The next morning Ithilien left before the sun fully rose.
The house was quiet when she stepped outside, the kind of early winter silence that seemed to swallow every sound. Frost clung to the edges of the wooden porch, and the sky above Eugene was still a muted grey-blue, the horizon only beginning to pale.
Marco was asleep upstairs. She had left a short note on the kitchen counter, more out of habit than necessity.
The car engine hummed softly as she pulled onto the empty street, the tires crunching lightly over a thin layer of frozen gravel. The city was barely awake yet—only a few scattered lights in windows, a bakery truck unloading crates at the corner, the occasional early commuter moving through the quiet roads.
It suited her.
She did not want noise.
She needed space.
Mount Hood rose slowly in the distance as she drove east, its snow-covered slopes glowing faintly in the growing light. The highway curved through stretches of dark pine forest and frozen fields, the landscape gradually shifting from suburban edges to something wilder, quieter.
Ithilien drove with one hand resting lightly on the wheel, the other tucked inside the sleeve of her coat.
Her mind, unfortunately, refused to remain quiet. The last few days replayed themselves again and again whether she wanted them to or not.
Kidd's voice.
The anger in his eyes.
The moment outside Levi's house when everything had spiraled out of control.
And then the kiss.
Her fingers tightened slightly on the steering wheel.
She still didn't understand why it had happened.
The argument had been ugly enough, but anger alone didn't explain that sudden loss of control. Kidd had always struck her as the type who carried his temper like a blade kept carefully sheathed—dangerous, yes, but rarely careless.
Yet that night something had snapped and she had felt it too.
The memory made her jaw tighten.
Selfish, arrogant, dense...
He had grabbed her like she belonged to him.
Like he had the right.
The thought still filled her with a hot, sharp irritation—but beneath that anger something else lingered, something far more uncomfortable.
Because for one split second, when his mouth had crashed against hers, the world had tilted.
She could still feel it.
That strange electric shock beneath her skin.
The instinctive shiver that had run down her spine before her mind had even caught up with what was happening. Ithilien exhaled slowly and forced her eyes back to the road.
No.
She was not going to dwell on that.
The kiss meant nothing.
Just a reckless impulse from an alpha who had lost his temper.
And yet…
Her thoughts drifted, despite her efforts.
Kidd had looked shaken afterward.
Not satisfied.
Not triumphant.
Shaken.
As if he himself hadn't expected the reaction.
She frowned slightly.
Adrahil had stirred too strongly that night. She had felt it even through her own anger, the sudden surge of his wolf pressing against the surface of control.
Whatever had happened in that moment, it had unsettled him as much as it had unsettled her.
The realization should have been satisfying, instead it left her feeling strangely restless.
The road began to climb as the forest thickened around her. Tall firs closed in on both sides of the highway, their branches heavy with snow. The air grew colder, sharper, carrying the clean scent of mountains and winter.
Mount Hood finally rose fully into view, massive and silent against the pale morning sky.
Ithilien felt something inside her loosen slightly.
This was why she had come.
Not to run away.
Just to breathe.
The small lodge appeared another forty minutes later, tucked into a quiet clearing where the forest opened just enough to reveal the distant slope of the mountain. It was an old place—wooden beams darkened with age, smoke curling lazily from a stone chimney, a few parked trucks already dusted with frost.
She pulled the car into the gravel lot and turned off the engine.
For a moment she simply sat there.
The silence of the mountains wrapped around her like a blanket.
No pack.
No arguments.
No piercing amber eyes watching her every move.
Just the quiet.
Her shoulders relaxed slowly.
Whatever decisions waited for her back in Eugene—about Fenrir, about Kidd, about the painful knot of her bond with Ace—could remain suspended for a few days longer.
Here there was only snow, forest, and open sky.
And perhaps, if she let herself breathe long enough, the answers she had been avoiding might finally begin to sort themselves out.
The forests around Mount Hood had a way of swallowing the noise of the world.
Not just the sound of engines or distant human voices, but the quieter noise too—the restless turning of thoughts, the endless replaying of words that should have been forgotten.
For several days Ithilien had allowed the forest to take all of that away from her.
Because for several days, she had not been Ithilien.
She had been Tauriel.
The wolf moved through the trees with the fluid patience of a creature that belonged there far more than any human ever could. Her paws pressed softly into the damp carpet of moss and pine needles, her body slipping between trunks of old firs and cedars like a living shadow, silent except for the steady rhythm of breath moving through powerful lungs.
Running had always been the easiest escape.
In the wolf's body there were no complicated emotions, no fragile loyalties or tangled bonds, only instinct and sensation and the simple, honest clarity of survival.
Hunt.
Run.
Rest.
Repeat.
During the first day she had chased a hare through a maze of fallen logs until her muscles burned with that familiar, intoxicating exhaustion that only a long pursuit could bring.
The second day she had brought down a young deer after tracking it for nearly an hour along a frozen creek bed, the thrill of the hunt briefly washing everything else from her mind.
The third day she had run simply because she could.
Miles through the endless wilderness that wrapped around Mount Hood like a dark green ocean.
Wind in her fur.
Cold air in her lungs.
Freedom.
And yet, even in the deep quiet of the forest, the thoughts had eventually returned.
They always did.
She lay now beneath the twisted roots of a massive fallen cedar, her body stretched along the hollow where time and rot had carved a natural den, golden eyes half-closed as the evening light filtered weakly through the canopy above.
The wolf's breathing was slow.
Steady.
But the mind behind those eyes was no longer entirely wolf.
A voice echoed in her memory.
Coward.
Kidd's voice.
Sharp.
Unforgiving.
She could still see the way he had looked at her when he said it—not angry exactly, but deeply disappointed, as if he had expected something stronger from her and instead found hesitation.
"You're a coward, Ithilien. You're hiding behind that bond because you're afraid to end it."
The words had cut deeper than she wanted to admit.
Not because they were cruel.
Because somewhere inside them there had been truth.
For weeks she had circled around the problem like a wolf around a trap, testing it, avoiding it, pretending there was still time to decide later.
Later.
Later had become an excuse.
And then there had been that moment at Dorian's house.
She hadn't meant to linger in the doorway, but the scene had held her there longer than she expected.
Levi sitting at the large wooden table in the warm glow of the kitchen lights, his daughter perched on his lap while Byra leaned over his shoulder, laughing at something the girl had said.
It had been such an ordinary moment.
So simple.
But the warmth of it had struck Ithilien with unexpected force.
A family.
A real pack.
Not something built on temporary alliances or unfinished tension, but something rooted, steady, protective.
She had stood there watching them, feeling something quiet and unfamiliar settle in her chest.
Not envy exactly.
More like recognition.
She wanted that.
Maybe not now, maybe not for years, but someday.
A future that looked like that kitchen table.
Children.
A pack that was hers.
And the longer she had stayed in the forest these past few days, the clearer one truth had become.
Ace did not belong in that future.
The bond between them had once felt inevitable, something forged by instinct and circumstance and the strange gravity that sometimes pulled two wolves together whether they wanted it or not.
But now it felt… wrong.
A thread stretched thin and fraying.
Something that existed more out of habit than truth.
Tauriel lifted her head slowly, ears twitching at the quiet whisper of wind through the trees.
The decision, when it finally arrived, came without drama.
Without anger. Without heartbreak.
Just a calm, steady certainty. And with it came a strange sense of relief.