Chapter Eight – Pulled by Fate, Bound by Fear
The wind whistled through the trees, brushing cool fingers through Giselle’s fur as she padded silently over the forest floor. Pine needles crunched softly underfoot, their sharp scent filling her nostrils and grounding her in the present. It was the second day since she had last seen him—since her mate had spoken to her with awe in his voice and reached for her with such tenderness that it still echoed in her bones.
Rowan.
Alpha of the hidden mountain pack. Alpha of the pack her people were supposed to be scouting. The very Alpha she had been ordered to manipulate.
Her paws faltered beneath her, and she came to a halt, heart pounding with the weight of her thoughts. She stood there beneath a canopy of thick evergreens, listening to the distant trickle of water and the rustling of unseen animals in the underbrush.
‘He’s close,’ her wolf whispered inside her. ‘We should tell him everything. Let him protect us—protect Mother, protect Elsie.’
Giselle growled softly, shaking her head, as if doing so could knock her wolf’s voice loose from her mind. ‘We can’t,’ she snapped in her thoughts. ‘You know what they’ll do if I betray them. You know what they’ll do to our family.’
A long silence stretched between her and her wolf, the bond between them strained by another rejection. Her wolf whimpered once, a low sound of hurt, and then receded into silence, retreating deep within the recesses of her mind.
Guilt pricked at Giselle’s chest, but she couldn’t afford to soften. Not now. Not when she was playing with the kind of fire that could consume them all.
She turned toward the direction of Rowan’s scent—the faintest wisp of pine and rain and earth. She had caught it again earlier, and though it was nearly gone, it was enough to bring her back here. Back to the edge of his territory. Back to the place where fate had first stolen her breath.
Two days ago, she had run from him. Not because she didn’t want him. Goddess, did she want him. Her soul ached for him, her body yearned to curl into the crook of his chest and stay there forever. But she had responsibilities. A family to protect. A mother slowly wasting away from illness. A sister nearing the age where unmated rogues would begin to take notice—and not in kind ways.
Giselle turned her gaze toward the treeline, her eyes narrowing.
She hated that she had come back. Hated that she had no power over the string tying her to him. Even now, her paws moved on their own, seeking him out, as if her body no longer answered to her mind. Maybe it didn’t.
‘You’re not just a rogue anymore,’ she thought bitterly. ‘You’re mated to the Alpha we were sent to destroy.’ Her stomach twisted at the reminder of the betrayal her mate knew nothing about.
If the leader of her rogue pack knew she was here again, knew she was looking for him with more than just duty in her heart, he’d tear her apart and leave the pieces for the vultures. He’d already threatened her family once. The next time, he wouldn’t use words.
And yet… Still she came. But not with the intention of finding entrance to his pack. No, she just wanted to see him one more time before she gathered up her mother and sister and fled this land before their leader could use her to destroy him through her.
‘Fool,’ she scolded herself. She knew she should have stayed away, that seeing him again would only make leaving him that much harder.
But still, she stayed.
Giselle stepped from the brush into the edge of a clearing, the one she’d first seen him in. Her breath caught in her throat. Empty. But his scent was stronger here. Recent.
Her body trembled at the realization. He had been here. Maybe hours ago. Maybe less. Her paws took her forward against her will, her wolf stirring again at the scent, claws scratching at the walls she had built between them.
‘If we just talked to him…’ her wolf whispered, hope lining every word.
‘We can’t,’ Giselle told her wolf, her voice low and broken. ‘He wouldn’t understand. He’d hate us for lying. He’d never protect us after that.’
The trees whispered warnings through the wind, branches creaking under the weight of an incoming storm—or maybe fate itself. Giselle padded silently through a familiar clearing, her silver paws barely making a sound on the damp forest floor. The scent hit her like it always did: earthy, wild, and dangerously comforting. Rowan.
He was already there, as if he’d known she would return. Tall, broad-shouldered, his bare chest dusted with sweat under the late morning sun. His eyes locked with hers the moment she stepped from the cover of the trees.
“It's you again,” he said softly, as though afraid to spook her. “I knew you'd come back.”
Giselle stopped at the edge of the clearing, her body tensed. Her wolf surged with want, her soul aching to run to him—to feel his touch, to nuzzle into the crook of his neck and feel the warmth of a home she hadn’t known she missed. But she didn’t move. Couldn’t.
She was a rogue. An enemy. A threat. More of a threat than her mate even knew.
He stepped forward slowly, hands raised in surrender. “I don’t want to hurt you. I could never hurt you.”
“You feel it, don’t you?” Rowan whispered, just a few feet from her now. “This... pull between us. It’s real.”
Giselle’s ears flattened. Her heart thundered in her chest. Yes, she felt it. Every nerve in her body screamed that he was hers—that this man, this Alpha, was meant to be her other half.
But what would he do if he knew the truth? That she wasn’t some lost she-wolf, but a rogue scout. That she was supposed to get close to him... and betray him.
She took a step back, torn. A low growl bubbled in her throat, not at him—but at herself. At the injustice of it all. At fate.
“You don’t have to run,” he said again, softer this time, his eyes pleading. “Just stay... for a minute.”
Her gaze lingered on him. The way the sunlight caught the gold flecks in his brown eyes. The steadiness of his breath. The raw honesty in his scent. She wanted to trust it—wanted to fall into him and forget the world outside this moment.
But the memory of her mother’s coughing, of her sister huddled close for warmth at night, broke the spell.
She backed up toward the tree line, nose twitching, muscles tensed. Her body poised to run away from the only chance at happiness that she would ever have.
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