Chapter 28: Chapter Twenty-Seven

Amaris

I’m tired of being looked at like all I am is a story.l, instead of a person.

I’m also tired of my own body answering emotion with light.

Maxon helps train me in how to learn to control my powers in private, not by telling me to calm down like I’m a child, but by making me focus, narrowing my attention until the power has somewhere to go that isn’t outward destruction.

“Pick a point,” he tells me, voice low. “A nail head. A knot in wood. One thing.”

I do it.

The light comes, faint at first, then brighter, then steadies like it understands the assignment.

It still scares me.

I hate fear. Fear has been a leash on my life for too long.

So when Kenton tries to talk to me again on day thirty-three, my first instinct is to bare my teeth.

He finds me outside near the tree line, where the air feels cleaner than the lodge, where I can breathe without a dozen wolves tasting my mood.

He approaches slowly, hands visible, posture controlled.

“Amaris,” he says.

“Kenton,” I answer, flat.

He stops a few feet away. “I want to apologize,” he says.

I blink, because I didn’t expect the sentence. “For what,” I ask, even though I know.

“For chasing you,” he says. “For acting like instinct gave me permission.”

The words land, and my chest tightens, because an apology is rare from men with power.

I don’t soften. “Apology doesn’t erase it,” I say.

“I know,” he answers. “It just names it.”

I study him, searching for the usual hidden demand, the usual twist where apology becomes a hook.

There's tension in him, but it isn’t manipulation. It feels like restraint, like he is holding himself back on purpose.

It matters.

It also doesn’t make me his.

“I’m not here to comfort you,” I tell him.

His mouth tightens. “I’m not asking you to.”

Silence stretches between us.

Then the pull hits.

Not a wave like before. Not a drop-to-your-knees surge.

A steady tug in my ribs, hot and sharp, like my body recognizes him in a way my mind refuses to accept.

I hate that the pull exists. I hate that it tries to make decisions for me.

Kenton’s eyes darken, and I can tell he feels something too, because his breathing changes, subtle but real.

I step closer anyway, not because I want him, but because I want to test the pull like I test everything else.

If it’s in me, I’m going to understand it.

Kenton goes still as I close the distance. He doesn’t reach for me. He doesn’t move into my space.

Good.

I lift my hand and touch his jaw lightly, then slide my fingers up to his cheek, watching his reaction like I’m studying an enemy.

His throat bobs. His eyes stay locked on mine. “Amaris,” he says, voice low, strained.

“You’re going to respect boundaries,” I remind him.

“Yes,” he says immediately.

I tilt my head. “Even if I do this.”

His breathing stutters. “Yes.”

The honesty makes my chest tighten, because it means he’s fighting himself, and I know what that feels like.

I lean in and kiss him.

It isn’t gentle. It isn’t sweet.

It’s a test kiss, hot and sharp, meant to see how hard the pull bites when contact happens.

Kenton freezes for half a heartbeat, then kisses me back with a control that surprises me. His hands stay at his sides. He doesn't touch my waist. He doesn't trap me.

The kiss still burns.

The pull surges, and my skin prickles, and for a second the power in my palm threatens to flare, as if my body wants to answer the emotion with light.

I break the kiss abruptly, stepping back.

Kenton’s eyes stay on mine, dark and hungry, jaw tight like he’s holding himself on a line.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, more to make a point than because I need to. “That’s enough,” I say.

Kenton’s voice comes out rough. “Why.”

“Because I decide,” I answer. “And because I’m not letting instinct turn me into a puppet.”

His gaze hardens with frustration, but it doesn’t turn into anger at me. “You felt it,” he says.

“I felt something,” I correct.

Kenton takes a slow breath, then nods once, stiff. “All right.”

The word sounds like it cost him.

It should.

Then Boone’s voice cuts through the trees, sharp and urgent.

“Amaris.”

I turn. Boone strides toward us, expression tight, Asher with him, both of them carrying the scent of the woods and something else under it.

Trouble.

“What,” I snap.

Boone stops in front of me, gaze flicking to Kenton for half a second, then back. “We found strange tracks,” he says.

My spine tightens. “Wolf.”

Boone shakes his head. “Not wolf.”

The words land cold because I’ve heard them twice now in different ways.

Asher’s voice stays calm, but his eyes are sharp. “It’s wrong,” he says. “Like something walked without weight. Like it came and went without leaving a scent the way it should.”

My skin prickles, and not from the pull this time.

But from fear, real fear.

Maxon appears behind Boone, silent, like he felt my spike through the thread under my ribs and moved before anyone told him to.

His gaze locks on my face. “Where,” he asks.

Boone answers. “Near the eastern ridge. Same area where the patrol went missing.”

Kenton’s jaw tightens. “What kind of tracks?”

Asher’s voice lowers. “Claws,” he says. “But not shaped like ours.”

The air feels thinner for a heartbeat, like the world leaned closer again.

My palm tingles, and I clench my fist before light can show.

Maxon steps closer to me, not touching, just present, and the thread under my ribs tightens like a warning and a comfort at once.

Boone’s gaze holds mine. “We’re increasing security,” he says. “We’re not panicking. We’re not telling the whole pack details yet. But you need to know this.”

I nod once, jaw tight.

Because this isn’t wolves hunting wolves.

This is something else pressing into our world, something that doesn’t follow pack rules.

And every instinct I have, human and wolf, says it isn’t here for random patrols.

It’s moving toward me.