Chapter 15 The Morning After 2

Chapter 15: Chapter 15 The Morning After 2

Talia’s POV

I reached for the bread and took a small bite. It was warm and soft. I took another bite. Then another.

When the bread was gone, I ate the cheese. Then the porridge. Then I drank the water from the cup on the tray.

I had not eaten a meal this big in years. In Cresswood, I was lucky to get a piece of bread and a cup of cold water.

I felt fuller than I had in a long time. But I also felt heavier, like the food was sitting in my stomach like a stone, and weighing me down.

My body did not know what to do with so much food, because it had been trained to survive on scraps. Now it was confused. I pressed my hand against my stomach and felt it churn too much, and too fast, but I did not throw up, because I refused to waste food. That was another lesson that I learned from Cresswood.

I set the empty cup down and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

The taste of the porridge lingered on my tongue, warm and slightly sweet. I wondered what my mother would think if she saw me now, eating a full meal in an Alpha’s room.

She would probably smile, or cry, or maybe both.

I stood up and walked to the window.

The valley stretched out below me, washed clean by the rain. The mountains looked sharper than they had yesterday evening, with their peaks cutting into the sky like jagged teeth. The clouds were breaking apart, and patches of blue showed through.

The sky was gray but bright, like the sun was trying to break through.

I could see wolves moving in the distance, small as ants against the vast landscape. Some were training, while others were walking between buildings.

They all had a purpose, a place, and a pack.

I wondered what it felt like to belong somewhere. To wake up and know where you were going, and to have people who would look for you if you disappeared. I had never had that. Not really. Piper was the closest thing I had to family, and I had left her behind. The guilt burned my chest, and tasted like ash in my mouth.

I had nothing but a room and a man who did not want me.

I touched my necklace. The chain was warm against my skin.

Kaelen knew I was hiding something. He had said it last night. He had looked at me when he said it, and his gray eyes had been unreadable. But he had not looked away. He had held my gaze like he was waiting for me to confess.

But he had not asked what I was hiding, and he had not demanded answers.

He was just waiting.

I did not know why he was waiting, or what he really knew, and I did not know what he expected from me. Maybe he wanted me to trust him. Or maybe he wanted to see if I would lie.

Maybe he already knew the truth and was just waiting for me to say it.

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and closed my eyes.

I could not let him see how scared I was, or the fear that lived in my chest like a second heartbeat.

Scared was even too small a word. What I felt was deeper, and older, and it was the fear of a girl who had been hurt so many times that her body expected pain the way it expected air.

Every kindness felt like a trap, and every soft word felt like the beginning of a beating. That was what Vivienne had done to me, and that was part of what I had to unlearn.

I also knew that I had to be strong, just like I had always been.

The door opened again.

I turned around, expecting Alpha Kaelen, but the room was empty.

He was not there.

I walked to the door and looked out into the hallway. It was empty too. The torches flickered on the walls, casting dancing shadows across the stone floor. But there was no one there.

I must have imagined the presence of someone there.

But the feeling did not go away. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and my skin prickled like someone was watching me from the shadows.

I turned in a slow circle, scanning every corner of the room, but it was empty. It was just me, the silence, and my fear.

I closed the door and leaned against it. My heart was pounding, and my hands were shaking. My breath came in shallow gasps.

I was alone in a strange room, a strange pack, and in a strange land.

And I had no idea what was coming next.

The silence pressed in around me. I could hear my own heartbeat, my own breathing, and the soft rustle of my dress when I moved.

I had spent fifteen years trying to be invisible. Now I was in a room where no one could see me, and I felt more seen than I ever had. That made no sense, but nothing about my life made sense anymore either.

I pushed off the door and walked back to the window. The sun had broken through the clouds now, and the light spilled across the valley like liquid gold.

It was beautiful and terrifying, just like everything else.

I thought about Kaelen’s hands. How they had gripped the reins so hard his knuckles turned white, how they had thrown me a blanket without being asked, and how they had not touched me, not once, even though he had every right to.

I did not know what that meant, but I wanted to find out. And that scared me most of all.

I stood there for a long time, watching the light spread across the valley.

Somewhere down there, Kaelen was training, and somewhere else, his grandfather was waiting to test me. And somewhere in Cresswood, Piper was waking up alone.

I whispered her name into the glass. "Piper."

The word fogged the window for a short time, then it disappeared. Just like I had.