EMBER
The truth tasted like ash in my mouth the moment it passed my lips.
Have you chosen a mate?
No.
The word echoes in my mind as I run, breath sharp in my chest, feet slamming into the wet earth. Cool mist clings to my skin like accusation. Behind me, the temple fades into dark, and with it, every stare, every whispered utterance, every judgmental side eye.
I don’t stop running until the silence is louder than my heartbeat.
Then I collapse beneath a cedar, shifting back into human form and clutching my knees to my chest. The tears don’t come.
I don’t cry easily, I’ve never had the luxury.
But the ache won’t cease. It pulses deep in my chest like a wound that’ll never heal.
Maybe everyone here is right, I’m useless. There’s no way I could satisfy a regular mate, let alone an Alpha. I thought I could just survive the Chase and come back next year, but now I’m not so sure.
And Thorn… Gods, what if he heard? What if I break his heart?
“I knew you were fast, but damn, Ember,” a voice calls behind me.
I tense, ready to shift, but I’ve heard that voice before. Confident, casual. Tala steps out of the shadows, arms folded over her bronze breasts, moonlight kissing the edges of her skin.
“You planning on running some more? Or maybe you want to scream at the moon a while?”
I glance away, “I’m not in the mood to spar.”
“Good, I don’t fight females when they are down. Olcan, on the other hand, I’d bitch slap him for free.”
I laugh. I don’t mean to. It just slips out, choked and bitter. “I’d hit him too.”
She nods. “He deserves it.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Her presence doesn’t feel invasive. She’s not teasing me or bullying me or asking me why. She’s just here, beside me. It’s comforting. I can see why Thorn is close to her.
Finally, she says, “You meant it, didn’t you? What you said?”
“I don’t know what I meant,” I whisper. “I’m just…scared.”
“Of what? Thorn?”
I shake my head. That’s not it. Thorn was protective, generous… I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of him. “Of me. Of losing myself. Of becoming someone else’s something.”
Tala tilts her head. “You think mating makes you weaker?”
“I think…I don’t know who I am without Roman. Without surviving. And if I give myself to someone, if I let them own me, move me to their cave…maybe I disappear.”
“Ember,” Tala says, softly now. “The strongest wolves I know, the ones who mate. They don’t disappear…they just stop fighting alone.”
I close my eyes. “And if I choose wrong?”
“Then you burn him to ash and start all over next season.” She shrugs nonchalantly.
That makes me look at her. Okay, I like her. She’s hilarious. “Is that what you’d do?”
“Hell yeah.” She grins. “Love doesn’t make you less. It makes you better.”
The way she speaks so strongly of it, she must know first-hand, “Are you in love?”
“I …” Her dark cheeks flush darker as she glances all around.
“It’s okay.” I pat her leg. “You don’t need to tell me; I was just curious.”
“I think…maybe I am.” She nods, meeting my gaze. “It’s just strange that it’s someone I never thought it would be.”
I nod. “I understand completely.” I stare up at the moon. It’s past its peak. I can feel its power blanketing me.
Tala rises. “Come on, let’s get you back before Thorn rips Olcan’s throat out.”
“I don’t think I’d mind that.” I sigh, then whisper, “You don’t think he heard, do you?”
She nods solemnly. I hurt him, I can see it in her eyes.
Tala cares about Thorn in a way that I haven’t seen from anyone else in his pack.
It reminds me of someone. Someone I thought was a friend, Dove.
All those nights we would sit and talk under the moon just like this.
It makes me miss her. I wonder if our entire friendship was just filling time until she finds a mate.
“I think I just want to be alone a little longer.”
She nods once more before the wind shifts around her and her dark wolf is sprinting back across the valley.
I exhale slowly, staring back up at the glowing moon. There’s a storm coming, and I think I’m the match that will light it.
But for the first time in my life, I realize that I’m finally ready to burn.
I don’t know how long I sit alone after Tala leaves. The night is quiet now, no owls or crickets. No whispers or bullies. No aggressive, territorial males. Just me and the truth I didn’t mean to spill repeating over and over again.
I don’t want a mate.
I said it because of the truth spores and I meant it, didn’t I?
The thought of losing myself, and Roman, terrifies me. The idea of becoming someone’s property, after I spent years rebuilding my life with Roman.
But I also can’t forget the way it felt when Thorn touched me, the way he smells, and gods, the way he tasted me.
Then there was the reverence in Thorn’s eyes. Like I wasn’t his to own — but someone he’d die to protect. That’s what I’d want in a mate, isn’t it?
My chest tightens. I should go back. Roman will worry. I’ll probably have some words with Thorn, too. I shift my weight to stand when the soft crunch of footsteps in the grass stops me.
My body tenses, then the scent of winterberry and pine hits me and my body instinctively relaxes.
Thorn steps out of the trees, moonlight gliding across his bare chest and wet hair. He looks like he ran straight through the forest — mud on his legs, leaves tangled in his pale hair. He doesn’t speak at first.
Neither do I. Because words are dangerous, and I’ve already broke enough of them tonight.
Finally, he says, “You meant it.”
Not a question, but I nod anyway.
He walks forward until there’s barely a foot between us. His voice soft but hoarse, like it hurts him to say the words. “You haven’t chosen a mate?”
My throat tightens. “It’s not that I don’t want you.”
That makes him blink.
My eyes flick away from his toward the grass, my fists clench at my sides. “I’m not sure I want any mate because I’m afraid. I’m scared of losing my cave, my brother, my choice. I’m afraid that once someone claims me, I become something for them… I become theirs. Not me anymore.”
Silence stretches between us.
“You think that’s what I want?”
I meet his eyes; they are ice and endless.
“I’ve spent a decade watching wolves claim and mark each other, only to watch it fall apart the next season. Watching wolves trade mates like it means nothing. I didn’t wait for fate to hand me a possession,” he says, “I waited for you. All of you.”
Tears sting behind my eyes for the second time tonight. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t know one thing about being an Alpha’s mate.”
“I know.” He steps closer. “But I’m not here to take anything from you, Ember. I’m not here to cage you or mark you to prove something.”
He leans in, slow, deliberate and brushes his forehead to mine. “I don’t want to own you. I want to stand beside you. You burn so brightly. I just want to be close enough to feel your heat.”
My breath catches. My heart stutters. Gods, I’m surprised it even keeps beating at all.
“I’m still scared,” I whisper.
“I am too,” he whispers back. “Honestly, I’m not sure how to be a mate either. All these years I’ve been looking for one and now I’m not sure I’m good enough for you. Maybe what they are saying is true. Maybe I’m not worthy enough for a mate.”
“I think the fact that you admit you don’t know everything makes you a great mate. Maybe we can figure it out together.” I shrug.
We stay like that, our foreheads touching for a long time. No pressure. No fated promises. Just breath and moonlight mixing with our truths.
When I finally pull back, my voice shakes. “If I give you my heart, you have to promise you won’t hand it back shattered.”
He smiles, wide and devastatingly handsome. “I don’t want it in my hand, Ember. I want it in my chest. Beating beside mine.”
And gods help me, I believe him.
I reach up and touch the cut of his jaw, lined with silver stubble. His long hair is tousled from his run. He closes his eyes like my fingers are fire, and he’s been cold for years.
“You’re not my Alpha,” I whisper.
He opens his eyes again. “No.”
“But I might let you be my mate.”
His inhale is sharp, like I just knocked the wind out of him. Then his mouth is on mine.
The kiss isn’t about claiming or desire. It’s about two souls fighting their whole lives to survive, to finally find the one person who makes surviving worth it.
Because I might have just found mine.