Chapter 2 The bite that didn't kill me

I woke up to snow clinging to my lashes.

The cold didn't bite like it should've. It wrapped around me like a blanket, numb and weightless, like I was dreaming through the bones of winter. I blinked slowly, and the trees above me shifted, their branches heavy with frost and silence.

At first, I didn't move. I couldn't remember how I got here.

Then it came back in flashes.

Aiden.

His rejection.

The sting of betrayal.

The weight of everyone watching.

Lila's smug smile.

And after that,the forest. The running. The collapse.

And then... him.

A figure in the dark. Golden eyes. No words.

Just teeth.

My hand flew to my shoulder.

The skin there pulsed faintly beneath my fingers, like something was still alive inside the wound.

But there was no blood. No torn skin. No ragged flesh.

Just a mark.

Small, crescent-shaped, like the faint outline of a waxing moon. At its center was a single darkened symbol, elegant and strange. It wasn't a rune. Not a letter I recognized. But it hummed softly beneath my touch like it meant something.

Something important.

I sat up with a groan. My entire body ached like I'd run through fire. But I wasn't broken. Not dead. Not even wounded.

What did he do to me?

It took hours to find the path back to the edge of the pack lands.

I didn't even know I was walking until my legs gave out near a frozen creek. I knelt there, gasping for air, watching my breath mist like smoke while my bones trembled under the weight of exhaustion.

I had no coat. No gloves. Just the dress I wore to the mate ceremony was now torn, dirtied, and soaked at the hem.

I looked like the ghost of the girl who left.

But something was different.

I could feel it.

It wasn't in my face or my hair or the way I walked. I didn't feel powerful. I didn't feel beautiful.

I felt... quiet.

But not small.

It was as if the air around me had thickened, recognizing me as something not quite the same.

I didn't expect to be found. But I was.

A scouting party spotted me near the river crossing. I heard their steps before I saw them,three warriors, their scents sharp with adrenaline and unease.

When they caught sight of me, they froze.

One of them,Darian, a younger scout who'd barely spoken to me before, took a cautious step forward, hand resting near his blade.

"Seris?"

His voice cracked. "Is that you?"

I nodded, throat too dry to speak.

He stared at me like I was a puzzle missing its corner pieces.

"You're alive," he said softly. "We thought-" He didn't finish.

The other two said nothing.

They didn't rush to help me. They didn't ask if I was hurt. They just watched.

One whispered to the other, not quietly enough:

"Why doesn't she smell like herself?"

I turned away.

They escorted me back in silence.

By the time we reached the pack gates, word had already spread.

People peeked from windows and doorways. Whispers turned the air brittle. No one came to greet me. Not even my parents.

Someone fetched the healer, but he didn't come near me. Just looked from a distance and told them to let me rest.

The mark on my shoulder pulsed the entire way.

I didn't feel welcome.

I felt like a curse dragging frost behind her.

My room was just as I left it...plain, quiet, small. A single mirror hung by the wardrobe, dust-specked and unremarkable. I hadn't looked at myself in weeks, maybe months.

But when I passed the mirror, I stopped.

My reflection startled me and not because it was different, but because something inside it was.

I wasn't thinner. My figure hadn't changed. I still had the full hips, the broad shoulders, the unruly red hair that made people flinch. My body had always been too much and not enough at the same time.

But my skin looked... warmer.

My eyes were brighter.

The mark on my shoulder faintly glowed for a heartbeat before it faded again.

And my aura...if such a thing could be seen looked almost golden.

I stepped closer to the mirror.

For a moment, I saw myself not through shame, but with curiosity.

My red hair, wild and long, caught the light in a way it never had before. Like embers in a low flame.

I sat down slowly, picked up the old brush from my table, and ran it through my hair.

It snarled. Pulled. Fought me.

But I didn't stop.

That night, I dreamed of snow again.

But there was no pain this time. No running. Just breath. Stillness. Silence.

And a voice.

Low, distant, male.

"You're not broken."

I jolted awake, heart thundering.

My room was still. My window fogged from the cold.

The voice wasn't real. Couldn't be real.

I must have imagined it.

But later,while tying my boots, while eating, while walking through the corridor

I heard it again.

Faint. Gentle. Just a whisper in the back of my skull.

"You're becoming."

They started being nice to me the next day.

Too nice.

Sasha, who used to avoid me like I carried fleas, offered me tea at the training grounds.

Two warriors stepped aside when I passed,a bit too quickly.

My old instructor gave me a tight smile when I entered the hall, then whispered something to another behind my back.

It wasn't warmth. It wasn't kindness.

It was fear.

They didn't see me.

They saw the mark. They felt the chill in the air when I passed. They saw a girl who shouldn't be alive walking among them, glowing faintly like moonlight.

I could hear it in their thoughts or maybe I imagined it:

"Cursed."

"Changed."

"Not one of us anymore."

The first time my powers showed themselves, it was so small I almost missed it.

I was trying to pull a stubborn braid tight and accidentally sliced my thumb with the edge of the comb.

I hissed and brought it to my lips...

But when I looked down, the wound had already closed.

No blood.

Just smooth skin, as if it had never been there.

I froze.

My hands shook for a moment.

But I convinced myself it was nothing. I must've imagined it.

The voice returned the next evening. Clearer.

"You are safe now, Sey."

I didn't know that name.

But it made my stomach flutter.

I pressed my hands over my ears and tried to sleep.

But the warmth of that voice wrapped around me like the only thing in the world that wanted me here.

In the weeks that followed, I began walking with my head a little higher.

I didn't smile. I didn't speak much.

But I didn't hide anymore.

I still felt lost. Still didn't understand what was happening to me.

But I knew one thing:

Whatever happened that night in the woods... it didn't kill me.

It changed me.

And I wasn't done changing yet.