Stella’s POV
Time is a funny thing when the world narrows to a single, hot point of pain. I lost track of how long I lay on that cold floor before the latch clicked and the door sighed open. Alpha Travis filled the frame like a shadow, tall, perfectly put together, expression carved from contempt. “You should thank Lorie,” he said, as if granting a mercy. “If it wasn’t for her, you’d still be rotting in here. She begged me to let you out. For the sake of your friendship with her.” His words were knives. My throat tightened, but the wolf beneath my ribs, the old thing with moonlight in her eyes, curled her lips. Blankness was survival. “Oh, how noble of her,” I croaked, voice rough from disuse. He flicked a frown at my sarcasm, stepped aside, and I stumbled out. Legs are jelly, threatening to fold. He offered no hand. He never did. “Make sure you’ve cleared out everything from this room before tomorrow,” he said, cold as winter, and left me in the hallway, his cologne and cigarette smoke hanging like a threat. Humiliation burned hotter than any fever. My chest ached beyond bruises. Hate rose where fear once lived. The wolf’s heartbeat mirrored mine, low, patient. Soon. -- Later, Lorie swept in like a queen claiming a ruined throne. She carried a bowl of soup like charity, set it down with a practiced sigh. “You should eat. You look terrible.” I kept packing. Each item folded into a box felt like a small victory: a shirt, a photograph, a plate. She tutted. “You can deceive Alpha Travis, but not me,” she said, soft and venomous. “I see it in your eyes. You know the truth.” I paused, thumb on the tape. Her words slithered on. “How does it feel? Knowing he sacrificed your daughter for me?” Surgical. Deliberate. I turned my back and kept working. She wanted a scene, a crack, proof of her lie. When she couldn’t get it, she manufactured one, a loud thud, a theatrical gasp. “Alpha Travis!” she screamed. I bit down on something to stop laughter from bubbling, the absurdity of it all. As expected, heavy footsteps hammered the corridor. The door burst open. Alpha Travis filled it like thunder. “What happened?!” Lorie had already crafted tears. “She slammed my head against the wall!” she sobbed, each syllable oiled for effect. “I came to give her food! I was just trying to help, and she hit me!” I turned, stunned. “That’s not true, I didn’t-” Before my protest left my mouth, his fist found my face. The world contracted to a single flare. Pain exploded behind my eyes. Copper coated my tongue. My body slid down the wall in a shuddering heap. He was on me in a heartbeat, anger alive in every muscle. “Are you insane?!” he roared. “You touch her again, and I swear-” “I didn’t touch her,” I breathed through blood and salt. A kick doubled me over, air stolen from my lungs. I clutched in my abdomen, and something inside me clenched in sympathy, a small, fragile thing that had been growing with quiet hope. His next blow landed before I could finish the sentence on my lips. “Don’t! I’m… carrying-” The word was a prayer, a plea, a confession. I never finished it. His fist answered. Warmth pooled between my legs. My knees buckled. When I dared to look, my fingers came away red. “No…” The word cracked. I pressed my palms to my belly as if pressure could stitch what had been torn. Blood soaked my dress and the floor. My tears were not for pain. They were hot and sour with rage. Hate, pure, bright, animal, lit every dull corner of me. I screamed his name until the house trembled. He left with Lorie, smug and triumphant as if the night had gone exactly according to plan. The wolf inside me curled and listened to his footsteps fade. When they were gone, I crawled to the phone, booked a taxi, and fled. -- Hospitals smelled of disinfectant and faint mercy. Hours later, I lay in a bed, hollow and empty. The doctor’s words cut clean: “The pregnancy couldn’t be saved.” They kept me overnight, then sent me home with pills and a sheet stamped with instructions to “rest.” Alpha Travis did not call. He did not visit. He did not notice I had gone, or perhaps he had, and simply did not care. Two days later, his birthday was a spectacle of glitter and expensive smiles. He stood in the living room, all measured charm, telling me to be punctual that evening. Lorie leaned at his side like a living advertisement for infidelity. I nodded, motion automatic, voice soft like velvet. Since losing the child, I had become small, not by choice, but because survival taught me invisibility. I smiled, obedient, agreeable, mute. It pleased him. He kissed my cheek like a man patting a tame animal. I let it land. When they left, Lorie’s purse knocked a framed photo from the coffee table. Glass cracked like finality. Alpha Travis looked at me, expecting the old response. I stood by the window. I gave none. Calmness was a lie, a mask the wolf had taught me to wear. -- When the black SUV arrived, my father’s driver, I packed with machine patience. Divorce papers. Investment withdrawal. Receipts. Photos of Alpha Travis and Lorie. Pregnancy report. And the one document folded so close it had softened at the creases: proof, a smear of paper that read like a confession. On the front, I wrote: Happy Birthday, Alpha Travis Wolfe. From Stella Stormfang. I handed it to the deliveryman and watched him go. My fingers shook, but nothing compared to the river of heat coiling in my chest: hatred, clarity, moonlight. The wolf lifted her head, scenting the air, taste of revenge sharp on her tongue. As we pulled away, I did not look back. The SUV cut through the night, away from the house that had been a gilded cage. My father sat silent, hands tight on the wheel. No questions, no need. The pack had known Alpha Travis Wolfe’s reputation for years; they had watched while my life unraveled. In the rearview, my face stared back, pale, swollen, not broken. A moonbeam slid across the dashboard; the wolf in me lifted her head to it. Old stories my grandmother whispered returned: The blood remembers, Stella. The moon remembers. The wolf does not forgive the one who spills what she carries. Hate bloomed into a plan. Pain hardened on purpose. I would not let his betrayal end my story. I would not be a footnote in his life of conquests. One day, they would regret all they had done, not with his violence, but with something older, sharper, precise. The wolf’s teeth are patient. The pack is patient. I had counted the cost; I had marked the names. I pressed my wrist to feel my pulse. Beneath the bandage on my cheek, the forming scar throbbed. Something else stirred: a hunger not for food, but for the moon, for the hunt, for reclamation. It tasted like iron and promise. When we reached my father’s house, the driver opened the door. The night smelled of wet earth and possibility. I stepped into the dark, the world sharp and alive. The wolf walked with me, tail low, muscles coiled, intent. They thought they had taken everything. Instead, they reminded me of what I had been taught to bury. Tonight, the moon will watch. Tonight, the wolf would rise. And when she did, Alpha Travis would learn exactly what happens when a woman who knows the dark turns her pain into a hunt.
