I can't sleep.
My body aches from the visions, from the bond pulling in two directions, from the voice that whispered my name on the wind like it knew me better than I know myself.
I lie on the bedroll Cassian left for me, staring up through tree branches at the night sky. The moon is still high, still watching. I wonder if it saw what happened at the temple. If it knows what I've become.
The camp is quiet around me. Cassian and Bastien are on watch somewhere in the outer perimeter. I can sense them distantly, their presence steady but separate. Not connected like the others.
The twins are closer. Too close. The bond hums stronger with them, insistent and demanding in a way that makes my chest tight. Two threads wrapped around my ribs, pulling in opposite directions.
I close my eyes and try to force sleep, but my wolf is restless beneath my skin. Pacing. Waiting for something.
Then I hear them.
Voices. Low and tense. Coming from somewhere past the fire, deeper in the trees.
The twins.
I shouldn't listen. I should roll over and ignore whatever they're arguing about now.
But my body moves before I can stop it, sitting up slowly and turning toward the sound. My enhanced hearing picks up every word despite the distance, despite the fact that they clearly think they're speaking privately.
"This is insane." Lucen's voice, sharp with frustration. "We can't both be bonded to her."
"We are." Draco's response is flat, matter-of-fact. "Whether we like it or not."
"I don't like it." Lucen snaps. "I don't want this."
Silence falls between them. Heavy and loaded with things they're not saying.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the night being mild. My heart thuds against my ribs, loud enough that I'm sure they can hear it even from here.
"Neither do I," Draco finally says, his voice quieter. "But the bond snapped into place the moment her wolf awakened. We both felt it."
"I know we felt it." Lucen sounds tired now, angry energy draining into something else. "That doesn't mean we have to accept it."
"How do we not accept it?" Draco asks. "It's already there. Every time I'm near her, I feel it pulling. Every time she's in pain, I feel it like it's my own. How do we ignore that?"
"By remembering what she was," Lucen responds, and his words cut sharper than any blade. "By remembering that she's the girl we spent years tormenting. The girl who scrubbed our floors and carried our water and never once fought back."
My chest tightens until breathing hurts.
"She has a wolf now," Draco counters. "She's not that girl anymore."
"Isn't she?" Lucen's laugh is bitter. "She still flinches when we get too close. She still looks at us like she's waiting for us to hurt her. The bond doesn't erase what we did to her."
"I know that." Draco's voice rises slightly, frustration bleeding through his control. "You think I don't know that every time I look at her, I remember? You think I don't see it in her eyes?"
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Lucen demands. "Pretend the bond makes everything okay? Pretend we didn't make her life a nightmare for years?"
Silence again. Longer this time.
I should leave. Should go back to my bedroll and pretend I never heard this. But I'm frozen in place, every muscle locked as I wait for them to answer the question I've been too afraid to ask myself.
"I don't know," Draco finally admits, and the honesty in his voice surprises me. "I don't know how to fix what we broke. But the bond is real. We can't just walk away from it."
"Can't we?" Lucen challenges. "Other wolves have rejected bonds before. It's not unheard of."
"And it destroys them," Draco responds sharply. "The bond is too strong to fight. Trying to resist it would tear us apart. Both of us."
"Maybe that's what we deserve."
The words hang in the air between them, heavy with self-loathing I didn't expect from either of them.
"Maybe it is," Draco says quietly. "But it won't help her. And right now, whether she wants us or not, she's stuck with us. The bond won't let us leave."
"So we're prisoners too." Lucen's laugh is hollow. "Just like her."
"No." Draco's voice turns hard. "Not like her. We chose this. Every cruel word, every humiliation, every time we stood by and let others hurt her. We chose that. This bond? This is consequence."
I press my hand against my mouth, fighting back the sound threatening to escape. My wolf stirs beneath my skin, responding to the pain radiating through my chest.
"I didn't know," Lucen says, and I hear something crack in his voice. "I didn't know she would be this. That she would have a wolf. That she would be..."
He trails off, but I know what he's not saying. That I would be someone who mattered. Someone the bond chose for them.
"Neither did I," Draco admits. "But she is. And now we have to live with knowing that fate bonded us to the girl we spent years destroying."
More silence. I can hear them breathing, can sense the tension coiling between them through the bond that connects all three of us whether we want it or not.
"Do you think she'll ever forgive us?" Lucen asks finally, and the question sounds like it costs him something to voice.
"No." Draco's answer is immediate and certain. "I don't think she should."
"Then what's the point?" Lucen demands. "Why are we following her if we know she'll never accept us?"
"Because the bond won't let us do anything else," Draco responds. "And because maybe, even if she never forgives us, we can at least keep her alive long enough to find whatever answers she's looking for."
"That's not enough."
"It has to be."
I hear movement. Footsteps. They're done talking.
I move quickly and silently back to my bedroll, lying down and forcing my breathing to steady. My heart hammers against my ribs, too loud, too fast. Every word they spoke burns itself into my memory, carving deeper wounds into places that were already bleeding.
They don't want this bond. Don't want me.
But they're trapped by it anyway, forced to follow someone they spent years teaching to be invisible.
The realization should hurt. Maybe it does. But beneath the pain, something else rises. Something cold and hard and final.
My heart hardens around their words like ice forming over deep water.
I hear them return to camp, feel them settle into positions on opposite sides of the fire. The bond hums between the three of us, uncomfortable and unwanted and inescapable.
I close my eyes and focus on breathing. On controlling the power that wants to surge through me in response to the hurt and anger building in my chest.
I don't need them to want me. Don't need them to accept the bond.
I just need them to stay out of my way while I find my father and figure out what I'm supposed to do with this power the ritual gave me.
The bond can force them to follow. It can make them feel my pain.
But it can't make them see me as anything other than what they made me.
And maybe that's exactly what I need to remember.
Hours pass. The camp remains quiet except for the crackling fire and distant night sounds. I lie still, pretending to sleep while my mind races through everything I overheard.
The moon moves across the sky, tracking time I should be using to rest.
But rest doesn't come.
Instead, pressure builds beneath my skin. My wolf stirs, more insistent than before. Not painful like the transformation at the temple, but demanding. Urgent.
I try to push it down, to maintain control the way I've been fighting to do since the awakening.
It doesn't work.
The pressure intensifies, spreading through my limbs like fire. My bones begin to shift without my permission, without my consent.
I gasp, the sound loud in the quiet night.
The bond flares violently. Both twins jolt awake instantly, their attention snapping to me as they feel my distress echoing through the connection between us.
"Aphrodite?" Draco moves toward me, voice tense with concern that I know comes from the bond, not from any real care.
I can't answer. Can't speak. The shift takes hold and I have no control over it.
My body convulses. Bones crack and reform. Fur erupts across my skin.
I hear myself cry out, the sound transforming mid-breath into something that's not quite human and not quite wolf.
"Don't touch her," Cassian's voice cuts through the chaos. He's appeared from wherever he was keeping watch, Bastien right behind him. "Let the shift complete."
The twins back off but I feel their panic through the bond, their helplessness mixing with my pain in a way that makes everything worse.
The transformation completes in seconds that feel like hours.
When it's done, I stand on four legs instead of two. My white wolf form towers over the camp, larger than any normal wolf should be. Power thrums through me, ancient and overwhelming.
And then I feel it.
The call.
Not from the pack. Not from the twins or the bond or anything familiar.
This is something older. Something that predates the Moon Goddess and her hierarchies. Something that knows exactly what I am and what I'm meant to be.
My wolf throws her head back and howls.
The sound echoes through the forest, primal and commanding. It's not a cry for help or a signal to a pack.
It's an answer to a summons I didn't know was being issued.
The twins stagger backward, hands clutching their chests where the bond pulls at them. Cassian and Bastien watch with wide eyes, and I can smell their fear mixing with awe. They feel my power pressing against them even without a bond, the weight of what I am making it hard for them to breathe.
My white wolf doesn't wait for their permission or their understanding.
I turn away from the camp and run.
Into the forest. Into the darkness. Toward whatever ancient thing is calling me home.
Behind me, I hear them scrambling to follow. The twins will come because they have no choice, dragged along by the bond whether they want to be or not. Cassian and Bastien will follow because they chose to, because guilt and duty drive them forward.
But I'm already gone, racing through trees that seem to part for my passage. The forest bows to me in ways it never did before, recognizing something in my blood that has nothing to do with the pack I left or the bonds I didn't ask for.
My paws eat up ground impossibly fast. Wind whips through my fur. The moon watches from above, silent and judging.
And somewhere ahead, something waits.
Something older than packs.
Older than the wolves chasing desperately behind me.
Something that's been waiting for me to wake up and remember what Direwolves were always meant to be.