Chapter 4: The Awakening
Sasha POV
We ran. There was no plan. No direction. Just instinct. The forest tore at my dress, my breath came in ragged gasps, and the sound of Ronan's footsteps stayed close behind mine. Whatever had been in those woods wasn’t just a threat. It was a warning. It wasn’t just watching. It had been waiting.
But for what?
Branches snapped to our left. Something moved too fast and too low. I felt the shift in the air. I felt the charge in my bones.
"Split up!" Ronan barked. "I’ll lead it away. Go! Now!" I wanted to argue, but my legs were already moving. I bolted toward the village while Ronan veered off, disappearing into the darkness. I didn’t dare look back. I couldn’t. The shadows felt like claws reaching for me, and my heartbeat pounded against my skull. When I finally broke through the trees and saw the soft flicker of the pack’s boundary lanterns, I almost collapsed. I staggered toward my cabin, adrenaline slowly losing its grip. The silence that followed felt unreal, like the forest had swallowed everything that happened and left me behind. I reached my front porch and stumbled up the steps. My fingers fumbled at the doorknob, and once I stepped inside, I slammed the door behind me.
The quiet was worse.
I pressed my back against the door and slid to the floor, my legs no longer willing to hold me. Kade had chosen Delia. Ronan had seen the mark. Something had hunted us in the forest. I dropped my head into my hands as the night came crashing back around me. My chest clenched as everything settled in all over again. Betrayal. Rage. Confusion. Fear. And something else. Something older. That mark on my hip. I had always known it was different. Not just a birthmark. But I had never told anyone. Not even Kade.
Because he never saw it. But Ronan had.
And that changed everything. I slowly stood and moved like I wasn’t entirely in my body. I grabbed a duffel bag from the closet and tossed it on the bed. The zipper screeched too loudly. My hands shook as I started packing. Clothes. A few personal things. Anything I thought I might need to leave and never come back.
Because I couldn’t stay.
There was no way I could stay here. Not here. Not in a place where I would have to watch Delia play Luna. Not where I would be forced to pretend my heart hadn’t just been butchered in front of the entire pack. Suddenly, I heard a noise, and I froze. Was that thing back? Had it followed me here? I listened closely, despite the ringing of fear in my ears. But then I heard it, a creak of the porch floorboards. I held my breath as I heard the soft patter of footsteps. I slowly turned to face the door. My heart felt like it was in my throat as the door slowly opened.
“Ronan!” I exclaimed. I wasn’t sure if I was pissed that it was him or relieved. But then I took a moment and truly looked at him. His shirt was torn, and there was a streak of blood, dried and thin, that ran down his arm. But his eyes were clear, sharp, and locked on me.
"You are ok," he said quietly, like it was something he hadn’t allowed himself to believe. I didn’t answer. I just stared. "It didn’t follow," he added. "Whatever it was, it stayed in the forest,”
"What was it?" I asked curiously. But Ronan shook his head once.
"I don’t know, but it is something old,” he whispered. A chill moved through me. Ronan stepped inside slowly, almost as if he knew that any sudden movement might shatter me. He shut the door behind him, but then his gaze spotted the bag that was overflowing. "You are leaving," he stated. It wasn’t a question, and he sounded annoyed.
"I have to,”
"No, you don’t. You shouldn’t," he said, but I glared at him angrily.
“I can’t breathe here,”
"Then breathe with me. Somewhere else. For now. But don’t go alone,"
"You don’t get to follow me out of the woods and then decide what I do," I snapped, and he nodded as his jaw tightened.
"You aren’t wrong, Sasha. But I can still ask. You are mine,” I turned away. I couldn’t look at him when everything inside me was twisted in knots.
"The mark," I said. "You said it means you are my true mate," he didn’t respond at first, and then I turned back around to face him. “Ronan?”
"It’s part of the old bloodlines. Only visible to one person. The one it belongs to. And I see it, Sasha,”
"And Kade never did," I whispered. Silence. He stepped closer, slow and careful.
"You feel it, too. You just don’t want to,”
"Because it doesn’t make sense. Because if I believe it, I don’t know who I am anymore,” I admitted as my heart ached with unbearable pain.
"You are not who you were. And that’s ok. You are something more now,” I turned to him, my voice low and broken.
"How am I supposed to survive this?" I questioned. I wanted to know what he thought. Ronan sighed slowly.
“You don’t survive it. You become something stronger because of it," my throat tightened, and my legs trembled. "Come with me," he said. "We will just go…just for tonight. Let’s just get away from all of this. Just you and me,” I wanted to say yes. I wanted to scream no. I wanted a thousand things I didn’t understand. But before I could say anything, before I could even breathe, the window behind Ronan shattered. Glass exploded inward. A shape moved through the dark, fast, and violent. Ronan grabbed me and threw me down just as something slammed into the far wall. A scream tore from my throat. He covered me with his body, eyes glowing bright with his wolf.
"Stay down," he growled. Something stepped through the broken frame. Not a wolf. Not a man. Something else. Something hungry. And it was looking right at me. I screamed again.