Chapter 83 – The Pack That No Longer Feels Safe
Liora’s POV
The fortress had always been difficult to navigate.
Not physically.
Socially.
From the day I arrived in Blackmoor, I had been the wolfless Luna nobody wanted. So ignored . So pitied . So openly questioned why Kael had chosen at all.
I had spent months being watched.
Judged.
asured.
Yet sohow this felt worse.
Much worse.
Because before, they looked at and saw a disappointnt.
Now they looked at and saw sothing they didn’t understand.
The change happened fast.
Too fast.
By the second day after I woke up in the dical wing, the whispers had spread through every corridor in the fortress.
Nobody said it directly to my face.
They didn’t have to.
I heard enough.
The first ti, I was walking past a pair of servants carrying fresh linens.
They didn’t realize I could hear them.
"I heard it myself," one of them whispered. "She turned into a wolf."
"That’s impossible."
"Not just a wolf. A white wolf."
My footsteps slowed.
The second servant shook her head imdiately.
"No. She can’t be."
"Why not?"
"Because she’s wolfless."
The first woman lowered her voice.
"What if she wasn’t?"
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Then ca the question I had already heard three different versions of throughout the fortress.
"Do you think she’s really the White Wolf?"
The words settled heavily in my chest.
The White Wolf.
For weeks, everyone had been hunting the possibility of it.
Seraphina.
The previous wives.
The experints.
The secrets.
Everyone searching for a bloodline most people weren’t even sure existed.
Now sohow that conversation had beco about .
I continued walking before they noticed I was there.
Their voices faded behind .
Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones talking.
Every corridor seed to carry another version of the sa conversation.
So believed it.
So didn’t.
Others thought sothing far worse.
A curse.
An abomination.
A creature pretending to be one thing while hiding another.
The rumors changed depending on who was speaking.
The only consistent part was .
I was always at the center of them.
By the ti I reached the eastern courtyard, my headache had already begun.
Not because of the rumors.
Because I could hear too much.
The awakening had changed sothing fundantal inside .
Voices carried farther now.
Heartbeats stood out in crowded spaces.
Emotions felt sharper.
Not readable exactly.
But noticeable.
Fear had a weight to it.
Suspicion had a shape.
Curiosity lingered differently than hostility.
Before, I would have needed soone to tell how a room felt.
Now I walked into one and knew imdiately.
The realization hadn’t beco easier to live with.
If anything, it was becoming more exhausting.
I stepped outside and inhaled slowly.
Fresh air helped.
At least a little.
The courtyard wasn’t crowded.
A few warriors were training near the far wall.
Several servants crossed between buildings carrying supplies.
Normal.
Ordinary.
For a mont, I almost convinced myself things hadn’t changed.
Then one of the warriors looked up.
His eyes t mine.
He imdiately looked away.
Not unusual.
The second warrior did the sa.
The third stared entirely too long.
The mont I noticed him, he quickly lowered his gaze.
I sighed.
There it was again.
Fear.
Curiosity.
Calculation.
Everyone seed to be trying to decide what I was.
Not who.
What.
The distinction bothered more than I wanted to admit.
I kept walking.
The farther I went, the more obvious it beca.
People moved aside before I reached them.
Conversations stopped when I approached.
Others waited until I passed before continuing.
No one was rude.
No one openly challenged .
Yet the distance remained.
A careful invisible distance.
As though they weren’t entirely certain what would happen if they got too close.
The loneliness of it hit unexpectedly.
My thoughts imdiately drifted toward Elara.
I missed her.
The realization was embarrassingly simple.
I missed having soone who looked at and saw Liora first.
Not a Luna.
Not a mystery.
Not a possible White Wolf.
Just .
She was still recovering from the attack.
The healers assured she would recover fully, but recovery took ti.
Ti felt especially cruel lately.
I rubbed my thumb against my palm as I continued walking.
Kael had been trying.
I knew that.
He stayed close whenever he could.
Watched constantly.
Asked questions he pretended weren’t questions.
He never treated differently.
Not once.
But Kael couldn’t be everywhere.
And even if he could, he wasn’t Elara.
The thought made my chest ache unexpectedly.
I rounded a corner near the southern corridor and nearly walked directly into a group of younger wolves.
They imdiately froze.
I stopped too.
For several seconds nobody moved.
The awkwardness was painful.
"Sorry," one of them muttered quickly.
I nodded.
"It’s fine."
I stepped to the side to let them pass.
That should have been the end of it.
Instead sothing strange happened.
One of the younger wolves suddenly lowered his head.
Then another.
Before I could process what I was seeing, all three of them dropped to one knee.
I froze.
The corridor went silent.
My stomach tightened imdiately.
"What are you doing?"
The question ca out sharper than intended.
The wolves looked uncomfortable.
Confused.
One of them glanced at the others.
"We didn’t an—"
His voice faltered.
The second wolf swallowed visibly.
"We just..."
He looked as confused as I felt.
Slowly, they rose again.
Nobody seed capable of explaining what had happened.
That sohow made it worse.
Because I knew it wasn’t respect.
Respect was conscious.
Deliberate.
Chosen.
This hadn’t been.
This had happened before they even thought about it.
Instinct.
The realization settled heavily inside .
The sa instinct that made wolves recognize strength.
The sa instinct that made them respond to sothing older than rules or politics.
A chill moved down my spine.
Without another word, I continued walking.
My pulse felt strangely loud in my ears.
The incident should have reassured .
Instead it unsettled more than fear ever had.
Fear I understood.
Fear ant people were uncertain.
Fear could be challenged.
Changed.
Overco.
Instinct was different.
Instinct ca from sowhere deeper.
Sowhere harder to fight.
By the ti I returned to my chambers, I felt exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical strength.
I crossed the room and stopped near the window.
The courtyard stretched below.
Blackmoor.
The fortress that had beco my ho.
The place I had fought so hard to survive.
Yet standing there now, watching wolves move through the grounds below, I couldn’t shake the feeling that sothing fundantal had shifted.
Not in them.
In .
For months they had looked at and seen a wolfless Luna.
Then a healer.
Then a mystery.
Now they weren’t looking at at all.
They were looking past .
Looking through .
Looking at whatever had awakened the day I chose to save Kael.
My hand rested unconsciously against the faintly glowing scar beneath my wrist.
The sight no longer shocked .
That frightened more than it should have.
I stared out the window for a long ti before finally closing my eyes.
Because the truth had beco impossible to ignore.
They weren’t seeing anymore.
They were seeing sothing else.
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