Guilt Wasn't Enough

Rae

The wave of cold air against my skin as I stepped out of the packhouse felt like a second betrayal.

Aiden's voice still rang in my ears. Low, furious, trembling with something he'd never shown me before: guilt. But guilt didn't stitch back the pieces they tore apart. Guilt wasn't love. It wasn't trust.

And it sure as hell wasn't enough.

I walked into the woods without shifting. I wanted to feel everything. The gravel biting into my bare feet. The brittle wind clawing at my arms. The ache in my ribs that had nothing to do with pain, and everything to do with them.

I couldn't breathe back in that house. Not with Killian's touch still echoing on my skin like a brand I didn't ask for.

The past was a noose they both tied around my throat. And now they wanted to loosen it?

I sank onto a fallen log, burying my face in my hands. I could still taste Killian's scent in my lungs, sharp and possessive. And Aiden… gods, Aiden. He looked at me like he'd finally seen what he destroyed, and it shook him.

Good. Let him shake.

Because I wasn't shaking anymore. I'd done that for years. Curled up in beds that weren't mine, flinching at every voice that sounded like his, burning my soul with every lie Aiden whispered then vanished from.

A twig snapped behind me.

I didn't look up. "I swear, if either of you followed me—"

"It's not them."

The voice hit me like a punch to the gut.

I froze. Slowly, I lifted my gaze.

A figure stepped out from behind the trees, hooded, cloaked in shadows. But the voice, that voice, it dragged me straight back to blood-soaked grass and a grave that never should've existed.

"No." I choked. "You're—You're not real."

He stepped closer. The hood fell.

My knees buckled.

Rowan.

The boy I'd buried. The brother I'd lost.

Except… he wasn't a boy anymore. His face was older, sharper. His eyes weren't the soft green I remembered, they glowed with the gold of a wolf too long left in the dark. There were scars on his neck, claw marks that looked like they'd never fully healed. Like they'd been made by someone who didn't mean to stop.

"Rae," he whispered. His voice cracked. "I'm real."

I stumbled back, hands trembling. "You… I saw your body, Rowan. I buried you. I stood there while they lowered you into the ground!"

"I know." He stepped closer, slow, cautious, like I was the feral one now. "They let you believe that."

"What are you talking about?" My voice cracked. "Who did?"

He hesitated.

I saw the moment the wall slammed down behind his eyes. That familiar look I wore too often myself, the one that meant don't ask, I can't survive the answer.

"I'll explain everything," he said instead. "But you can't go back to that packhouse. Not tonight."

"You don't get to tell me what to do," I snapped.

"I'm not," Rowan said softly. "But they're going to break you again if you stay."

My heart splintered. Because part of me wanted to scream that they already had. That there was nothing left to break.

But I wasn't burnt to ashes. Not yet.

"Where the hell have you been?" I whispered. "Do you know what your 'death' did to me?"

He flinched. And that hurt more than it should have.

"I know. And I'll answer everything. But right now, we need to leave before they scent me."

"They?"

Rowan's jaw tightened. "There are more players in this than you know, Rae. Killian and Aiden are just the surface."

"You're not making sense."

"Then let me show you."

He extended his hand.

I stared at it. This wasn't a choice I was ready for. But when had fate ever waited for me to be ready?

Behind me was a house filled with ghosts I hadn't invited back in.

In front of me was the brother I thought I'd lost, now wrapped in riddles and shadows that chilled my spine.

I took his hand.

His grip was warm, solid, real but the instant our palms touched, I felt it.

A jolt.

Like lightning, slamming down my spine.

My wolf growled.

Not in warning.

In recognition.

I yanked my hand back, eyes wide. "What the hell was that?"

Rowan's expression shattered into something between awe and pain. "You felt it too."

"No," I whispered, backing away. "That's not possible."

It couldn't be. My wolf only reacted like that to…

No. No, no, no.

"Rowan," I said, voice breaking, "what are you hiding from me?"

He took a step toward me, and his eyes flickered gold. "I didn't come back just to protect you, Rae."

The earth tilted beneath me...