like fire.

I gasped and stumbled back.

Rael didn’t move.

“Let it happen,” he said softly, but iron under his words. “Stop resisting.”

“I’m not ready—”

“You’ll never be ready.”

My bones screamed.

My body convulsed with unbearable pain. I dropped to my knees.

Vision blurred and swam.

Hands twisting, elongating.

Fingers growing claws, then snapping back. My jaw clenched with the effort to hold myself together.

Caught—trapped—between human and beast.

It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t clean.

It was agony.

And it hurts a lot that I can ever imagined.

“I can’t—”

“You can.”

He crouched beside me

. For the first time, his expression softened. He looked less like a killer.

More like a man crushed beneath the weight of his own guilt.

“You did this before,” he said, voice low, warm enough to feel like a lifeline. “The night I found you, you shifted mid-battle. Your wolf was wild. Half-melded. Broken. But powerful.”

I shook my head, dizzy, trembling.

“I don’t remember—”

“You nearly killed two of my wolves,” he said quietly. “You didn’t recognize friend or foe. You just fought.”

My throat burned with shame.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you need to know what’s inside you.”

---

He rose.

Hard. Unyielding.

“Shift. Or lose her.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

“Your wolf is trapped,” he said. “If she’s forced down too many times, she’ll vanish. You’ll become nothing but bones and breath. Empty.”

I stared down at the frozen dirt beneath my trembling hands.

At the dark blood staining the earth.

Was that me? A ticking clock?

How could something so vital—so alive—just disappear?

The guards moved forward again.

Rael raised a hand.

“Enough.”

He approached me.

This time, when he stood over me, it wasn’t with command.

It was something heavier.

Something like regret.

“I marked you,” he said low, voice raw with words he refused to say aloud, “but it was more than instinct.”

I looked up.

My heart pounded in my ears.

His voice tightened.

“It felt like… fate.”

He clenched his jaw.

“And I don’t believe in fate.”

Neither did I.

Until I met him.

Until I felt the mark pulse beneath my skin.

“I don’t want to belong to anyone,” I whispered. Rael nodded slowly.

“Then fight to belong to yourself.”

I didn’t shift that day.

But something inside me did.

---

 Later That Night

I didn’t return to the same room.

Rael moved me to a smaller chamber near the west tower.

No windows.

One bed. One door.

And a single chair.

---

I almost noticed immediately when I woke up.

He had sat there all night.

Silent as shadow.

His cloak draped over me like a shield.

I didn’t ask why.

He didn’t offer.

The bond between us thrummed quietly.

Unspoken. Dangerous. Unbreakable.

I shifted beneath the weight of his cloak.

The scent of cedarwood and smoke wrapped around my shoulders like armor I never wanted but could not refuse.

He sat like a sentinel.

One hand loosely curled on his knee.

The other resting near the hilt of the blade at his hip.

Not asleep.

Watching.

Or perhaps…

Guarding.

---

There were so many questions in my head.

I wanted to ask—

Do you always stay this close to those you mark? Do you regret it?

But I stayed silent.

Sometimes words weren’t needed.

The quiet between us said enough:

I won’t leave you alone with your nightmares.

Even if I am one of them.

---

As the first pale light of dawn crept through cracks in the stone, I finally surrendered to exhaustion.

Sleep claimed me.

And for the first time since I woke—

I wasn’t alone in the dark.

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