Chapter 8: "No Messages"
Three days.
I knew because I counted. Because I woke each morning and reached for my phone before I reached for my breath. Because I checked it in the kitchen while Vera pretended not to see. Because I checked it in the bathroom, in the hallway, in the training ground while Cassian watched me with those mismatched eyes and said nothing.
Nothing. That was what my phone showed. Nothing from Kael.
No text. No call. No apology. No demand. Just silence.
I told myself this was what I wanted. I had walked away. I had ripped my veil. I had said no. Silence was the correct response. Silence meant he understood.
But I kept checking. And checking. And checking.
The phone became a weight in my pocket. A stone. A promise I kept making to myself that I kept breaking. I would look once more. Just once. Then I would stop.
I never stopped.
---
Morning of the third day. I sat at Vera's counter. She slid eggs across. I didn't eat. I was looking at my screen again. Blank. Black. Empty.
"He's not going to call," Vera said.
"I know."
"Then why look?"
I didn't have an answer. Not one that made sense. Because I was broken. Because I was waiting to be proven right, or proven wrong. Because some part of me, the part that had waited ninety-nine times, couldn't believe the hundredth had actually happened.
Vera took my phone. Put it face-down on the counter. Out of reach.
"Eat," she said. "Or don't. But stop torturing yourself. He doesn't deserve the energy."
I ate. The eggs were cold. I didn't taste them.
---
Training helped. When I moved, I didn't think. When I fell, I didn't feel the phone in my pocket. When Cassian corrected my stance, his voice was the only sound in my head.
But then we stopped. And I reached for it again.
He saw. He always saw.
"Problem?" he asked.
"No."
"Your hand is in your pocket."
I pulled it out. Empty. But my fingers had been reaching.
"Old habit," I said.
"Break it."
He walked away. No sympathy. No curiosity. Just the command. Break it.
I tried. For two hours, I tried. Left the phone in my room. Came back to check it immediately. Nothing. Always nothing.
---
Mira came on the third evening.
I heard her car before I saw her. The engine was loud, familiar, angry. She drove like she was fighting the road. She always had.
I met her at the gate. The fortress had a gate, metal, serious. Jax let her through. He looked at her the way he looked at everyone. Assessing. Finding weakness.
Mira didn't have any. Not visible ones.
She hugged me hard. Too hard. Like she was checking I was still solid.
"You're thinner," she said.
"Stronger."
"Same thing sometimes." She pulled back. Looked at my neck. At the mark. Healed now. Permanent. "How is it?"
"Stable."
"And him?"
I knew who she meant. "He teaches me to fight. He doesn't ask for anything."
Mira's mouth tightened. "That's good. That's... careful."
"He's careful. I'm careful. We're two careful people learning to be dangerous."
She laughed. It was real. It hurt my chest. I hadn't laughed in days. Maybe weeks.
We went to my room. Small. Bare. She sat on the bed and pulled a bag from her shoulder. Clothes. My clothes from her apartment. Things I'd left behind.
"I brought everything," she said. "In case you don't come back."
"I won't."
"Good." She paused. "He's telling people you will."
I went still. "What?"
"Kael." She said his name like it tasted bad. "He's been to Silvercrest. To Shadowfang. Telling everyone you're just angry. You'll calm down. You'll come home."
The anger came fast. Hot. Familiar. I had been angry for five years, I realized. I just hadn't let myself feel it. I had called it patience. Called it love. Called it waiting.
It was anger. Pure and simple and finally free.
"He thinks I'm throwing a tantrum," I said.
"He thinks you'll come back because you always have."
"I won't."
"I know." Mira reached for my hand. "But Elara, he doesn't believe that. And some people are starting to listen. They're saying you abandoned your pack. Your duty. Your fated mate."
"Fated." I laughed. The sound was wrong. Broken glass. "Fated means nothing if he won't choose me. Biology isn't destiny. Waiting isn't love."
Mira nodded. "I know. But the story he's telling... it's convincing. The rejected bride, angry, foolish, marrying a criminal to punish him. That's the version people hear."
"And you?"
"I hear the truth." She squeezed my hand. "I always have."
We sat quiet. The room was small. The fortress was large. Outside, wolves moved, trained, lived. I was part of this now. Whether they wanted me or not. Whether I knew how to be or not.
"Train with me," Mira said.
"What?"
"Tomorrow. I'm staying. I asked Cassian. He said yes." She almost smiled. "He said you need someone to hit who isn't trying to teach you."
---
Jax took over my training the next morning.
Not Cassian. Jax. The lieutenant with the scar and the assessing eyes.
"You're slow," he said. First words.
"I know."
"Not slow in body. Slow in decision. You think about every move. In a fight, thinking is death."
He came at me. No warning. No demonstration. Just a strike that I barely blocked. My arm went numb.
"Again," he said.
We worked. Harder than with Cassian. Cassian was patient. Jax was brutal. He didn't correct with showing. He corrected with doing. Hit me where I was open. Made me feel every mistake in my body.
"Your ex taught you to wait," Jax said. We were both breathing hard. "To be pretty. To be still. To be whatever he needed."
I didn't answer. He wasn't wrong.
"That will get you killed here. In the rogue lands, waiting is death. Stillness is death. You move or you die."
He struck again. I moved. Not well. Not fast. But I moved. Didn't wait for the impact. Didn't brace to receive it.
"Better," he said. "Again."
We trained for hours. My body was one continuous ache. The bruise from day one had friends now. Purple and blue and yellow. I wore them like armor.
Cassian watched from the fence. Not interfering. Just present. Those eyes. Seeing.
---
That night, I sat on my bed. The phone was in my hand again.
I checked it. Blank. I checked the time. Late. I checked the signal. Full bars. I checked the volume. Loud. I checked everything that could be checked and found nothing wrong except the silence.
Kael was out there. Telling his story. The patient Alpha. The abandoned mate. The victim of my temper.
I was here. Telling no story. Just living. Just fighting. Just learning to be someone I didn't recognize.
The phone felt heavy. Too heavy for such a small thing. Five years of my life in that rectangle. Texts I had saved. Photos I couldn't delete. Proof that he had loved me, once, in words if not in actions.
I stood up. Walked to the small dresser. Opened the bottom drawer.
I put the phone inside. Face-down. Closed the drawer.
"I'm not looking anymore," I said.
The room was empty. No one heard. But the words were real. The choice was real.
I went to the window. The fortress had a view of the forest. Dark trees. No lights. No civilization. Just wolves and wilderness and the people strong enough to survive both.
I was one of them now. Or I was learning to be.
The phone stayed in the drawer. I didn't open it. I didn't check.
I slept. Dreamed of nothing. Woke to grey light and sore muscles and the strange, terrifying freedom of not waiting.
Vera had coffee. Jax had training. Cassian had those eyes that saw everything and said nothing.
I had myself. Bruised, angry, stubborn, alive.
It was enough. It had to be enough.
Because I wasn't looking anymore.