Chapter Two #2
She rushed forward and cleared her throat, loud enough to draw attention from the young cub.
The boy had frozen, panic flashing in his wide eyes.
Then she’d grabbed the venison out of his hands and muttered at him to leave.
The boy had fled, but Willow didn’t get the chance.
The enforcer had seen her and shouted for her to stop.
His call had brought other enforcers outside.
By the time she was dragged into the courtyard, the sun had already dipped behind the treetops, casting long, cold shadows over the snow-covered ground.
Wolves began to gather, summoned to witness a spectacle.
That’s what public punishment had become in Bitterroot: entertainment masquerading as order.
She remembered standing there in front of them all, her heart thudding, her hands clenched at her sides. Derek stepped out a moment later, tall and broad, wrapped in a dark wool coat that practically swallowed the light around him.
He hadn’t yelled. Derek rarely needed to raise his voice. That was part of what made him dangerous. His quiet could be worse than a roar.
“Stealing from your alpha,” he’d said, slowly circling her. “A betrayal of trust. A violation of our laws. And by one of our own.”
Willow had kept her eyes down.
She didn’t look for the boy. She hoped he had run. Hoped someone had taken him inside.
“Take off your clothes,” Derek had said.
The words hit like a slap. Not shouted, just spoken, flat and final.
She’d hesitated. Just for a second.
“I said,” he repeated, voice calm and icy, “take them off. Let the pack see what disgrace looks like.”
A few chuckles echoed around her. Not many. Even the crowd had gone quiet, sensing something especially cruel was coming.
She had stripped.
One layer at a time.
Her coat, her scarf. Her boots, her leggings. Her sweater.
Down to bare skin, in the snow.
She had stood there while Derek gave his speech.
Something about submission, humility, the importance of loyalty.
She could barely hear it. The cold had sunk into her bones so quickly it stole the breath from her lungs.
Her skin had burned, then gone numb. She remembered the snow melting beneath her feet and refreezing as ice.
She remembered the heat of humiliation. The way even the kind faces in the crowd had looked away. No one spoke. No one intervened.
She had stood there for ten minutes. Maybe longer. Then he’d struck her across the face before waving her off like she was nothing more than an annoying insect. She’d walked back inside, her clothes bundled in her arms, her body trembling uncontrollably.
No one had spoken to her that night.
But she’d seen the boy again. Days later. Alive and unmarked. He’d thanked her and that had been enough. That had made the humiliation worth it. She knew he would never try something like that again so she liked to think that in some small way, she’d saved him.
Now, standing in the forest nearly a year later, Willow felt that cold again.
Not on her skin, but inside her. In her ribs.
In her chest. Like a shadow she carried with her through every season.
She wrapped her arms around herself, holding tight, as if the memory might still leech warmth from her body if she let it.
She wasn’t brave. Brave wolves challenged authority.
They stood tall and defiant. Brave wolves made speeches and faced consequences with fire in their eyes.
She was not brave. She bent. She yielded.
She made herself smaller, quieter, and easier to forget.
But she knew what it meant to hurt on someone else’s behalf. And that counted for something.
There was power in choosing pain, especially when it shielded someone else from it. There was strength in silent sacrifice. Not the kind her pack would ever respect, but the kind she could live with.
And in a world where every day was a fight to keep breathing, that mattered more than anyone knew.
She hadn’t saved herself, not yet.
But she had saved others.
And for now, that would have to do.
Willow knelt to gather more flowers, her fingers brushing gently over the pale yellow buds.
They grew in a patch beneath the trees, thriving despite the cool shade, delicate but persistent.
Just like her, she thought absently. She leaned forward, clipping one bloom after another, focused only on the movement of her hands and the soft rustle of the forest floor.
And then she froze.
The scent hit her all at once, no warning, no gradual rise, just there, overwhelming and immediate.
Her breath caught mid-inhale, lungs locking tight as if the air itself had turned solid.
The scent wasn’t pack. She would have known if she had scented it before.
It wasn’t prey, either. No hint of blood, or edge of fear.
This scent was different. Entirely different.
Warm, wild, and masculine.
And something else.
Something powerful and right.
It curled into her chest like a ribbon of heat, threading itself through her ribs and wrapping around her heart. For one strange, still moment, she felt like her body didn’t belong to her anymore. Like her blood knew something her brain hadn’t caught up to.