The days that followed blurred into one long stretch of discomfort. Eve had thought that the moment Kaelen stood before his pack and declared her under his protection would be enough to silence any questions, to lock her in the safety of his shadow. She had been wrong. If anything, the weight of his claim made her stand out even more. Every step through the lodge felt like walking beneath a hundred pairs of eyes, sharp and unrelenting, stripping her bare.
The lodge itself was magnificent in its own right, though magnificence only added to her unease. Built of heavy timber and dark stone, it rose out of the mountainside like it had grown there, a creature in its own form. The ceilings arched high overhead, ribbed with beams blackened by age. Lanterns cast pools of amber light that never quite reached the corners, leaving shadows that seemed to twitch at the edge of her sight. Wolf pelts, weapons, and ancient banners hung along the walls, testaments to centuries of dominance. Every hallway echoed with faint sounds—footsteps padded by claw or boot, doors creaking, laughter that sounded more like growls. To anyone else it might have been a fortress, a sanctuary. To Eve, it was a den, and she was no wolf.
At mealtimes she was forced into the heart of it. The great hall was vast, its tables carved from oak, scarred by generations of claws and knives. Wolves filled the benches with a kind of restless energy, their movements sharp, their laughter edged with hunger. She sat near Rowan more often than not, because he seemed to sense when her hands shook too much to hold the wooden cup, when her appetite shriveled to nothing under the weight of hostile gazes. He leaned close with easy grins, telling stories of foolish hunts and near escapes, trying to distract her from the fact that she was surrounded.
But even Rowan's warmth couldn't erase the sting of the others' contempt. One evening, when a bowl was passed down the table toward her, the man beside her let it slip from his hands, spilling broth across her lap. He muttered no apology, only smirked when she flinched from the burn. Rowan's sharp glare silenced him, but not before Eve heard the whispered word that carried across the benches: weak. Another night, two young women opposite her giggled behind their hands, their eyes darting between her and Kaelen at the head of the table. She couldn't hear the words, but she didn't need to—the curl of envy in their lips said enough.
Kaelen himself did nothing to ease the pressure. He sat in his carved chair like a shadow cut from stone, his presence immense, his expression unreadable. His gaze swept the room often, landing on her for the briefest flickers of time, but he said nothing. Not to her. Not about her. He kept her under his protection in word, but not in comfort. The distance he maintained between them was suffocating, making her feel abandoned even when he was within arm's reach.
One night, when the meal ended and the hall emptied, she lingered behind, hoping to catch him alone. Her pulse raced with a dozen questions—why he wouldn't look at her, why he left her to drown in the pack's hostility, why he seemed so determined to treat her like a stranger despite the bond that burned whenever he neared. But before she could gather the courage to step closer, a Beta with silver-streaked hair approached him, muttering something too low for her to hear. Kaelen nodded, rising without even a glance in her direction, and left through the side door. She stood frozen in the long hall as the echoes of his boots faded, her questions unsaid, her throat tight with something that felt uncomfortably like rejection.
Her chamber became her retreat. She spent long hours by the narrow window, staring out at the dark forest that pressed close to the lodge, wondering if the silence beyond the trees was safer than the noise within the walls. She lay awake at night listening to the building groan around her, listening to howls that cut through the distance like blades. Every sound reminded her she was not one of them. The wolves belonged to the night, and she belonged to neither world anymore.
Once, unable to bear the close air of her room, she stepped into the corridor. The torches burned low, shadows dancing across the walls, and the sound of hushed voices drew her to a corner. She froze when she realized they were speaking about her.
"She'll ruin him," one voice said, thick with scorn. "The Alpha can't lead with a human tied to his side. It makes us all vulnerable."
"She bleeds too easily," another muttered. "You saw what happened. The rogues will keep coming. They smell her blood, her fear. She's bait."
Eve's breath caught. Her fingers curled into her palms, nails biting into skin, but she didn't step forward. She couldn't. The truth in their words burned more than their malice. She was human. She did bleed, she did fear, she did slow them down. And Kaelen—Kaelen should not have to bear her weight.
She slipped back to her chamber unseen, but the words followed her. They clung to her during the day, whispered through her dreams at night. Even Rowan's efforts to ease her tension could not shake them loose. He tried, though. He always tried.
"You shouldn't listen to them," Rowan told her one afternoon when he found her standing near the training yards, watching wolves shift and spar in their fur. "They're afraid. Afraid of change, afraid of what they don't understand. That fear turns ugly."
"I can't ignore it," she replied quietly. The sight of two wolves snapping at each other's throats in the dirt made her stomach twist. "They're right. I don't belong here. I'm not strong like them. I don't heal like them. One mistake and I drag everyone down."
Rowan's eyes softened, golden in the sun. "You're Kaelen's mate. That means you do belong, whether they like it or not. The Moon doesn't make mistakes, Eve."
She almost laughed, but the sound stuck in her throat. "Maybe she does. Or maybe she enjoys them."
Rowan studied her for a moment, then smiled faintly. "You have more bite than they think. Give it time. Bite back when you need to."
But biting back was easier said than done when every face she passed in the corridors seemed to weigh her like a liability. A woman named Liora confronted her directly one evening, stepping into her path with a sneer. Liora was tall, her dark hair braided back, her shoulders broad with muscle. She looked every inch the predator.
"You'll never last here," she said, her voice low and sharp. "Kaelen may claim you, but that doesn't make you one of us. You'll break, and when you do, it'll be him who pays."
Eve's mouth went dry. She wanted to reply, to tell Liora she hadn't asked for any of this, that she would leave if she could, that she never wanted to be bound to a man whose silence cut worse than knives. But the words tangled, and all she managed was to brush past, heart hammering, skin prickling with shame.
That night she dreamed of silver eyes again, of Kaelen's voice whispering mine in a tone that was both command and plea. She woke trembling, the bond tugging at her heart like a leash. She hated it, hated the way it made her crave his presence even when he gave her nothing but distance.
The days passed in the same rhythm: suspicion, whispers, Kaelen's aloofness, Rowan's kindness. The weight of the pack pressed down on her until she felt hollowed out, stretched thin. She wasn't sure which hurt more—the wolves' open hostility or Kaelen's silence. At least with the others she knew where she stood. With Kaelen, every glance was a riddle, every touch avoided a wound.
And still, despite it all, she couldn't walk away. The forest beyond the lodge might have been safer in one sense, but in another it was filled with threats she couldn't face alone. The rogues were out there, the rival packs. She was caught between two worlds, and both would eat her alive if she dared stand alone.
In the end, the truth settled like ash in her chest: she was bound to the Alpha, tied to him by blood and fate, but surrounded by a pack that saw her as nothing but a stranger. A pack of wolves. A pack of enemies. A pack of strangers.