The first rule of being watched is learning how to breathe without looking like you're holding your breath.
By the third day after the alpha's announcement, I understood that clearly.
Nothing about my routine had officially changed, and yet everything felt different.
Wolves moved around me with exaggerated casualness, like actors in a play pretending not to notice the audience.
Some smiled too quickly. Others avoided my eyes entirely.
Protection, I was learning, was rarely gentle.
I trained separately now, not isolated, but never alone. There was always someone nearby, always a presence just close enough to feel intentional. Rhea supervised most sessions, her instructions sharper, more precise. She corrected my posture, my balance, the way I distributed my weight before movement.
"You're thinking again," she said as I hesitated during a drill.
"I thought that was the point."
She snorted. "Thinking is fine.
Overthinking is how you get tested."
I wiped sweat from my brow, irritation simmering beneath my skin. "Tested by who?"
Her eyes flicked toward the treeline.
The alpha.
He hadn't spoken to me since our last conversation, but his awareness of me was constant. I felt it like a low hum under my skin, a reminder that every choice I made now echoed louder than it used to.
By afternoon, the tension finally broke.
Not with a challenge.
With an invitation.
A young wolf, barely older than me, eyes too bright with curiosity, approached as I rested near the edge of the clearing.
"Council meeting tonight," he said quickly.
"You're expected."
Expected.
My chest tightened. "Since when?"
He shrugged. "Since now, I guess."
The council chamber was carved into stone, ancient and heavy with history. I had only seen it from a distance before.
Entering it felt like stepping into a mouth that had swallowed secrets for generations.
The alpha stood at the center, flanked by elders whose gazes weighed me down the moment I crossed the threshold.
"You asked questions," one of them said.
"Tonight, you'll hear answers."
I stood my ground, spine straight despite the pressure pressing in from all sides. "I didn't realize curiosity required an audience."
A few brows rose. One elder smiled thinly.
"It does when curiosity threatens balance."
The alpha lifted a hand, silencing them.
"She stays," he said simply.
The meeting unfolded slowly, deliberately.
They spoke of territory disputes, of neighboring packs restless with rumors. Of whispers spreading about a wolf who didn't fit established hierarchies.
About me.
"You're becoming a symbol," one elder said bluntly. "Whether you want to or not."
"I didn't ask to be one."
"No," he agreed. "But symbols don't ask."
I looked at the alpha. "So what's the plan?
Keep me under watch until everyone forgets?"
"Until everyone understands," he corrected.
"And if they don't?"
His gaze didn't waver. "Then we adapt."
The word sent a chill through me.
After the meeting, the rival made his move.
I felt him before I saw him, the high-society observer who wore charm like armor and ambition like a blade. He leaned casually against the corridor wall, smile smooth,
eyes sharp.
"You made quite the impression," he said.
"I didn't realize impressions were currency here."
"They are," he replied. "Especially when
power shifts."
I didn't trust him. Instinct bristled at his proximity. "What do you want?"
"To offer perspective," he said lightly. "The alpha's protection comes with expectations. Obedience. Silence. Gratitude."
"And yours?"
He chuckled. "I don't offer protection. I
offer leverage."
I stepped back. "I'm not interested."
"Not yet," he agreed. "But you will be."
The encounter left a sour taste in my mouth.
That night, sleep eluded me again. When I finally drifted off, my dreams were restless, fractured. I stood in the forest, paths branching endlessly before me. Each choice felt heavy with consequence.
I woke before dawn.
The alpha was waiting outside.
"You shouldn't walk alone this early," he said.
"I wasn't planning to," I replied. "I was planning to think."
He studied me. "Thinking is dangerous right now."
"So is stagnation."
We walked together, silence stretching comfortably at first, then tightening.
"They're pushing you," I said eventually.
"Yes."
"Why let them?"
"Because pressure reveals fractures," he said. "And strength."
"And what am I revealing?"
He stopped, turning to face me fully. "That you don't bend easily."
"That's not always a good thing."
"No," he agreed. "But it's honest."
I hesitated, then asked the question that had been clawing at me. "What do you want from me?"
The alpha didn't answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was quiet. "For you to choose."
"Choose what?"
"To stay," he said. "And accept the cost."
"And if I don't?"
His gaze darkened. "Then I can't guarantee what comes next."
The truth settled heavy in my chest.
Staying meant surveillance. Expectations.
Becoming something others could use.
Leaving meant danger. Unknown thrBeing hunted rather than watched.
Neither felt like freedom.
As the sun crept over the treetops, I realized something with startling clarity:
Power didn't arrive as a gift.
It arrived as a bill.
And no one escaped payment.