The corridor was too quiet. Arielle could hear every creak under her boots as she made her way down the west wing, her bag slung over her shoulder like she wasn't carrying the weight of history.
Eyes followed her.
Not with admiration. Not yet.
With confusion. With whispers. With the kind of curiosity that dared not speak aloud the name they thought was buried.
"Arielle...?"
The voice froze her mid-step. She turned slowly, keeping her face unreadable — something she'd mastered in the years she was gone.
It was Elara, the healer's apprentice. A girl from her past — younger, softer, always watching from the background. But now she stood taller, bolder. And startled.
"You're alive?" Elara breathed.
Arielle's lips lifted slightly. "Were you hoping I wasn't?"
"I—no. I mean, we all thought..." Elara faltered. "You disappeared the day after Alpha Kael... after he—"
"Rejected me." The words slid from Arielle's mouth like they no longer burned. "Yes. I know."
A soft silence stretched between them.
Then Elara stepped forward, her eyes wide. "You've changed."
Arielle didn't answer. She didn't need to.
Because in the hallway behind her, Kael stood frozen, half-shielded by the archway, listening.
It wasn't the first time he'd heard her name since her return, but it was the first time it felt real.
She sounded... calm.
No tears. No anger. Not even disappointment. Just a voice that carried weight without noise.
He hated how it stirred something in him. Something old and restless.
His wolf shifted beneath his skin, unsettled by the scent that brushed past him — familiar, but no longer soft. She had changed. There was steel in her aura now.
Kael clenched his jaw.
She shouldn't have come back.
She was supposed to disappear like all the others who couldn't handle rejection. That was how it worked. You walk away. You stay gone. You don't return and haunt the very walls that once ignored you.
And yet, here she was — not broken, not begging.
Kael turned and walked away before she saw him.
He wasn't ready.
Not yet.
Arielle stood still, feeling the shift in the air even before she turned. She hadn't seen him — not really — but her wolf sensed him. The way his energy dipped, the way the air thickened with hesitation.
So he was watching.
Good.
Let him watch.
Let him see what he gave up.
Elara's eyes darted behind her. "Was that...?"
"I don't need to see him," Arielle said softly. "I've already seen enough."
There was a pause. Elara stepped closer, voice cautious. "You know... people still whisper your name. Even when they think they've forgotten you."
Arielle's gaze turned cold. "They didn't forget me. They erased me. There's a difference."
The words weren't bitter. Just true.
Elara remembered.
She remembered the morning after Arielle vanished. The entire pack was quiet — too quiet. No one asked questions. No one searched. It was like Arielle had never existed. Her things were gone, her name unspoken. Even the healer, Elara's mentor, had whispered, "Let it be, child. It's the way of the rejected."
But Elara had never believed it was the end.
And now, standing in front of the girl they erased, she realized something deeper: Arielle hadn't just come back. She was rising — and this time, they would not be allowed to forget her.
"You came back stronger," Elara whispered.
Arielle finally met her gaze. "No, Elara. I came back different."
Later that evening, as the sun dipped behind the trees and shadows lengthened across the training field, Kael stood alone by the armory. His hand gripped the edge of a wooden bench, knuckles white.
He hated how the sound of her voice had followed him all day.
And worse — he hated that a part of him remembered it.