Chapter 12: Whispers of the Rogue
The boundary of the Silver Moon pack was now a distant memory. For the first time in her life, Elara felt the raw, biting cold of the 'No Man's Land'—the territory of the outcasts and rogues. But strangely, the cold didn't bother her. The fire of rejection burning in her chest was far hotter than any winter wind.
She stopped by a frozen stream and looked at her reflection. The girl who had pleaded for Alpha Silas's mercy was gone. In her place stood someone with hollow cheeks and eyes that held the sharpness of shattered glass.
"You look lost, little wolf," a gravelly voice echoed from the shadows of the pine trees.
Elara didn't flinch. She didn't growl. She simply turned her head, her gaze meeting a pair of scarred, dark eyes belonging to a man leaning against a tree. He was a rogue, his scent a chaotic mix of earth and old blood.
"I am not lost," Elara replied, her voice steady and cold. "I am exactly where I chose to be."
The man barked a laugh, stepping into the dim moonlight. "A rejected Omega in the Dead Zone? You'll be dead by sunrise. The hunters don't take kindly to trespassers."
"Then let them come," Elara said, taking a step toward him. To the man's surprise, her aura didn't flicker with fear. Instead, a faint silver glow began to pulse beneath her skin—the mark Silas thought he had destroyed was reacting to her newfound defiance.
The rogue's smile faded. He sensed it then—the power of the Silver Moon that shouldn't belong to an Omega. "Who are you?"
"I am the regret Silas hasn't realized yet," she whispered.
As the wind howled through the trees, Elara realized that being a rogue wasn't a death sentence. It was a blank canvas. She wasn't just running away; she was building an army of the forgotten. And one day, the Silver Moon pack would hear the whispers of the rogue they had cast aside, and they would tremble.