A flicker of unease started then, but I ignored it, because that’s what I’ve always done. I buried the questions and the discomfort all for the sake of the pack. I followed the path laid out for me because it worked, until it didn’t.
I don’t even know how long it has been, but the night everything went undoubtedly wrong, I was on a routine perimeter check. When I arrived at the southern border, something felt off immediately. It was almost too still and quiet, and my wolf stirred with unease before I focused on the task.
Before I knew it, I was surrounded by wolves, some familiar and some not. That was what blinded me the most.
For a second, I thought it was some kind of test, until they fought like they wanted me dead, so I did the same. Of course, there were too many, and I felt those magic signatures land far faster than my mind could come up with a countermeasure.
It pressed against my skin like something entirely unwelcome, then a surge of heavy, oppressive cold hit me and dragged me down.
I remember snarling and fighting against it to try and break through again, but they were already on me, grabbing me and pinning me down. The rest is still a blur of movement and restraint, and one way or another, I was transported and contained until I found myself on the stage. Until I was sold.
No fear I had ever felt before could match that, and it lingers even now while I wait like a helpless thing.
It’s a violation of everything I understand about our world. Wolves don’t do that…they don’t sell each other, but someone did, and now, I’m about to face who was sick enough to pay for me.
The voices draw closer, and once a lock is undone, the door opens, and everything in me goes incredibly still. A distinct chill grabs onto me, and I have no choice but to stare.
He steps through the threshold just enough to let his presence be known, dark eyes already on me, and it suddenly feels like the weight of the air around me has become impossibly dense.
I thought I had caught a familiar scent from the crowd, but I figured I was going insane from being captured and sold like livestock, and my traitorous mind was bringing him up in a desperate moment. But I wasn’t imagining things.
It’s really him. He’s here.
Zane.
Everything about him looks sharper and more refined now. The boy I knew is still in his features, but he’s buried under layers of what seems like experience and incredible control.
He feels different, too. Even with whatever they’ve used to suppress my instincts, I can still register how heavy his presence is. How intense he has become.
Zane had always been a bit on the quieter side and more thoughtful than most, but he used to laugh with me, sometimes at me, and he never made me feel like I was too much. Even if I was probably annoying with how often I talked on and onwith him, he never made it apparent. He always listened, and he made me feel both seen and heard.
Something in me clings to that version of him, but given the man standing in front of me, that Zane doesn’t exist anymore. I know that to be a fact.
I saw him in Coldreach when we attacked, fighting against us. Against me.
He had moved with such ruthless precision that it made me remember all over again why he left in the first place. It was his time in the military shining through, and as far as I could tell, he wasn’t showing any mercy.
Now, he’s looking at me with an unreadable expression, as if he didn’t just buy me in a room full of strangers. My jaw tightens as I stare right back.
For just a flickering heartbeat, I am relieved to think he could be in the crowd of bidders. It is immediate and instinctive, like falling back into old ways. I know him, and he knows me, but while I wonder if he can somehow fix this, reality sets in just as fast.
Zane isn’t on my side, and he hasn’t been for a long time.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Done what?” he asks, voice almost startling me from how much firmer it sounded. The maturity he possessed made something in my heart ache.
“Bid on me,” I mutter, eyes narrowing at him from where I sit on the bench. “You just made yourself a target.”
Zane’s eyes flick over me briefly, not betraying a single thought of his. “I was already a target.”
“That’s not the same thing, and you know it.”
“It’s not like it matters.”
Irritation sparks in me, and I scoff to myself, wishing I could do anything to look less compliant. “Then congratulations…you’ve just bought me from an illegal auction. Was that on your list of goals, right under running away?”
He doesn’t say anything at first, but the slight clench of his jaw hints at me hitting a sore spot. That controlled silence grates on me.
