The wilderness did not comfort Kaida.
It stripped her bare.
The first night, she didn't build a shelter. She didn't hunt. She curled into herself beneath a twisted oak and shook until dawn, teeth chattering, arms wrapped tight around her ribs as if she could hold herself together through sheer will. The ground was cold. The air smelled sharp and untamed. Every sound made her flinch.
Her wolf paced endlessly inside her, hackles raised, snarling at shadows. It was no longer just restless.
It was furious.
They broke us, it growled.
They discarded us.
They abandoned us.
Kaida pressed her forehead into the dirt, tears finally coming—silent, humiliating. "I gave them everything," she whispered into the earth. "Why wasn't it enough?"
The forest did not answer.
Days blurred together. Hunger hollowed her out. Cold seeped into her bones. She learned quickly that grief did not excuse weakness. If she didn't move, didn't adapt, she would die—and there would be no one to mourn her.
So she hunted.
At first, it was clumsy. Too aggressive. Too desperate. But her body learned quickly. Her senses stretched farther than they ever had within pack lands. She smelled prey before she saw it. Felt danger before it announced itself. Shifting came easier—still painful, but faster, cleaner, as if her wolf no longer needed permission.
By the time she brought down the stag, she didn't hesitate.
The animal fell hard, life leaving it in a rush of heat and breath. Kaida stood over it, chest heaving, hands slick with blood. The kill had been efficient—almost disturbingly so.
She didn't feel triumph.
She felt… steady.
She knelt by the stream to wash her hands. The water rippled, reflecting her face in broken fragments. Dirt streaked her cheeks. Her hair hung loose and wild. She barely recognized herself.
It was her eyes that made her freeze.
Silver.
Not glowing. Not dramatic. Just present, as if they had always been that way and she was only now allowed to see them.
Her first instinct was denial. Exhaustion. Hunger. Grief. Anything but the truth pressing quietly into her chest.
Her heartbeat slowed—not because the pain was gone, but because it had changed. The sharp agony of rejection had dulled into something deeper, older. Permanent.
Her wolf stirred.
Not pacing.
Not raging.
Watching.
And suddenly, Kaida understood.
This wasn't new power. It wasn't something the wilderness had granted her out of cruelty or chance.
It was something she had always carried.
The pack hadn't failed to notice it.
They had been suppressing it.
Every correction. Every warning to temper her voice. Every reminder that she was useful, but should never forget her place. Every time her strength had been praised—and then contained.
They hadn't feared her instability.
They had feared her potential.
A female beta bound to an Alpha hadn't been dangerous because of love. It had been dangerous because it threatened the hierarchy itself. Because it would have exposed a lie the pack depended on.
She had been easier to reject than to acknowledge.
Kaida straightened slowly, blood rinsing from her hands and disappearing into the stream. The grief was still there. Rowan's face still haunted her. The bond's absence still ached like a missing limb.
But something vital had shifted.
Rowan hadn't rejected her because she was unworthy.
He had rejected her because choosing her would have required him to tear down everything he believed made him strong.
That realization didn't erase her pain.
It did something far more dangerous.
It took away her self-blame.
Her wolf lifted its head fully now, silver eyes meeting hers from within. There was no madness in it. No chaos.
Only certainty.
We were never meant to belong to them, it said.
Kaida exhaled slowly, shoulders settling for the first time since exile. The wilderness loomed around her—vast, indifferent, honest.
She was still alone. Still hurt. Still changed forever.
But she was no longer lost.
She was unclaimed.
And in that unclaimed space, something ancient and powerful finally had room to breathe.