Elara's POV
"Liam?" I turn the knob, stepping into the dim room.
He doesn't move. His eyes are locked on the wall, like he's watching something I can't see. The darkness swallows the room, but he just sits there—still, silent. He doesn't even hear me enter.
For a second, I wonder if he's gone deaf. Or worse, if he's disappearing from me in some way.
I get into the bathroom, and come out with a piece of towel, but he hasn't noticed I'm inside.
My hands touch his shoulders, like a soft massage.
"Oh…" He flinches.
And I laugh so hard, letting the towel slide off my body. That got him, right?
"You sneaked on me." He sighs, finally withdrawing his gaze from the wall. "And I didn't even notice."
I press him gently onto the bed, my lips brushing the shell of his ear. "It's freezing outside," I whisper. "And I'm all yours."
My body molds against his, but he stays stiff beneath me.
"I'm almost a werewolf." My lips touch his neck. "Just like you. Almost like you."
He tilts his head to the tingling sensation, but he doesn't smile. He lays sideways, our eyes meet, and I'm able to study his face with the faint light the moon offers through the window. His eyes…
I don't want to come up with any thoughts, but they stare dead at me. They are empty.
"Liam?"
He doesn't answer, his eyes just on me. He didn't hear? Unless his ears are shut.
He sighs, and I notice his fingers are shaky.
"No other werewolf knows you're human…" His voice is so low that I can barely hear him. "… Except me…"
"Well, yes, but what's this look?" I touch his jaws.
But he keeps mute, like thinking through the words in his mind, or something is too heavy for him to say?
"Is it about your sick mum?"
"Hmm… yeah." He takes in breaths, his fingers rubbing against his trousers. "But that's… that's not just it."
"Then?" My brows furrow.
It is strange that my nakedness doesn't seem to appeal to him, he doesn't even look at me like he always does. The weight on him seems too heavy for pleasure to matter to him.
He gets to the window, staring outside, and holding the rods behind the net as though that can help him speak.
"My mum needs a cure," he continues. "And I can't afford it." He turns to face me, and I find tiny streaks of tears flowing down his jaws. "I have to do what I need to do."
The space in the room is starting to press against me at this point.
His lips move, but all I catch is "sorry"
"What… what did you do?"
"Get dressed."
"Now?" I frown. "Are we going out? Under this torrent?"
He swings the wardrobe open and pulls out a dress no one could wear to bed. It lands on the mattress with a soft thud.
"Just get dressed," he says.
"What's this for?" My frown deepens, aching eyebrows at him.
And he simply turns his eyes from me, going to look out the window, again.
"It's almost time for them to come."
"Liam?" My voice raises slightly. "What's all this about? Who's coming…"
I'm cut shut by a bang on the door to the sitting room.
It is past midnight. Too late for visitors—if we ever have any.
I hurry into the sitting room, tugging on the gown Liam has dropped on the bed as he follows behind me.
The door slams open before I can reach it.
"Liam!" A burly man, a werewolf, storms in, his eyes burning. "Where's she? The human?"
His eyes are on me, scanning my skin as he waits for Liam to answer. Sweat forms on my skin because he mentions "human". No one else is human except me.
I feel his gaze grabbing me like sharp claws.
"Liam… what is…" I swallow the lump I feel down my throat. "Did you tell…"
My heart starts to beat as though to escape my chest.
"Sorry," Liam mutters lifelessly, avoiding eye contact with me.
The space in the room suddenly becomes too small as though the walls are pressing hard against me, and it is becoming hard to breathe through my lungs. No one is supposed to know I am human, the rogue wolves are a danger to my existence among them, but now…
"She's human," Liam's voice is low.
The two other werewolves who stand outside in the pouring rain storm in, and before I can move, they grab me—one by my arms, and the other by my legs.
"Liam! Liam!" I thrash in their grip, struggling to pull them off me.
But all he does is watch.
He steps outside, stands frozen in the rain, and in his eyes, I see something I've never seen in him. Not love. Not anger, but something like guilt or fear?
"He's sold you out to our Alpha," one of the werewolves snarls, grinning as his grip bites into my arm.
I thrash in his grip, my scream raw. "Liam, look at me!"
He gets closer to the cart the werewolves have forced me into, and for a second, I think he's going to engage them in a fight, but I'm wrong.
"I had no choice… my mother has to survive, so I had to…" his voice is almost inaudible that the rain can almost drain out his voice. "Alpha Cassian's reward will help me get her a cure… sorry."
Tears stream down my jaws, my body shaking not because of the cold. "And all you had to do… was to sell me out…"
He nods, then he says "yes" as though I'm just a commodity.
My vision blurs as memories of past events begin to pierce through my heart like sharp daggers designed for me. My late parents' death put me in the position of a fugitive, and when rogue wolves trapped me, Liam saved me.
He decided it wasn't safe if everyone knew I was human.
We'd fallen in love, and he understood that my humanity was a top secret to us—all for my safety.
But now, he has gone against everything.
I wish this is just a nightmare, but the pain confirms it's real.
***
Flickering candlelight stings my eyes. The scent of herbs rushes in, thick and strange, curling in my lungs. I'm on a mattress—too soft, too still. My limbs are heavy, like someone drained all the fight out of them.
Where am I?
"I'm…" I feel my fingers, trying to move them as a woman's face comes into view.
She places a damp towel on my forehead, then just… stares. Her eyes look onto me for too long, measuring, reading, maybe even pitying. The silence stretches until I have to look away.
"Elara," she says, taking the towel off my head, and using her palms. "So this is you…"
I jerk up, pulling myself out of the fog. "Ahhh…"
My breath is heavy.
"You're finally awake." She kisses my forehead, and I yank her off.
She sits beside the bed. "I'm Velora. Alpha Cassian has put me in charge of you." She comes closer to pull me into a hug before I can resist. "But things might not go well…"
Her eyes are bulging at me, her face holding a smile, but going pale at the same time. And… I'm not sure, I don't know what to conclude about her.
"This room…" My gaze darts around the room, taking note of how spacious it is, but still experiencing the cold feeling of being in prison. "Where's this place?"
"The Dawnfang pack, but… nevermind."
"Where am I?" I try to get my leg off the bed, but the weakness that stretches throughout my body betrays me.
My gaze reaches the door of the room, and even though the space is big enough to contain at least two hundred wolves, it still feels like a tiny prison.
"Dawnfang pack," Velora says. "Alpha Cassian kept me in charge of you."
"I am sold out… by Liam…" Tears threaten to escape my eyes.
Velora nods. "Sometimes we don't have a choice."
She pours a black substance from a jug on the table beside the bed into a mug, and passes it to me, gesturing I drink it up. The vapour sends the strong smell of herbs through my nostrils.
"This might help when the time comes."
"Time for what?"
She sighs, shaking her head. "Sometimes, fate gives us no choice."
My breath hitches. "What fate are you talking about? What's all these about?"
The door of the room opens, and a man, a werewolf, walks in. Velora leaves my side, rushing to kneel down before him.
"Alpha Cassian." Her knee is almost touching the ground.
He doesn't respond to this, but lifts his gaze from Velora to be on me. He is here for me, I suppose.
"Is she?" His voice came low, but with a kind of strong accent.
And… I think I have heard such tones before now. This voice. Or maybe I haven't. But it feels like something stuck in my brain, something imprinted in me, and wouldn't leave even though I need it to.
"She's the human, isn't she?" He says, walking closer to the bed, and leaving the spot where Velora is still on her knees.
Velora stands up. "She is… she is the human the men brought in here."
She has that complex look in her eyes. I don't want to believe it's out of concern. She doesn't know me after all.
Cassian gets close enough to the bed. "Elara?"
His scent hits me. It's made of spices. Hot spices, yes… but harsh. This scent is warm, strangely sweet, like a mixture of peppermint and cloves. It should repulse me like it always does. But instead, it pulls something deep from within me, like I've smelled it before, but when?
I raised my gaze for our eyes to lock.
His amber eyes shot at me. I feel them going through my skin, and through my mind at the same time.
But memories of my parents' death come haunting me, like his eyes were the daggers that must have caused their death.
"Don't…" I withdraw myself into the bed, my nails digging into my thighs. "Don't touch me…"
"What?" He starts but stops.
"You…" My finger starts pointing at him.
But he has no business with my parents' death, then how come these memories?
His palm grazes my forehead, and I jerk away instinctively. But something sparks inside me—like an echo.
I don't understand it.
I shouldn't know his touch.
I've never met him before.
And yet…
Something in me remembers.