I Wasn't supposed to feel this way.

Amara 's POV

The moon hung high, its silver glow filtering through my bedroom window as I tossed and turned, restless. A deep growl rumbled within me, low and warning, and I felt my wolf stir for the first time in days.

“What is it now?” I asked inwardly, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes. The bond had been pulling me relentlessly toward Ryder ever since the rejection had backfired, and my wolf’s emotions only made things worse.

“You’re fighting what’s meant to be,” she growled. Her voice was firm yet pleading, a mixture of strength and pain. “He’s ours, Amara. Stop running.”

“No!” I snapped. “He’s arrogant, controlling, and infuriating. I don’t want anything to do with him!”

“You’re lying to yourself,” she accused, pacing within my mind. I could feel her claws digging into the soil of our shared consciousness, her golden eyes blazing with frustration. “Every time he touches us, we feel alive. Every time he’s near, our heart beats faster. You can deny it to yourself, but you can’t deny it to me.”

I sat up abruptly, my chest heaving as I tried to steady my breathing. “Stay out of this,” I whispered aloud.

But she wouldn’t relent.

“He’s our mate,” she growled again, more insistent this time. “And rejecting him has broken us in ways you can’t even see yet. You’re not just hurting yourself, Amara—you’re hurting me.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I shot back in my mind. Tears prickled my eyes as I stood and began pacing the room. “But I can’t forgive him. I can’t forget what he’s done. I can’t just let go of all the pain.”

My wolf’s growl softened, turning almost mournful. “Pain doesn’t cancel out fate. You need him, Amara. We both do.”

The pull to Ryder suddenly grew stronger, like an invisible thread tugging at my very soul. My wolf whimpered, her voice quieter now. “You can feel it too, can’t you? He’s calling to us. He’s hurting.”

I clenched my fists, trying to block her out. “No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I won’t do this. I won’t let him control me.”

But my wolf had had enough.

Suddenly, my vision blurred, and I felt a surge of heat rush through me. My knees buckled, and I collapsed to the floor, gasping. The air shimmered around me, and I realized with horror that she was trying to take control.

“If you won’t go to him, I will!” she snarled, her voice echoing through my mind as I fought to keep her contained.

“Stop!” I yelled, clutching my head as pain shot through my skull. It felt like I was being torn apart from the inside out, my wolf’s desperate need for Ryder clashing with my own stubborn resistance.

The door to my room burst open, and I barely registered Caden standing there, his face pale with concern. “Amara? What’s happening?”

“I—” I gasped, unable to form words. My body trembled as my wolf pushed harder, her need to answer Ryder’s unspoken call driving her wild.

“Ryder,” I managed to choke out. “He’s…he’s…”

Caden’s eyes darkened with understanding, and he rushed to my side, steadying me as I sagged against him. “You’re fighting it, aren’t you?” he murmured, his voice low.

“I have to,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face. “I can’t let him win.”

“This isn’t about winning,” Caden said gently. “This is about the bond, Amara. You can’t fight it forever.”

But I didn’t care. I refused to let the bond dictate my life, refused to let Ryder claim me without earning it.

With a final, desperate surge of strength, I pushed my wolf back into the recesses of my mind. Her mournful howl echoed in my ears as she retreated, leaving me shaking and hollow.

Caden helped me to my bed, his eyes filled with pity and something else—something I couldn’t quite place.

“You’re stronger than I thought,” he said softly, brushing a strand of hair from my face.

But his words felt like a curse rather than a compliment. Because deep down, I knew this wasn’t over. The bond was a living thing, and it wouldn’t stop until I faced Ryder and the truth of what we were to each other.

And that truth terrified me more than anything else ever could.

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Ryder's POV

It had been almost a week since Amara stopped talking to me. A week of silence, of empty space between us that felt like a jagged knife lodged in my chest. Every day without her felt like I was suffocating, my wolf howling in frustration, clawing at the edges of my mind, demanding to know why I wasn’t close to her.

I could feel the distance she was creating, the cold walls she’d built around herself. The rejection, the hate in her eyes when she looked at me—it was killing me. It was like a slow, suffocating burn. Every word she threw at me, every harsh silence, every refusal to even look my way was a weight that pressed down on my chest, crushing me more than I wanted to admit.

But I couldn’t let it show.

I couldn’t let her see how much her absence was breaking me. She had to understand—I didn’t want to hurt her. But the past was a ghost I couldn’t outrun, a curse that haunted me, pulling me into the depths of regret and guilt for all the things I had done to her.

I thought back to the past, to the way I treated her. The teasing. The insults. The way I bullied her, making her feel small, invisible, like nothing more than a toy to be played with. And now, the consequences of my actions were standing in front of me, silent, distant, unapproachable.

I’d done that.

It was my fault she hated me. My fault she couldn’t look at me without disgust. My fault that I couldn’t feel her near me without an ache in my chest, my wolf tearing at my insides, blaming me for the cruelty I had shown her.

“You’ve ruined everything,” my wolf growled in my mind, his voice full of anguish. “You could’ve had her. But now... now, she’s slipping away from us.”

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms, trying to drown out the voice inside my head.

I hated this.

I hated that I had hurt her, that I had let myself become the monster in her story. But most of all, I hated that she was slipping through my fingers.

It was the silence that drove me mad.

Her absence. Her coldness. Her refusal to even acknowledge me.

She didn’t even come near me at school anymore. We used to share classes, used to sit across from each other, if not out of choice, then out of necessity. But now? She sat as far away as possible, keeping her distance like a wall had been built between us.

It was maddening.

I needed to see her. Needed to know what was going on in her head. But every time I tried, every time I tried to break through that wall she had put up, she recoiled.

And every rejection, every cold glance, only made my feelings for her grow stronger. The more she pushed me away, the more I craved her.

I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. I wasn’t supposed to care. She was the one who should have hated me. But the truth was, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I couldn’t stop wanting her, even though I knew I didn’t deserve her.

My wolf wouldn’t stop, either.

“She’s ours. We need to make things right. We need her back,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous. “Fix it, Ryder. Fix what you broke.”

I stared out the window, lost in thought. The sun was setting, the sky painted in shades of orange and purple, but none of it mattered. I was consumed with the thought of her.

I saw her then.

She was walking across the school grounds, her head down, shoulders stiff, as if she were trying to pretend I wasn’t there. I could see the way her eyes flicked nervously in my direction, and I knew she was aware of me watching her.

She was so close, and yet she felt like she was a million miles away.

My wolf howled again, furious, demanding, as if urging me to go to her. But I stayed still. I couldn’t approach her like this. Not after everything I’d done.

I watched her for a moment longer, taking in the way her hair moved with the wind, the way she held herself with a kind of defiance that only made my heart ache more.

And then, before I could stop myself, I took a step toward her.

She turned immediately, her eyes flashing with a mixture of anger and fear.

“Don’t come any closer,” she said, her voice cold, but there was something else in it too—pain.

“I just want to talk,” I said, my voice hoarse, my breath uneven.

“No,” she snapped, shaking her head. “You’ve done enough. I don’t want to talk to you.”

My chest tightened, the weight of her words crushing me. But I pushed forward, needing to make her understand.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “For everything I did. For the things I said. I never meant to hurt you.”

She looked at me, her eyes searching mine, as if trying to find some shred of truth in my words.

But she didn’t speak. She just turned and walked away, leaving me standing there, frozen in the moment of my own failure.

“You’ve lost her, Ryder,” my wolf whispered, his voice laced with regret. “You’ve lost her, and now it’s too late.”

And just like that, I knew. I had lost her. The girl who had once been so close to me, who had once been a part of me, was slipping away—and I had no idea how to get her back.