Chapter 11 - Caelan
The question waits for an answer I don’t have.
Patrick sits at the table with the firelight dancing across face that looks nothing like a monster’s.
He’s just told me the story of a boy who watched his father die, a young man who lost himself one compromise at a time, and a brother trying to protect someone who doesn’t even know he needs saving.
The narrative doesn’t match the villain I’ve been constructing in my head since the moment I woke up married to a Thornridge wolf.
I turn back to the window because looking at him makes it harder to think.
The fog has thickened outside, turning the forest into a gray wall that mirrors the confusion clouding my thoughts.
Nothing about this situation is simple. A few days ago, I knew exactly who Patrick Walzak was.
He was the enemy who kidnapped me, the wolf who stole my freedom, and the monster wearing a handsome face.
Now I’m standing in a cabin listening to him talk about tortured teenagers and misplaced faith and brothers who believe lies because the truth was stolen from them before they were old enough to hold on to it.
I don’t know what to do with any of it.
“You’re quiet,” Patrick says from behind me.
“I’m thinking.”
“Take your time.”
The patience in his voice irritates me more than anger would.
I want him to push, to demand something from me so I can push back.
Fighting is easier than whatever this feeling is that keeps twisting through my chest. Fighting doesn’t require me to examine the assumptions I’ve been holding onto like armor.
My sister’s face surfaces in my memory. Sera looked just as lost when she first started unraveling the curse, when everything she’d been taught about Llewelyn strength turned out to be magical imprisonment disguised as cultural identity.
She had every reason to walk away from that discovery, to pretend she’d never had those visions and go back to the safe, numb existence the curse provided.
Instead, she tore the whole thing down and freed every woman in our pack from chains we didn’t even know we were wearing.
She broke from everything she knew, not because it was easy, but because it was right.
Is Patrick doing the same thing? Walking away from the only family he has left, the only home he remembers, because staying would cost him whatever remains of his conscience?
The comparison feels dangerous. Sera didn’t kidnap anyone.
She didn’t force Reeyan into a marriage he didn’t want.
In fact, it was pretty much the opposite.
Reeyan kept secrets, too. He took Sera to Grayhide territory without explaining why, because he was convinced that protecting her mattered more than respecting her choices.
He made decisions for her when she should have been making them for herself.
She forgave him for that because she understood his motives even when his methods made her furious.
Could I do the same for Patrick?
The thought makes my stomach turn, though I can’t tell anymore if the feeling comes from anger or something else.
I think about what Sera told me after the curse broke, when I asked her how she knew Reeyan was worth trusting.
She said she didn’t know, not at first. She said trust wasn’t something that arrived fully formed like a gift from the universe.
It was something you built piece by piece, through small moments and difficult conversations, and the willingness to see someone as they actually were instead of who you assumed them to be.
Patrick has given me pieces tonight. Real pieces, not the polished lies I expected from a Thornridge wolf.
He told me about watching his father die.
He told me about the slow corruption of his own morality.
He told me about his brother and his guilt and the breaking point that finally made him question everything he’d been taught to believe.
Those aren’t the confessions of a man trying to manipulate me. They’re the confessions of someone who wants to be seen, truly seen, even if what I see makes me hate him.
“I’m going to check the snares,” Patrick announces.
I hear his chair scrape against the floor as he stands. When I turn from the window, he’s already pulling on his jacket.
“We need to eat,” he adds, “and I’d rather not open another can of beans if there’s fresh meat available.”
He’s giving me room to breathe. I recognize the gesture for what it is, and part of me wants to resent him for being considerate when hostility would be so much simpler to maintain.
“Fine.”
He pauses at the door before looking back at me. “I meant what I said, Caelan. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just wanted you to understand.”
Then he’s gone, slipping out into the fog, and I’m alone with my tangled thoughts.
I spend the next hour pacing the cabin like something caged.
The walls feel too close, the space too confining, but the idea of following Patrick into the forest feels equally impossible.
I’m trapped between wanting distance and needing answers, between the anger I’ve been nursing for days and the understanding that keeps threatening to take its place.
The curse would have made this easier. A month ago, I would have assessed my situation with logic and identified the most practical path forward without all this emotional weight dragging at me.
I would have felt nothing but mild inconvenience at being kidnapped, mild irritation at being married against my will, and mild curiosity about the man who claimed to be my mate.
But a month ago, I also wouldn’t have walked into that bar looking for adventure.
I wouldn’t have let a stranger buy me drinks or followed him to his room or experienced a night that still makes heat rise to my cheeks when I think about it.
The curse would have protected me from Patrick, but it would have stolen everything that made meeting him matter.
I sink onto the edge of the bed and rub my eyes.
This is impossible. He’s Thornridge. He kidnapped me. He forced me into a marriage I didn’t consent to, stood in front of a Hysopp witch while I protested, and let her bind us together anyway.
But he also saved me from Bastian. He told me the truth when lies would have been easier. He sleeps on a cold floor every night so I can have the bed, and he hasn’t once tried to claim the physical intimacy that our bond might entitle him to demand.
The mate bond pulses gently in my chest. It’s a constant reminder that my wolf recognizes this man as ours, even when my mind rebels against the idea.
She wants me to go to him, to let instinct guide me toward something that feels increasingly inevitable.
I push the feeling down and try to focus on logic instead of longing.
My wolf whines softly, unhappy with my continued resistance.
She doesn’t understand why I keep fighting what feels so natural to her, why I insist on analyzing a bond that needs no analysis.
For her, the equation is simple. Patrick is ours, and we should claim him fully instead of holding him at arm’s length.
But I’m not just a wolf. I’m also a woman who was raised to value independence and self-determination, even if those values came from a curse that stole my ability to feel.
The curse is gone now, but the lessons it taught me remain embedded in my bones.
Trusting someone completely means giving them the power to destroy you, and I’ve already given Patrick more power than I ever intended.
The door opens, and I jerk my head up to find Patrick returning with two rabbits dangling from one hand. His hair is damp from the mist, and mud covers his boots. He scrapes them clean before stepping inside, a small courtesy that shouldn’t matter but somehow does.
“Successful hunt,” he announces, holding up his catch.
“Congratulations.”
If my flat tone bothers him, he doesn’t show it.
He just moves to the small counter near the fireplace and starts preparing the rabbits with the ease of someone who’s done this a thousand times.
I watch him work despite my better judgment, noting how his hands move with confidence as he skins and cleans the meat.
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“My father taught me the basics when I was young, and Thornridge finished my education.” He doesn’t look up from his work. “On long deployments, you learn to live off the land, or you go hungry. Pack rations are barely edible at the best of times.”
“That bad?”
“Picture dried meat that tastes like salted leather paired with hardtack that could double as a weapon.” His mouth quirks as he adds, “After a week of that, even a badly cooked squirrel starts looking appetizing.”
Despite everything, I feel my lips twitch. “That does sound terrible.”
“The senior wolves always claimed it built character while they ate from their own private stores of actual food.” He sets the prepared meat aside and reaches for the herbs he gathered earlier.
“I learned to cook out of self-defense, because if I wanted to eat something that didn’t taste like punishment, I had to make it myself. ”
“And now you’re a wilderness chef.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but I can usually manage something that won’t kill you. Dinner should be ready in about an hour. Any requests?”
“Surprise me.”
He nods and turns back to his work.
I find myself watching him again despite my best intentions. The domesticity of the scene strikes me as absurd, given that we’re fugitives hiding from his murderous pack in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. He’s making me dinner like this is the most normal thing in the world.
Survival must look like this after sixteen years of learning to find peace wherever you can steal it. Small comforts matter when everything else has been stripped away, and cooking might be his way of creating order in a life defined by violence.
The smell of roasting meat fills the cabin as Patrick works.
“Almost ready,” he says after a while.
I move to the table as he plates the food, dividing the rabbit between two portions. The meat is golden-brown and glistening, surrounded by roasted root vegetables he must have found while checking the snares. Steam rises from both plates, carrying scents that make my mouth water.
“This looks incredible,” I admit.
“Wait until you taste it before you commit to that assessment.”
He carries the plates over and sets mine down in front of me.
Our fingers brush during the transfer, and goosebumps trail up my arm.
I don’t pull away, and neither does he. For a long moment, we stay frozen with our hands touching, and something passes between us that I don’t have words for.
My wolf stirs and scratches against my consciousness with an approval I’m not ready to share.
Then he withdraws to take his own seat, and the moment breaks.
I take my first bite and have to stifle a groan of appreciation. The meat is tender and flavorful, seasoned with rosemary and something new. It’s better than anything I’ve eaten since leaving Sera’s house.
“Okay,” I concede, “you were right to be confident.”
“Years of practice.” He takes a bite of his own food, and I notice he seems more relaxed than I’ve seen him since this nightmare began. “The herbs here are different from what I’m used to, but the principles are the same. Season well, cook slowly, and don’t burn anything.”
“Words to live by.”
“They’ve served me well.”
We eat in a silence that feels different from the heavy quiet of the past few days.
Something has eased between us, though I couldn’t say exactly what or when it happened.
The meal might have caused it, or perhaps the conversation we had earlier finally broke through my defenses.
Exhaustion could also explain why I can’t seem to keep my walls at full height anymore.
I watch him across the table as we eat, studying the angles of his face in the firelight.
He has a strong jaw and full lips, and his eyes keep moving between amber and gold depending on how the flames dance.
My wolf purrs with satisfaction every time I look at him, and I’m getting tired of arguing with her about why that’s a problem.
I drop my gaze to my food and focus on finishing my meal without making eye contact again. The last thing I need is for him to know how often my thoughts drift toward things that have nothing to do with escape plans or pack politics.
After dinner, Patrick cleans up while I return to my spot on the bed.
The routine we’ve established plays out the same way it always does, with him preparing to sleep on the hard floor while I take the only real comfort the cabin offers.
But tonight, watching him arrange his thin blanket near the fire, something gives way inside me.
“Patrick.”
He looks up.
I reach for one of the blankets I’ve been using and hold it toward him. “Take this. The floor is cold.”
He stares at the blanket like I’ve offered him something precious. Gratitude floods his face, and my heart flip-flops behind my sternum.
“Thank you,” he says quietly as he takes the blanket from my outstretched hand. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
He wraps the extra blanket around his shoulders and settles onto his spot near the fire. I lie back on the bed and pull my remaining blanket up to my chin. The cabin falls quiet except for the pop of burning wood and distant sounds of the forest outside.
I close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t come right away.
Instead, I find myself replaying the evening in my mind, turning over each moment like stones in a riverbed.
His story stays with me, along with the smell of roasted herbs, the brush of his fingers against mine, and the gratitude on his face when I offered him a blanket.
I still don’t know what to do with a man who isn’t the monster I expected.
But maybe I’m starting to figure it out.