Elara's first night under house arrest was not spent in sleep, but in a silent, waking terror. The luxurious bedroom—with its plush neutral rug and the soft pink 'dream' neon sign—felt like a beautifully decorated cage. The real prison, however, was inside her own mind.
She was tormented not by nightmares, but by visions. They began with a profound, unsettling silence—a vacuum of sound so complete it had a weight, pressing against her eardrums and her soul. From that silence emerged the stars. Not the gentle twinkling points she could see from her balcony, but a fierce, cascading rain of light. In the vision, she watched them fracture and fall, streaking the void with trails of brilliant, dying silver. Each time, a profound sense of loss, of cosmic wrongness, would jolt her awake, her heart hammering against her ribs as if trying to escape the prophecy etched in her subconscious.
She spent the fitful hours between midnight and dawn curled on the floor, clutching a pink squishmallow, her back against the bed. The cheerful, colour-changing LED strip behind her mirror cycled through hues, casting shifting shadows that felt like watching ghosts move. Her own reflection—pale, shadow-eyed—seemed like a stranger's, a girl caught between a forgotten past and a terrifying future she could not read.
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The next morning carried the eerie normalcy of a household holding its breath. Downstairs, Diana presided over the sun-drenched dining room, the picture of composed authority. From her seat, she could hear the hushed, not-so-discreet whispers of the maidens by the sideboard.
"Even if she did plan to escape, wouldn't that be a mercy for everyone?" one murmured.
"A Beta's daughter with no wolf is worse than a human," another replied, the clatter of porcelain underlining her disdain. "A burden."
"They doted on her once, didn't they? When she was small?"
"Pretenders," came the final, sharp verdict. "All of them."
Diana didn't turn her head, but her stillness was a command. The whispers ceased instantly, replaced by the frantic, faux-busy sounds of polishing and rearranging. Slowly, she set her fork down on the half-finished eggs. Her orange juice, halfway consumed, was abandoned. She rose and walked to the kitchen, her movements deliberate. With her own hands, she prepared a modest tray: dry toast, a small bowl of plain yogurt, a glass of apple juice. The gesture was performative, the act of a dutiful elder sister—a role she played for an audience of servants and her own conscience. In truth, Diana's thoughts were a storm of frigid calculation. Elara's sudden, spectacular awakening and the catastrophic bond with Kaelan had not made her strong; it had made her dangerous. A latent, wolf-less girl was an embarrassment. A suddenly powerful, unpredictably bonded one was a political landmine.
She beckoned a maiden. "Take this to her. See that she eats."
As the maiden hurried off, a guard appeared at the archway. "Miss Maya is at the gate, Alpha Diana. Requesting entry to see Miss Elara."
A flicker of assessment crossed Diana's eyes. Maya. The sharp-tongued friend from the lower town, always with a rebellious glint. Perhaps she could be useful—a conduit for the frustration and fear Diana wanted to cultivate in her sister. She gave a slight, permissive nod. "Allow her."
Diana took up a position in the living room, a sentinel observing the chessboard of her home. She watched Maya stride in, ignoring the opulence and the hostess entirely, her focus singular: Elara's wing.
Upstairs, Maya found a nervous maiden knocking fruitlessly on Elara's locked door. "I'll handle it," Maya said, her smile easy as she took the tray. The maiden scurried away, relieved.
Maya knocked again, softer. "Elara? It's me. Let me in."
A moment passed before the lock clicked from inside. The door opened just enough to reveal Elara, shrouded in the dim, colorful light of her room, looking as fragile as the vision of falling stars.
Maya slipped inside, closing the door behind her. Her cheerful façade dropped as her eyes swept the room—the vibrant LEDs a stark contrast to the girl's palpable despair. "Well," she said, her tone deliberately light as she set the tray down, "there's nothing impossible the Nightfang Pack can't accomplish… except, it seems, getting a decent night's sleep." She settled on the edge of the rumpled bed, patting the space beside her.
Elara picked at the toast but drank the juice thirstily, as if it could wash away the night. The silence between them was heavy, charged with everything unsaid.
Finally, Maya broke it, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. "Elara… since the bond… do you dream? Not normal dreams. But… of stars? Or… celestial things?"
Elara froze, the glass halfway to her lips. She slowly set it down, her gaze drifting to the neon 'dream' sign as if it had betrayed her. The confession tumbled out, raw and quiet. "It's been haunting me. A great silence, and then… they fall. The stars fall, Maya. And I have no idea what it means, or how to make it stop."
Maya's breath hitched. The casual probing vanished from her expression, replaced by a sudden, intense focus that bordered on alarm. She leaned forward, taking Elara's cold hands in her own. "Listen to me," she said, her voice low and urgent, all pretence gone. "You need to tell me everything. About the bond. What does it feel like?"
The silence that followed Maya's question was thicker than the house arrest itself. Elara set the empty juice glass down with a soft clink, her eyes fixed on the neon sign's gentle glow. The word 'dream' suddenly felt like a taunt.
"It's not just dreams, Maya," Elara whispered, the words feeling dangerous in the vibrant room. "It's… a knowing. A great, heavy silence that comes right before I see them fall."
She wrapped her arms around herself, the pink squishmallow a poor shield against the memory. "Last night, on the balcony… the stars weren't just shining. They were speaking. In images, in feelings. They were falling, and it felt like… like an ending. And when I try to sleep, it just comes back. It's not a nightmare. It's a warning. But I don't know what it's for."
Maya had gone very still. The casual curiosity had drained from her face, replaced by a sharp, unnerving intensity. "And the bond?" she asked, her voice low. "The one with Kaelan. What does it feel like?"
Elara's hand drifted to her sternum, where a phantom warmth sometimes pulsed. "It's like a live wire buried in my chest. Sometimes it's cold and silent, like he's locked it away. Other times… it hums. It aches. I can feel his anger like a storm on the other side of a wall. It's the loudest silence I've ever felt." She finally looked at her friend, desperate for understanding. "It's terrifying. And it's… it's mine. This awful, painful thing is the only thing in this house that's truly mine."
"No." The word was a whip-crack. Maya grabbed Elara's wrists, her grip surprisingly strong. Her eyes, usually warm with mischief, were dark with a fear Elara had never seen there. "Listen to me. You have to reject it."
Elara blinked, startled. "Reject it? The mate bond? Maya, you can't just—"
"You can! You must." Maya leaned in closer, her voice a fervent, urgent hiss. "This isn't some fairy tale, Elara. This is a cage. A toxic one. Look at him! He hates you for it. His pack sees you as a weakness, a scandal. Your own family sees you as a problem to be locked away. This bond will strangle you. It will kill whatever is left of you in here." Her gaze flickered to the door, then back, wild and insistent. "The stars… the silence… don't you see? It's a sign. This path leads to ruin. You have to find a way to break it. Before it fully settles. Before he uses it against you."
The ferocity of Maya's fear was more chilling than the dreams. It wasn't just concern; it was a visceral, panicked conviction that seeped into Elara's own bones, making the hum in her chest feel like a ticking bomb.
"How?" Elara breathed, her own resistance crumbling under the onslaught. "How do you reject a mate bond?"
Before Maya could answer, a heavy, authoritative knock thudded against the bedroom door, rattling it in its frame. It was not the gentle tap of a maiden.
Both girls froze.
The door opened without waiting for a response. Diana stood there, but her usual smirk was absent. Her face was a carefully neutral mask, and behind her loomed two stern figures in the grey and silver tunics of the Inter-Pack Council Guard.
"Elara," Diana said, her voice devoid of all emotion. "The Council has summoned you. Immediately."
The air left the room. Maya's grip on Elara's wrists tightened painfully for a second before she let go, her earlier fear solidifying into something like dread. She shot Elara a last, desperate look—a silent scream of I told you so.
The summons. The ultimate external pressure. The bond was no longer a private torment or a secret shared between friends. It was now a matter for law, for politics, for judgment. The walls of her pretty, LED-lit prison were dissolving, only to reveal the vast, cold courtroom of the entire shifter world waiting outside.
Elara stood, her legs unsteady. The dreams of falling stars, Maya's terrified warning, the toxic pulse of the bond—it all coalesced into a single, leaden weight in her stomach. She was no longer just under house arrest. She was on trial.