Chapter 11 Run
The night before my eighteenth birthday, the pack slept heavy with the peace of a hunt well-fed and fires well-stoked. The lodge was dark, the only light was coming from the embers in the hearth and the stars that scattered like a thousand watchful eyes in the sky.
I lay awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the rhythm of the pack’s breathing beyond the walls. My heart beat too fast, too loud. I’d made my decision weeks ago, but deciding and doing were two very different things. Tonight, though, there was no choice left.
At midnight, my fate would be sealed. Or not. Either way, it would be the end of the life I knew.
I rose silently, pulling on my boots, slipping the small bag I’d hidden beneath the floorboard onto my shoulder. It held little more than food, a change of clothes, and the money I’d hoarded from market trips in the human town. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get me away. Enough to buy me a chance at freedom.
The hall creaked as I crept through it, each step a prayer the wood wouldn’t betray me. I paused at the great doors, pressing my palm to the cold iron handle, heart pounding in my throat. This is it, I thought. This is how I take my life back.
And then a voice came from the shadows.
“You’re really going to do it, aren’t you?”
I froze. Kier stepped into the moonlight, his hair mussed like he’d been asleep, but his eyes clear, as though he’d been waiting for me all along.
My chest tightened. “Go back to bed, Kier.”
He tilted his head, studying me with that maddening calm of his. “You’re running.”
“Yes.” My voice didn’t waver, though my hands did. “I won’t be here at midnight when the moon goddess decides my life for me.”
He walked closer, slow and careful, as though I might bolt at any moment. “Do you hate me that much? The idea of us?”
I shook my head sharply. “It’s not about you. It’s about choice. If I stay, it won’t matter what I want. Everyone already thinks we’re inevitable. And if the moon goddess agrees, I’ll never know if what I feel is real or just fate.”
Something flickered across his face—hurt, then understanding. He stopped just in front of me, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him, the weight of everything we hadn’t said.
“You’re stubborn as hell,” he murmured, almost fond. “Do you know how many wolves would kill for what you’re about to throw away?”
“Yes,” I said softly. “And that’s exactly why I’m leaving.”
He let out a low breath, something between a sigh and a growl. “You think you can outrun fate?” His voice was velvet over steel, the sound of a promise and a warning in one.
“I have to try,” I whispered.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. The space between us was a taut wire, humming with the pull of everything unsaid. Then, suddenly, he reached out, his fingers brushing my jaw as though testing whether I’d let him. My body betrayed me—I didn’t flinch. I tilted my chin up, breath caught, every nerve in my skin alight.
Kier’s eyes searched mine one last time, as if asking a question he couldn’t voice. And then he closed the distance.
The kiss was nothing like I’d imagined. It wasn’t soft or tentative; it was raw, a surge of heat and hunger that shot straight through me. His mouth claimed mine, and my heart stuttered before racing ahead, faster than my thoughts could catch up. The taste of him—wild and warm, like the forest after rain—made me dizzy. My hands, traitorous, fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away.
Everything I’d tried to bury—want, fear, hope—rose up all at once, crashing against the walls I’d built around my heart. This was what I had been running from, wasn’t it? This unbearable rightness, this fire that felt like destiny and danger in the same breath.
And then—just as abruptly as it began—he broke it. Kier tore his mouth from mine, breathing hard, his forehead pressed to mine for a fraction of a second. His hands slid from my face to my shoulders, and he pushed me back, gentle but firm.
“Go,” he said, his voice rough and unsteady. “Before I change my mind.”
The word cut deeper than claws. My lips still tingled, my body still thrummed with the echo of his touch, and yet his eyes were shuttered now, his expression unreadable.
“Kier…” My voice cracked on his name.
He stepped back, into the shadow where he’d come from. “Go, Sable,” he repeated, softer this time. “Do what you think you have to do.”
"Kier..." I repeated, reaching out to him but he flinched away from my touch. It felt as though my heart was breaking.
My throat ached. “You’re just going to let me?”
Kier smiled. Not bitter, not broken—just sad. "I couldn’t stop you if I tried. You’re… you’re unforgettable, Sable. Remember that, wherever you end up. Even if the mate bond ties me to someone else—I’ll never forget you.”
The words hit harder than any blade. I wanted to tell him I’d never forget him either. I wanted to tell him that part of me already belonged to him, bond or no bond. But words would only chain me here, and chains were what I was running from.
So I only whispered, “Goodbye, Kier.”
His eyes glinted in the moonlight, steady and unflinching. “Goodbye, Sable.”
I slipped into the forest, the cool air biting against my skin. The packhouse shrank behind me as I ran, each step carrying me closer to the boundary, to freedom. My lungs burned, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.
And then, just as the moon reached its peak, it hit me.
Warm, sharp, undeniable. Like cedar smoke and storm winds, filling my lungs, making my heart stutter. My wolf surged beneath my skin, howling in recognition.
Mate.
“No,” I gasped, stumbling, panic clawing at me. “Not now. Not here.”
Every instinct screamed at me to turn back, to follow the pull, to give in to what the moon demanded. But I had promised myself: I would not be bound.
I pushed harder, legs pumping, breath ragged. The scent grew stronger, clawing at me, begging me to yield. But I didn’t. I ran faster, harder, until the trees thinned and the forest broke open into the empty stretch of road that marked the boundary.
One more step. Two. My feet hit the cracked pavement, and suddenly the air shifted—the bond’s pull weakening as I crossed into human territory.
I bent forward, hands on my knees, chest heaving. Behind me, the forest loomed, full of everything I loved and everything I refused to surrender to. Ahead of me, the human town’s lights glimmered faintly in the distance, a promise of anonymity, of freedom.
I straightened, wiped the sweat from my brow, and forced myself forward.
With each step, the ties of the pack stretched thinner. With each step, I became less Beta’s daughter and more my own.
And when I finally disappeared into the night, I left behind not just my pack, but the bond itself.
