Chapter 5 - Caelan
The back door doesn’t creak when I ease it open, and I send up a silent thank you to whichever god watches over reckless women sneaking home before dawn.
Sera’s house is quiet. The hallway stretches out in front of me, dark and empty, and I slip off my heels before tiptoeing toward the guest room.
Every step feels like a gamble. Every breath sounds too loud in the silence.
If Sera catches me coming in at this hour, wearing last night’s dress and smelling like a man she’s never met, I’ll never hear the end of it.
My body aches in the most delicious way. My thighs are sore from wrapping around his waist. My lips feel swollen from hours of kissing. There’s a pleasant tenderness between my legs that makes me smile every time I move, a reminder of everything we did in that room above the tavern.
I make it to the guest room without incident and close the door behind me with a soft click. Safe. I’m safe. I strip off my dress and climb into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin even though sleep is the last thing on my mind.
My thoughts keep drifting back to him. Patrick.
The stranger with the amber-gold eyes and the crooked nose and the sad smile that made me want to fix whatever was broken inside him.
We talked for hours, danced until my feet hurt, had sex that made me forget my own name, and I still feel like I barely know him at all.
Some part of me knows that should bother me.
The old Caelan, the one who existed before Sera broke the curse, would have been horrified at the idea of sleeping with a man she’d just met in a bar.
She would have clutched her pearls and lectured about propriety, Llewelyn's values, and the importance of emotional restraint.
But that Caelan was a lie. A mask I wore because the curse wouldn’t let me be anyone else.
This Caelan, the real one, feels alive for the first time in twenty years. And she doesn’t regret a single moment of last night.
I bury my face into the pillow and breathe deep, wishing I could smell him on my skin instead of just the faint remnants of tavern smoke and whiskey. The memory of his touch sends a shiver down my spine. The way he whispered against my throat that I was beautiful, and I actually believed him.
I’ve never believed it before. Growing up in Llewelyn territory, surrounded by tall, willowy women with high cheekbones and reserved frowns, I always felt like too much.
Too soft. Too round. Too different. The curse kept my feelings muted, but it couldn’t erase the quiet shame I carried about taking up more space than I was supposed to.
Last night, Patrick made me feel like exactly the right amount.
I doze for a few hours, drifting in and out of dreams that all feature amber eyes and rough hands and a gravelly voice. When I finally drag myself out of bed, the sun is up, and I can hear movement in the kitchen downstairs.
Time to face my sister.
I take a long shower to scrub away the evidence of my adventure, even though part of me wants to keep his scent on my skin forever.
The hot water helps ease the soreness in my muscles, and I spend extra time washing my hair just to delay the inevitable conversation waiting for me downstairs.
Sera knows me too well. She’ll take one look at my face and know something happened.
I dress in simple traveling clothes and pack my bag for the journey back to Llewelyn territory.
Matriarch Lydia is expecting me back by this evening, and I’ve already pushed my luck by staying an extra day.
My aunt has been patient with my newfound need for independence, but that patience has limits.
Sera is at the kitchen table when I come downstairs with a mug of coffee in front of her and a knowing look in her eyes that makes my stomach flip. Reeyan is nowhere to be seen, which means he’s probably already at the Cultural Center or meeting with the council. Small mercies.
“Good morning,” Sera greets me. “Sleep well?”
“Not really.” I bring a hand to my temple and wince, selling the lie as hard as I can. “I think I’m getting a migraine. Must be the weather changing.”
“The weather.” Sera takes a sip of her coffee, and I can hear the skepticism dripping from those two words. “Right.”
I ignore her tone and busy myself with pouring my own cup. The coffee is strong and bitter, exactly what I need to shake off the lingering fog of too little sleep and too much of everything else.
“I’m going to head out soon,” I tell her, keeping my back turned so she can’t see my face. “Lydia wants me back before the evening council meeting.”
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive? If you have a headache, you could wait a few hours. Or Reeyan could take you partway and run back.”
“I’m fine. I just need some fresh air and quiet time. The drive will help clear my head.”
Sera doesn’t respond right away, and the silence between us feels heavy with all the things she wants to say but won’t. I finally turn to face her as I lean against the counter with my coffee mug clutched in both hands like a shield.
She eyes me for a long moment, and I can practically see the questions forming behind her eyes. Why do you look like you haven’t slept? Why are you avoiding eye contact like a guilty child? What have you been up to?
But she doesn’t ask. Maybe she knows I won’t answer honestly.
Maybe she’s giving me space to make my own mistakes, the same way she wished someone had given her space when she was falling for Reeyan under impossible circumstances.
Either way, I’m grateful when she just nods and says, “Call me when you get there.”
“I will.”
I finish my coffee in three large gulps and rinse the mug in the sink.
Sera watches me the whole time, and I can feel her concern pressing against my back like a physical weight.
She worries about me. She’s been worrying about me ever since the curse broke and I started acting like a completely different person than the quiet, obedient sister she grew up with.
Which I am, in a way. The curse suppressed so much of who I really was. Now that it’s gone, I’m still figuring out what that means and who I want to become.
Sera’s voice stops me at the kitchen door. “You know you can tell me anything, right? Whatever’s going on with you, I’m not going to judge. I’m the last person who has any right to judge anyone for making unconventional choices.”
The sincerity in her voice makes my chest go tight.
I turn back to face her, and for a moment, I consider telling her everything.
About the bar and Patrick and the way he made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
About the connection between us that felt like something more than just physical attraction, something deeper and older and completely terrifying.
But I don’t. Because telling Sera means admitting I was reckless, and admitting I was reckless means getting a lecture about safety and responsibility and the importance of not sneaking out alone in unfamiliar territory.
I’m not ready for that conversation yet.
I want to hold on to this secret a little longer, keep it safe and private like a treasure that belongs only to me.
“I know,” I reply instead. “I’m fine, Sera. Really. I just need to get back to my normal routine and sleep in my own bed tonight.”
She doesn’t look convinced, but she lets me go with a hug that lasts a few seconds longer than usual.
I breathe in her familiar scent and feel a twinge of guilt for lying to her.
Sera has done so much for me, for all of us.
She risked everything to break the curse and set our pack free.
She deserves better than a sister who sneaks around behind her back.
But I’m not ready to be honest yet. Not until I figure out what last night actually meant.
The drive back to Llewelyn territory takes a few hours on a good day.
The roads wind through Grayhide’s desert landscape before climbing into the foothills that mark the border between territories.
It’s a beautiful country, all red rock and scrub brush and endless sky stretching out in every direction, but I barely notice any of it today.
My mind keeps drifting back to last night.
Nobody has ever touched me like that before. Nobody has ever made me feel so completely wanted, so thoroughly desired. The men in Llewelyn territory treat omegas with distant respect at best and barely concealed condescension at worst. None of them has ever looked at me the way Patrick did.
I’m about an hour into the drive, lost in memories of his hands and his mouth and the sounds he made when he was inside me, when I see him.
At first, I think I’m hallucinating. That too little sleep and too much daydreaming have finally caught up with me, and now I’m conjuring images of him out of thin air. Because there’s no way Patrick is standing in the middle of the road, waving his arms for me to stop.
But he is. He’s really there.
I slam on the brakes, and the car skids to a stop about twenty feet from where he’s standing. My heart pounds against my ribs as I stare at him through the windshield.
He looks different than he did last night. The seductive confidence is gone, and in its place is something that looks a lot like panic. His dark hair is messy, his clothes are rumpled, and there’s a wildness in his amber eyes that makes my stomach clench with sudden fear.
He jogs toward my car, and I roll down the window before I can think better of it.
“Patrick? What are you—”
He doesn’t let me finish. He leans through the window and kisses me, hard and desperate, cupping the back of my head to hold me in place. The kiss steals all the air from my lungs and scrambles every thought in my brain. By the time he pulls back, I’m gasping and dizzy and completely confused.
“You need to come with me,” he states. “Right now. No questions.”
“What? I don’t understand. How did you even find me out here?”
“Caelan, please.” His voice cracks on my name, and the fear in his eyes is so real it makes my blood run cold.
“I know this doesn’t make sense. I know I’m asking you to trust someone you barely know.
But I need you to get out of this car and come with me right now, or something very bad is going to happen to you. ”
I blink at him. My mind is racing, trying to make sense of what’s happening. Last night he was charming and mysterious and a little bit sad. Now he looks like a man being chased by demons, and apparently, those demons have something to do with me.
“How did you know where to find me? How did you know which road I’d be on?”
He opens his mouth to answer, then closes it again and shakes his head.
“I tracked your scent from town,” he explains. “I’ll explain everything else, I promise. I will tell you every single thing you want to know. But not here. Not in the open where anyone could see us. We need to move right now.”
This is insane. This is dangerous. This is exactly the kind of reckless behavior Sera warned me about, exactly the reason she worries when I disappear without telling anyone where I’m going.
But there’s something in his voice that makes me pause.
Against every shred of common sense I possess, I open the car door and step out onto the dusty road.
“Okay,” I relent. “I’m trusting you. But you'd better have a damn good explanation for this.”
Relief floods his face, and he grabs my hand like he’s afraid I’ll change my mind if he doesn’t hold on to me. “Thank you. I swear on my life I’ll tell you everything. But first we need to run.”
“Run where? My car is right here, we can drive wherever you need to go—”
“We can’t take the car. They might be tracking it. They might already know where you are.”
“Who might be tracking it? What the hell is going on?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he takes a step back and transforms into a wolf.
It happens in the space of a heartbeat. One moment, he’s a man, tall and broad and human; the next, he’s a massive wolf with dark brown fur and amber-gold eyes that I would recognize anywhere.
The wolf looks at me and jerks his head toward the tree line, away from the road and my abandoned car. The message is clear. Transform. Follow me.
I look back at my car sitting in the middle of the road with the driver’s door still hanging open.
I think about Sera waiting for my call and about Matriarch Lydia and my parents expecting me at the evening council meeting.
I think about all the sensible, responsible choices I should be making right now instead of following a mysterious man into the wilderness.
Then I look at the wolf. He’s already moving toward the trees, glancing back at me with an urgency that borders on desperation. He’s not heading toward Llewelyn territory. He’s not heading back toward Grayhide, either.
He’s running toward the mountains, toward the wild places where no pack holds claim.