Chapter 130
+25 BONUS
Chapter 130
DEREK
I was twelve the first time I thought I might die.
The rogues had come out of nowhere–snarling, vicious, too fast to outrun. I didn’t know then that most of them were older wolves who’d lost their park bonds. All I knew was that I couldn’t shift, and that my cousins had dared me into the woods alone, knowing it would take me longer to get back than them.
I remember the cold bite of teeth, the sting of claws slicing their way into my scalp, the taste of blood in my mouth as I hit the ground.
And then I remember her.
Cassandra.
She wasn’t much older than me–fourteen, maybe fifteen–but after she’d saved me, when I was bleeding and terrified, after I’d vowed that my father would help her pack and that I’d always protect her, somehow, she got me
- up.
Got me moving, Helped me hobble through the forest, one arm slung around her shoulders as she dragged me toward the clearing where I said my cousins would be.
She was quiet at first, focused. Her hand trembled a little, but her jaw was set like stone.
“Thanks,” I mumbled after a while, embarrassed at how slow I was moving, at the limp in my leg and the tears I
“I couldn’t quite hide. “You didn’t have to help me.”
“Of course I did,” she said, like it was obvious.
H
I stared at the ground as we walked. “My cousins are gonna laugh when they see me. They think I’m a joke ‘cause they can shift already. Said I’d never catch up.”
Cassandra stopped walking and looked at me. “That’s not funny.”
I shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t sting as much as it did.
She reached out and adjusted the collar of my torn shirt, smoothing it down like I was something fragile. “Your cousins may make fun of you now,” she said, “but you’ll be able to shift someday soon. And they’ll be sorry.”
I blinked at her. She wasn’t just saying it. She meant it.
That was the first time I really saw her–not just the girl who was the daughter to the Alpha of a small, middling pack, or the girl who always stood a little apart–but someone who understood something about being left behind. She glanced away. “Your parents might say you shouldn’t have gone off alone. That you were reckless. But don’t let them make you feel small for surviving.
The words stuck.
Maybe because I’d never heard anything like that from anyone in my family. Maybe because I could tell–deep down–she knew a little something about surviving, too.
When she helped me into the clearing and my cousins came running with wide eyes and excuses, I remember glancing back at her.
Chapter 130
+25 BONUS.
And I remember thinking: She saw me.
1 stood at the edge of the Silverclaw estate’s hallway now, the memory echoing so clearly in my mind I could still “Teel the sting in my shoulder. It had taken years for the scarto fade–but not that moment.
It had shaped so much of how I saw Cassandra back then.
Kind. Loyal. Fierce in her own way.
And even now, after everything, I could still feel the ghost of that boy. Still wanted to believe she was capable of that same kind of care.
I wasn’t in love with her. But I couldn’t pretend she hadn’t mattered to me once.
Maybe it was time to try. To stop holding her at arm’s length. To be better than I had been before.
If she was really pregnant with my child, I needed to be there. No matter what happened with Elena.
Even if it hurt.
I found her in one of the sitting rooms, perched near the window with a book open in her lap that she clearly wasn’t reading-
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