ELLA.
I kept running without looking back.
Whatever fate had already been chosen for me, I refused to walk obediently into it. I refused to bow my head and accept it quietly like I had accepted every other humiliation thrown my way. Not this time. Not now.
Because this time, I wasn't alone.
I still had a pup to protect, one I had longed for through endless nights of silent prayers and broken hopes. A pup I never believed I would be blessed with after years of being mocked, scorned, and treated as though my body was defective, as though I was less than a woman. And now, when life had finally placed this miracle within me, they wanted to take it away.
I was about to die without even bringing it into the world.
The thought clawed at my chest, sharp and suffocating.
No.
This pup was my legacy.
My pride.
The proof that I wasn't a disappointment.
My fingers trembled as I tightened my grip around my stomach while I ran, instinctively curling my body forward, shielding it the only way I knew how. My arms felt weak, useless against the cruelty chasing me, yet I held on as though my hands alone could form a barrier strong enough to defy fate itself.
"I will protect you, my pup," I whispered between ragged breaths, my voice breaking but firm, carried away by the rushing wind. "Even if your father doesn't want to."
Saying the words hurt more than the burning in my lungs. They cut deep, slicing into a wound that had never truly healed. But the promise I made settled heavily in my heart, rooting itself there, solid, fierce, unbreakable.
I clung to that promise as my feet pounded against the ground, refusing to glance over my shoulder no matter how loud the chaos grew behind me.
"Catch her!"
The head guard's voice boomed through the night, sharp and commanding, echoing like a death sentence. "You must not let her escape!"
Panic surged through my veins at the sound, flooding my body in hot, frantic waves. My breath hitched painfully, my chest tightening as though invisible hands were squeezing the air out of me. I forced my legs to move faster, ignoring the scream of protest rising from my muscles.
I couldn't let them catch me.
I wouldn't.
Stopping meant surrender. It meant kneeling again. It meant losing everything.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears, drowning out everything except the harsh rhythm of my breathing and the heavy thud of boots growing closer behind me. Each step felt heavier than the last, my legs trembling beneath me as exhaustion crept in, slow and merciless.
The pack house was still far—too far—from the main road. Running on foot felt like a cruel joke, an impossible task meant to break me before I ever stood a chance. I had no wolf to rise within me, no supernatural strength to lend speed to my limbs. I had been stripped of that long ago.
All I had was my will.
A will to live.
A will to protect.
A will forged by years of surviving when I was never meant to.
My lungs burned as though they were on fire, each breath scraping my throat raw. Sweat soaked through my clothes, plastering fabric to my skin, yet I didn't slow. I couldn't afford to. The shouts behind me multiplied, footsteps striking the earth harder, closer, like a pack closing in on wounded prey.
Still, I ran.
Time stretched painfully, blurring into an endless loop of pain, fear, and determination. My legs felt numb, my vision swimming at the edges, but I pushed through it all until, finally, mercifully, the main road came into view.
I stumbled onto it, nearly collapsing as my feet hit the rough surface. I bent forward, panting heavily, my chest heaving as I fought to stay upright. My hands never left my stomach, my body instinctively curving around it as though I could shield my pup from the world with my spine alone.
I lifted my head just as headlights appeared in the distance.
Hope flared.
I raised my arm and waved frantically, stepping closer to the road, my voice cracking as I tried to call out. A car passed. Then another. And another.
None slowed.
None stopped.
Each one drove past as though I didn't exist.
Desperation clawed its way up my throat, thick and choking. I turned, heart lurching violently, and saw them, my pursuers, closing in, their figures growing larger, clearer, more terrifying with every second.
They were getting closer.
Closer.
My legs threatened to give out beneath me, trembling uncontrollably as fear tightened its grip around my heart. I took another shaky step forward, refusing to collapse, refusing to give in, even as tears blurred my vision.
I would not let them take me back.
Not now.
Not ever.
At last, a black SUV screeched to a halt beside me, its tires biting sharply into the road. The sudden stop barely registered in my mind before the doors flew open and three identical men sprang out at once, moving with urgent, synchronized precision.
I barely had time to register their faces before strong hands caught me.
My legs finally gave way.
If not for them, I would have collapsed onto the cold asphalt. They grabbed me firmly, arms wrapping around my shoulders and waist, holding me upright as my body sagged bonelessly against them. The strength I had been forcing into my limbs drained all at once, leaving behind nothing but trembling weakness.
I was losing strength fast.
My chest rose and fell erratically, breath coming in shallow gasps that burned my throat. My lips parted as though I wanted to speak, to explain, to scream for them not to take me back, but no sound came out. My tongue felt thick and useless, my voice trapped somewhere deep inside me, unreachable.
One of them stepped closer, his expression shifting as his hand gently brushed my face. His fingers tucked loose strands of my hair behind my ear, the touch unexpectedly careful, almost reverent.
"Theresa," he said softly, disbelief and something painfully tender woven into his voice. "Where have you been all these years?"
Theresa.
The name echoed faintly in my mind, foreign and distant, as though it belonged to someone else entirely. Confusion washed over me in slow, heavy waves. Theresa? Who was Theresa?
I wanted to ask. I wanted to tell him he had the wrong person, that my name wasn't Theresa, that I didn't know him—or any of them. My lips trembled as I tried to force the words out, but my body refused to obey.
Numbness crept through me, starting at my fingertips and spreading relentlessly upward. My arms felt weightless, detached, as though they no longer belonged to me. My vision blurred, the world smearing at the edges, shapes melting into one another.
The three men hovered around me, their identical faces swimming in and out of focus, unreal and dreamlike. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if exhaustion had finally broken my mind, if they were nothing more than figments conjured by desperation and fear.
Another voice cut through the haze, louder, more urgent.
"Theresa, stay with us!"
Hands shook me gently but insistently, grounding yet distant at the same time. My head lolled slightly, my neck too weak to hold it upright. I heard the words, understood them in some far-off way, but couldn't summon the strength to respond.
I had nothing left.
The road, the SUV, the night air, it all seemed to drift farther away, like I was sinking underwater. Sounds dulled, turning muffled and indistinct, my heartbeat thudding slowly, heavily in my ears.
"Please," a third voice pleaded, breaking through with raw panic. "Theresa, open your eyes!"
That was when it hit me.
Open your eyes?
A faint realization flickered weakly through my fading consciousness. I tried to blink, to lift my lashes, and failed. Only then did I understand that my eyes were already closed, that at some point, without me noticing, darkness had claimed them.
The realization frightened me more than the guards, more than the chase, more than the name they kept calling me.
I was slipping away.
The world around me dissolved completely, the voices fading into distant echoes as though carried away by the wind. The warmth of the hands holding me was the last thing I registered before everything went silent, before the day swallowed me whole.