Chapter 6 - Willow
Warm sunlight spills through tall glass panes, the air sweet with the scent of earth and lavender.
I take a deep breath of the healing air, kneeling in my greenhouse—the one I spent so much time in behind Thane’s old house years ago—my hands buried in soil that feels alive beneath my fingertips.
It’s quiet, peaceful, the kind of peace I’ve been chasing all my life.
A soft breeze stirs through the rows of plants, brushing against my cheek like a whispered promise nurtured by Earth’s good graces.
I smile, breathing it in and basking in the peace.
The buds are opening, each petal unfurling like they’re reaching for the sun, reaching for the stars, even, and for the first time in years, I feel whole again.
My fingers tingle, a familiar prickle that dances from my palms up to my wrists. I glance down and frown when I notice faint threads of light weaving through the dirt, trailing from my fingertips. They shimmer like veins of gold beneath the soil, but the beauty is as frightening as it is stunning.
“What…?” The word falls from my lips with a gasp as I draw my hand back, soil sifting through my fingers in slow motion. It isn’t dirt anymore. It’s gray ash, as if the golden light burned the soil.
The flowers close and blacken one by one, their petals shriveling and curling inward. The greenhouse windows crack, splintering with a sound like bones breaking. The air turns cold, heavy, and my voice trembles when I call out, “Thane?”
My breath comes out with a cold chill as I glance around the greenhouse, searching for him the way I always do when fear sets in. “Thane…are you there?”
No answer. Just the faint echo of my own voice bouncing back at me.
Then I see him.
He’s standing at the other end of the greenhouse, half hidden by a shadow of curling smoke. The same Thane I remember—broad shoulders, dark hair, those forest-green eyes that once made my heart skip a few beats. But something is different.
Something is wrong.
The light behind him flickers, twisting his shadow until it stretches unnaturally across the glass floor, appearing sinister, an eerie chill flitting down my spine.
“Thane…?” I whisper again, but my voice sounds smaller this time, meek, trembling with the fear that’s settled in the base of my spine.
Especially when Thane doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. His eyes only glow faintly—not green anymore, but molten gold—and when he finally does step forward, the sound of his boots on the floor is like thunder.
The walls melt away, the glass dissolving into darkness until there’s nothing but the two of us, standing in an endless field of dead flowers.
The earth beneath my feet is cracked and dry.
My hands tremble as I look down and realize that the ash coating them is bleeding into my skin, marking me, seeping under my flesh like ink.
Thane’s voice cuts through the darkness, low and distorted.
“You can’t run from what you are, Willow,” he bellows, his voice echoing in my mind long after he says the words.
“I don’t understand,” I choke out, but when I reach out toward him, my hand passes right through his chest. The world tilts, and he’s gone, swallowed by the dark.
Suddenly, I’m alone again.
Except for the whisper. It slithers around me like smoke, threading through the cracks in the air, brushing against the back of my neck where the fine hairs prickle with an unsettling alarm.
“Witch….”
The word isn’t spoken—it’s breathed down my neck, prompting me to gasp and snap my head back in search of the source of that whisper, but there’s nothing.
My pulse spikes as the whisper multiplies, voices rising until the sound fills the sky.
Witch. Witch. Witch.
The ground quakes beneath me, the world splitting open as fire bursts through the cracks. I stumble back, but something catches my wrist—a hand, rough and burning.
I look down.
It’s Thane’s hand. But his skin is scorched, his veins pulsing with golden light, and his grip is unyielding. His eyes blaze through the smoke, wild and desperate.
“Don’t fight it,” he growls.
Then the fire swallows us both.
I wake up with a start, my throat blazing with the fire from the nightmare I’ve just woken up from, my heart hammering uncontrollably as I desperately lug in a breath.
“It’s okay, Willow. You’re okay,” a gentle voice is a grounding force that I believe, and I turn my face to its source to find the woman from outside—Rissa—standing over me and holding out a glass of water.
I reach out for it tentatively, sensing safety but still wary that she might try to poison me the way she did with her revelations outside. But I’m spurred on to drink the water by my burning, parched throat, and sit up to drink the water as if I’ve been dehydrated for years.
Even the water in Girdwood tastes different, like the way the garden outside Thane’s house felt different this morning. The open expanse had me feeling free, but like a snowflake caught by unexpected sunlight, Rissa had come over and turned my world upside down.
Again.
“How are you feeling now?” Rissa asks as she pulls up a chair beside the bed. I notice that I’m not in the guest bedroom I used last night. The walls in this room are more sophisticated, with ivory and black trimmings, whereas the room I used last night had yellowish walls, as if it signified hope.
That hope is seemingly lost now, after everything I learned this morning.
But I can find it again if I choose to ignore everything Rissa told me.
“I’m fine,” I tell Rissa as I straighten up, handing her the empty glass as I tilt my head to one side, inspecting her round face framed by voluptuous golden-brown curls, her eyes as green as Thane’s. “You know…I remember you from before. I used to be in Snehvolk until five years ago.”
“Oh, I remember you,” Rissa giggles lightly. “You’re the girl who had a greenhouse behind Elder Charles’s house. I stopped by once for some nettle when I just started practicing.”
“Ah…that’s why I remember you. You’re one of the pack healers.”
“And a witch, apparently,” she chuckles, but I purse my lips, averting my eyes. Rissa notices my hesitation to go there and clears her throat.
“Thane must have had a soft spot for you if he let you have that greenhouse behind his grandfather’s house,” she comments. “Why did you leave?”
I turn to her, my voice catching in my throat. “I—I don’t—”
Rissa immediately places a hand on my arm when I hesitate to reply, smiling reassuringly. “You don’t have to give me an explanation. You don’t owe me one, especially because I might know what happened.”
“How would you know?” I ask with a frown, to which Rissa sighs.
“We all have some history with the alphas. The witches, I mean. And I think you may have history with Thane.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I blurt with a nervous chuckle, shaking my head slowly. “I’m not a witch, and I’m not Thane’s fated mate.”
“You might not believe it, Willow, but it is true.”
“You’re wrong,” I scoff, pushing out the dream-turned-nightmare I just woke up from, hiding any reaction to the way my fingertips tingle as if the sensation from the nightmare is bleeding into reality.
Rissa sighs beside me, pulling her hand back. “If you don’t believe any of this, I can show you my powers,” she says as she lifts her palms for me to see.
“You don’t need to show me anything,” I chuckle as I dig my fingernails into my palms. “I wouldn’t believe you, anyway. I mean…a witch? Thane’s fated mate? I’m nothing more than a wolfless omega. I—”
“That’s what he told you, right? In the past, I mean,” she points out, but I turn my face away quickly, crossing my arms.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” I sniff, feeling tingly sensations in my fingertips again. The sensations are so strong that I’m biting my tongue to keep a semblance of composure, control over whatever is going on.
Beside me, Rissa sighs. “Well, whether you want to believe it or not, it is true,” she says as she stands up. “Thane is preparing for your mating ceremony, and your magical powers will be unlocked when you mate with him.”
“Mate with him…?” I turn incredulous, wide eyes at Rissa.
“I am not mating with Thane!” I suddenly roar, slamming my palms on either side of the bed, a surge of energy rushing through my fingertips and extending into my palms. I notice a flicker of gold, the same color I saw in the nightmare that woke me up.
Too shocked to look at Rissa, my breath catches on a gasp, and I stare blankly ahead.
A moment of terse silence passes before Rissa speaks up, softly, gently, clearly not wanting to rouse my anger again.
“I'm gonna go now. Thane will be back soon. You can discuss things with him,” she says. “When you need me, I will be here, because the truth is, we need you, Willow.”
With that, Rissa turns and leaves me to mull over what just happened. Lying in Thane's bed feels as suffocating as I'd felt in the nightmare, and I quickly throw my legs off the bed and decide that I can't sit around and wait for Thane to come back just to bind me to him.
Become his mate to fulfill some prophecy?
I'm not crazy.
I may be a wolfless omega who's accustomed to being a prisoner, even of my own mind, during most of my life, but this is something I can't accept.
I can't go through with becoming Thane's mate. After what he did to break my heart, becoming his mate would be crazy.
I hate him now.
Leaving his bedroom, I quickly slip into the guest bedroom I'd used last night, grabbing my sack and stuffing the few possessions I have inside before pulling the drawstring.
I wasn't able to escape Seward, but Girdwood is different.
No one even knows I'm here, except for Thane and Rissa, and I could easily slip away before either of them real—
“Willow…?” comes Thane's gentle, confused voice, snapping me around like a deer caught in the headlights, hiding my sack behind my back.
Thane’s tall frame fills the doorway, his dark brows drawn together, expression unreadable except for maybe a hint of confusion.
“What are you doing?” he asks, his voice low—too calm, like he already knows the answer but wants to hear it come from me.
My throat closes up. I hate that I know him so well, even after all this time. A small thing like his tone shouldn't affect me, but it does.
“I was—” I gulp on the lie when his gaze drops to the sack half-hidden behind me. I clutch it tighter, but it’s useless. He sees everything. He always has.
“You were going to run,” he observes, hardly surprised. His tone is quieter and not angry.
Worse.
He's disappointed.
“I can’t stay here,” I whisper, my pulse pounding hard enough that I feel it in my ears as I drop my gaze. “You and Rissa…you’re both wrong about me. I’m not who you think I am, and I can’t…I can’t go through with this.”
Thane takes a step forward, and the air becomes denser, warmer, startling me into lifting my eyes again.
The Thane I remember—the one who could command a room with a single breath—is suddenly standing right in front of me. But there’s something else in his eyes this time.
Regret.
Confusion.
Maybe even a flicker of pain.
Why do I care, anyway?
“I’m not letting you leave,” he whispers, his voice low, a rumbling growl following that sends a shiver down my spine. “Not when you’re in danger. You don’t have to believe the prophecy, but you will believe me when I tell you that Blood Claw isn’t done with you yet.”
I shake my head vigorously, taking a step back, but he closes the space easily, even without moving. It's his presence. I can't escape it.
“Stop treating me like I’m something you can own,” I snap out of nowhere, feeling caged again. “You bought my freedom, Thane. That doesn’t make me yours to do with as you please.”
Something flashes in his eyes at that—hurt, maybe—but before I can move, his hand shoots out to catch my wrist.
My breath stops.
My world stops.
A jolt surges up my arm, electric, warm, and full of life.
The kind of life I haven't felt for ages, years, even.
It races through my veins like wildfire, climbing up my throat until my breath catches.
My fingers twitch where he grips my wrist, and I feel it in him, too—his body stiffens, his pupils flare, and the air between us crackles like we've just been hit with imaginary lightning.
I stare at him, stunned, speechless. Neither of us speaks, but I can hear him breathing, hear the quickness of his heartbeat as it pulses in his chest, matching the beat of my own.
“Willow…” he breathes, his voice hoarse now, vulnerable, fragile, and cautious. “You feel that, don't you?”
I yank my hand back as if I'd been burned, refusing to believe what it means to feel these strange feelings, clutching my hand to my chest and glaring at him with accusation burning in my eyes. “N-no!” I snap, though the lie shakes in my voice when it quivers. “I-I didn’t.”
Thane's gaze softens, that damnable green darkening with realization. “You did.”
“Even if I did,” I grate out through gritted teeth, forcing strength into the words that my body doesn’t feel, “it doesn’t mean anything. You can’t just show up after five years and expect me to—”
“Expect you to what?” he presses, stepping closer again, his tone suddenly rough, gravelly as he arches a brow. “To trust me? To believe that maybe this isn’t a mistake?”
“Yes!” The word bursts out of me before I can stop it, sharp and trembling. “Because it is a mistake. You rejected me, Thane. You made sure I’d never come back. You don’t get to hold me now like…like it means something.”
He flinches, the guilt plain in his eyes, but I can’t stand here any longer.
My chest feels too tight, the air too heavy with things I don’t want to remember.
Before he can stop me again, I turn and retreat into the hallway, clutching my wrist, the spot where he touched me still pulsing with that impossible warmth.
Behind me, I hear him exhale, but I numb out the sound of him breathing, just as I've been numbing everything out for the past five years.
It's the only way I can survive, especially if I can't run away from Thane.
Even when I did run away physically, I could never escape him. That's why it's easier to hate Thane Savage.