Chapter 50 50
ARIELLE'S POV
I listened, mesmerized by a version of my parents I’d never known.
“After you were born,” Quinta continued, “your mother wanted to be stronger. For him, for the pack, for you. And your father trained her. Intensely. Ruthlessly, some might say. I think that’s how she became so tough—she learned from the master of being tough. But she always kept that natural softness in her, for him, for her children.” Her smile faded. “Until the tragedy. The attack that left him like that.”
My heart felt heavy. “She acts like she doesn’t care if he wakes up,” I whispered.
“She acts,” Quinta emphasized. “She thinks he’s punishing her by staying asleep. But some nights, after I’d put you or your brother to bed, I’d see her slip in there. She’d lay next to him and cry. Sometimes she’d even sing those old, silly love songs he used to tease her about.”
I sniffed, fighting back my own tears. “Does she… does she still do that? Lately?”
Quinta looked at me, sensing my need for proof. She nodded slowly. “She does. But only on certain nights, when she’s sure the house is asleep, when she thinks no one, not even this old busybody, will sneak up on her.” She chuckled again, a dry, affectionate sound. “I think over the last decade, she’s just grown to despise being vulnerable where anyone can see. It feels like a weakness she can’t afford.”
I nodded, pieces of a puzzle I didn’t know I was holding clicking into place. “I guess I’ve always just thought she was a cold stone. Especially now, when she’s making everything so hard for me instead of giving me a break before college.”
“I understand why it feels that way,” Quinta said, patting my knee. “But I think she just wants to push you further. To make you tougher, so you won’t become complacent out there in the world.”
I nodded, pondering over it.
Then she looked at me then, her old eyes sharp and knowing. “So. You got a place in the college dormitories, right?”
I nodded, the lie automatic. “Yeah.”
But she just looked at me, her head tilted. A long, quiet moment of disbelief passed between us. She looked away, then back, her voice dropping to a mere breath. “Are you hiding something from us, Arielle?”
I gulped. My heart hammered against my ribs. “Hiding something?”I could feel my eyes wanting to blink uncontrollably. “What? No. What would I be hiding?”
“Hm.” She didn’t look convinced. “Maybe about your life? Or… this new venture into college?”
“Ain’t nothing like that, Quinta,” I said, forcing my voice to stay light.
She just smiled, a slow, knowing curve of her lips. Then it hit me. “So,” I said, my voice hardening slightly. “Mother asked you to find out if I was hiding something, didn’t she?”
Quinta only chuckled and pushed herself up from the bed. “Have a good rest, child. You’ll need it. Because your mother is going to train you so hard tomorrow, it’ll feel like you’re setting out for war.”
“Huh? For war?” I stood up, looking at her.
She stopped at the door and turned, a mischievous glint in her eye. “Yeah. You think the Luna is going to let her precious only daughter step out of the pack’s protection without equipping her to be able to protect herself?” She chuckled and walked out, humming an old tune.
Oh, boy.
Quinta wasn’t lying a bit. It wasn’t training; it was preparation for war.
By 1 PM the next day, I was already looking—and feeling—like hell. I was in the private, sand-floor training pit under a clear polycarbonate roof that did nothing to stop the midday sun from becoming a magnifying glass focused directly on me. My mother stood across from me, not a drop of sweat on her, her posture perfect, her eyes like flint.
We’d started at 8 AM, an hour after a light breakfast that had twisted in my stomach and now felt like a distant memory. It had been over four hours. Four hours of drills, of her barking commands that blurred together.
“Again! Low block, high strike! Move your feet! You’re planting yourself like a tree waiting to be chopped down!”
I stumbled through the sequence again, my arms leaden, my breath coming in ragged, thirsty gasps. The sun beat down, turning the air in the pit into a shimmering oven. I could feel the heat radiating up from the sand through the thin soles of my training shoes.
“Faster! Anticipate! If I were a rogue, you’d be dead three times over!”
She came at me, not with her full strength—that would have snapped me in half—but with enough force to make every block jar my bones. She didn’t pull her punches. A sharp jab to my ribs, a sweep of my legs that sent me crashing onto my back in the sand, the wind knocked out of me.
“Up! Now! On your feet! A predator doesn’t wait for you to catch your breath!”
I pushed myself up, sand sticking to my sweaty skin, grit in my mouth. I tried to recall the soft woman Quinta had described last night, the one who sang love songs in the dark. I couldn’t find her. All I could see was the drill sergeant, the Luna made of ice and unforgiving light.
When I tried to slow down, to put a hand on my knee and just breathe, her voice cut like a whip. “What are you doing? You don’t have a wolf’s speed to carry you! You don’t have a wolf’s healing to fix you! You can’t vanish into the woods if you’re chased! All you have is this!” She gestured at my trembling, human body. “This muscle, this bone, this stubborn will! So you will make it stronger! You will learn to use it! Now, again! KEEP ON!”
There was no way to stop her. No plea would work. No amount of exhaustion would register. I was a project to be hardened, a liability to be mitigated. The “precious only daughter” was being forged into something that wouldn’t break the second she stepped out the door.
So, after another hour where my five-minute water breaks felt like cruel teases, I thought of my last option. It had maybe a 30% chance of working. She’d probably see right through it. But I was past caring. My vision was swimming with black spots, and the world had taken on a buzzing, distant quality.
The moment she took a few steps back, resetting for another attacking run, I made my move.
I didn’t just fall. I dropped. My legs gave out completely, and I collapsed in the center of the pit, a boneless heap in the scorching sand. I let my eyes flutter shut, going completely limp. Maybe I was actually passing out. It didn’t feel like much of an act.
The world narrowed to sound. The crunch of her footsteps in the sand stopped.
“Get up, Arielle.” Her voice was sharp, expecting another trick. “Get. Up.”
I didn’t move. I didn’t even twitch.
A beat of silence. Then, the crunch of sand again, faster this time. I felt her shadow fall over me, blocking the brutal sun. Cold hands gripped my shoulders, shaking me.
“Arielle.” Her voice was different. The drill-sergeant bark was gone, replaced by something tighter, sharper. “Wake up.”
She shook me again, harder. Her grip tightened, fingers digging in. “Arielle?!”
When I still didn’t respond, her voice cracked, rising into something I had never, ever heard
from her before—a raw, panicked shout that echoed off the clear roof.
“ARIELLE?!”