The rain started the moment Lyra stepped outside the Silvercrest territory.
It wasn't gentle. It poured like the sky itself was mourning her.
She stood at the edge of the forest road, clutching the small bag she had been allowed to take — a few clothes, her phone, and some money she'd saved from working at the pack clinic. That was it. Everything she had ever known, every relationship, every memory, was now sealed behind guarded gates she would never be allowed to pass again.
Just like that, she had become a rogue.
Lyra laughed softly, the sound almost hysterical.
"So this is what it feels like," she murmured.
The bond in her chest was still there, faint but aching. Like a phantom limb. Every heartbeat reminded her that somewhere in the same world, Kael Blackthorn was breathing, walking, existing… without her.
She wiped her face with trembling fingers.
No.
She wouldn't cry again.
Not for him.
Not for anyone.
She turned and began walking down the empty road.
Three hours later
Lyra sat at a dimly lit bus stop on the outskirts of the city, soaked to the bone. Human cars passed by without slowing, their headlights blurring into long streaks of white and red through the rain.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
Unknown: You left quietly. That surprised me.
Her breath hitched.
She didn't need to ask who it was.
Kael.
Her fingers hovered over the screen. For a moment, she considered throwing the phone into the rain and letting it die.
Instead, she typed.
Lyra: Why are you messaging me? You've already taken everything.
The reply came almost instantly.
Kael: I wanted to make sure you survived the bond shock.
She let out a bitter laugh.
That was all.
Not an apology. Not regret.
Just… confirmation she hadn't died.
Lyra: Congratulations. I'm alive. You can stop pretending to care now.
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Kael: It wasn't personal.
That was when something inside her finally snapped.
Her hands shook as she typed.
Lyra: You humiliated me in front of the entire pack. You banished me. And you say it wasn't personal?
There was a long pause.
Rain dripped from the shelter roof in a steady rhythm.
Kael: I did what was necessary for my future as Alpha.
Lyra stared at the words.
Slowly, she locked her phone.
And turned it off.
"Necessary," she whispered to herself.
She stood up, her wet clothes clinging to her skin, and stepped into the darkness.
One week later
Lyra rented a tiny room in a human district under a fake name.
No wolves.
No pack scent.
No bond pressure.
Just silence.
She found work at a small café, serving coffee to strangers who smiled at her without knowing who she was. At night, she lay awake on a narrow bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling the emptiness where her future used to be.
The bond continued to weaken.
But something else began to grow.
A strange warmth under her skin.
A hum in her blood.
Sometimes, when she touched metal, it vibrated.
Once, when a customer shouted at her, the lights in the café flickered violently.
Lyra told herself it was stress.
It had to be.
Until the night she collapsed in the alley behind her apartment, her body burning with a power she didn't understand.
She pressed her palm to the ground.
And the earth answered.
The concrete cracked beneath her fingers.
Lyra stared in horror as glowing silver lines spread from her hand, pulsing like veins of moonlight.
Her breath came out in a whisper.
"…What am I becoming?"
Far away, in the heart of Silvercrest territory, Alpha Kael Blackthorn suddenly froze.
His chest tightened.
For the first time since the rejection ceremony…
The bond pulled back.
Hard.
As if Lyra Ashen had just awakened something he could no longer ignore.