Too Close to the Line
Rowan POV
I shouldn’t be this close to the boundary.
But the moment she turns off the path, I feel it.
The land tightens.
She hasn’t seen me yet. Her friend chatters beside her, bright and unguarded, while she drifts forward like she’s following a signal only she can hear.
Human, I remind myself.
But humans don’t react like that.
Her instincts sharpen before her fear does. Before she even looks up, her posture shifts – subtle, unconscious. Ready.
That’s when I know.
It’s her.
The thought slips into the link before I can stop it.
A pause.
Certain?
This time, I pause.
No. But she reacts with instincts no human should have.
I steady my breathing, forcing my posture loose, unthreatening, as I watch her from the tree line. She stands with her friend now, guarded. Sensing me.
Explain.
She felt me, I counter. Not consciously. But she noticed.
That earns another beat of silence.
I replay the way her body responded before fear had time to form.
Even now I note how her fingers slid to the necklace and stilled there.
She’s eighteen today. Human – or at least, that’s what she believes.
I wait for the response. It comes in slowly, controlled. Human? Then it isn’t her.
I grit my teeth.
She reacted, I insist. The land responded to her. You felt it too.
The words settle heavy between us.
And the anomaly?
Dormant, comes the reply at last. If it’s what we fear.
My jaw tightens.
Dormant doesn’t mean absent. It means buried. Suppressed. Bound by something old enough to leave scars. Old enough to have been sealed on purpose.
Could it be magic?
Possibly – but unlikely, I reply. Something we don’t understand yet.
Or something we buried.
The quiet stretches between us.
I glance again toward the edge of campus. She’s still there. Too close to the boundary. Too close to everything we’ve sworn to keep contained.
If she’s human, she’s fragile.
The word settles heavy in my chest.
Yes.
Then keep your distance, and focus on the real threat, he says. We don’t repeat the past.
The command locks into place – clean, unquestionable.
Understood.
I sever the link before doubt can creep in.
Then she spots me. Our eyes lock and I step out from the trees.
Her fear sparks instantly – sharp, bright – but it doesn’t root her. She holds her ground, chin lifting, eyes fixed on me like she’s bracing for impact.
Good instincts.
I keep my voice even when I warn her away from the boundary. Calm. Controlled. Every word measured to sound like caution, not command.
Her friend bristles immediately and snaps back at me – loud, protective. Her scent cuts through the air, I register it without meaning to.
Dismiss it just as quickly.
I barely notice her insult as her mouth continues to run.
“Even if you are unfairly hot,” the friend adds under her breath – far too loud for discretion.
I smirk. For a dangerous second, I consider staying.
It’s reflexive. A crack in the armour.
I refocus my attention on the girl who hasn’t moved.
She smells of sun and copper and something older –
When my gaze drops, it isn’t curiosity that guides it.
It’s confirmation.
The necklace. “Eighteen,” I murmur, without thinking.
She looks surprised, yet I’m sure anyone within a mile radius could hear them talking.
I try to smooth it over – project harmlessness. Friend, not foe.
“I was checking something... for my alpha.”
Her pulse jumps. The land does too – a faint tightening beneath my feet, like it’s listening closer.
Interesting.
I subconsciously survey her, paying more attention to her body language than our actual conversation.
Her fingers close around the necklace before she realises she’s moved.
The land responds.
I step back before my control fractures. Before instinct overrides sense.
I mutter something about staying away from the woods as I slink away into the safety of the trees.
The forest exhales around me as the connection breaks, sound rushing back in waves.
Wind through branches. The distant echo of laughter. The pulse of the land beneath my boots, restless. Yearning.
I shouldn’t look back.
I do anyway.
She’s turned slightly now, her head tilted as if she can feel something just out of reach.
Her scent lingers – warm, unfamiliar, threaded with something old enough to make my skin prickle. Not simply human. Not wolf. Something, waiting.
I force myself deeper into the trees.
Distance. Control. Obedience.
That’s how I keep this under control.
I move quickly, silently, letting the forest swallow me whole. My feet know the paths instinctively, every root and stone memorised over years of patrol.
Yet even as I put space between us, awareness stretches.
I know I shouldn’t watch her.
I also know I will anyway.
Not because I doubt the order, but my instincts compel me to.
The council will want answers. The Alpha will demand certainty. And if the power stirs – if what’s buried starts to wake – there won’t be time for caution.
I pause at the edge of the ridge and look back one last time.
She’s laughing again, her friend tugging her along, sunlight catching copper threads in her hair.
For a heartbeat, she looks like every other eighteen-year-old girl celebrating a birthday.
Laughing. Unaware. Safe.
And that, somehow, is the most dangerous thing of all.
We won’t be caught out again, I promise myself.
The retreat is in three days.
The land doesn’t answer again. It only waits.
Waiting for the moment restraint slips.
For her to cross a line she doesn’t yet know exists – and for me to fail to stop her.