They didn't let me pack.
The word let felt ridiculous even as it crossed my mind. There was no permission involved in any of this, only instructions delivered with the quiet certainty of beings who had never needed to ask.
"Shoes," the alpha said, glancing down at my bare feet. "Warm clothes."
That was it.
I moved on unsteady legs, my apartment suddenly unfamiliar, like I was already a stranger in it. I grabbed my boots, my coat, a scarf. My hands shook so badly I dropped my keys twice before managing to shove them into my pocket. The woman, she hadn't given her name, watched me the whole time, her gaze sharp and contemptuous.
"Try running," she said. "I need an excuse."
My throat tightened. I didn't respond. I was very aware of how easily she could tear me apart, how quickly this would all end if I gave her one wrong reason.
The alpha stood near the door, broad arms folded, eyes tracking every movement I made. I could feel his attention like pressure on my skin. It made my instincts twist and recoil at the same time, fear braided with something else I didn't want to name.
When I was dressed, he nodded once.
"Come."
They didn't use the stairs.
The woman grabbed my arm and hauled me toward the shattered window. I yelped, digging my heels in instinctively, only to be yanked forward with humiliating ease.
"I can walk," I protested.
She sneered. "Then keep up."
The alpha went first, stepping through the broken frame like gravity didn't apply to him. The woman followed, dragging me after her. For a horrifying second, I thought she meant to throw me out, but instead she jumped.
The world lurched.
My scream tore free as we plunged downward. The woman landed in a crouch, barely jolted by the impact, while I collapsed beside her in a heap, my knees screaming in protest.
I stared up at the building, dizzy and nauseous. "We were three stories up."
"And?" she said flatly.
The alpha was already moving, long strides eating up the distance as he headed toward the street. I scrambled to my feet, adrenaline drowning out the pain as I hurried after them.
The city felt different at night now. Not just darker also louder. I could hear things I never had before: the skitter of rats behind dumpsters, the soft footfalls of people blocks away, the distant rush of traffic like a living thing. Smells layered over each other in dizzying detail, oil, damp concrete, human sweat, something wild threading through it all.
Them.
They led me away from the main roads, deeper into the industrial edge of the city. No one stopped us. No one noticed a terrified woman being escorted by two predators who didn't bother to hide what they were.
Eventually, the buildings thinned, with trees looming black against the sky.
The forest waited.
I slowed despite myself, every instinct screaming don't go in there. That was where it had happened. Where blood had soaked into the dirt. Where my life had split into before and after.
The alpha glanced back at me.
"Move," he said.
I did.
The forest swallowed us quickly. The air grew colder, thicker with the scent of damp earth and pine. Moonlight filtered through the canopy in pale fragments, casting shifting shadows that made my heart race.
We stopped in a clearing.
I barely had time to take it in before the pressure hit me.
It rolled over me like a physical force, dozens of presences snapping into awareness at once. Shapes emerged from the shadows, eyes gleaming, bodies half-seen. Men and women, all watching me with open curiosity, disdain, or hunger.
The pack.
My legs buckled.
I would have fallen if the alpha hadn't caught me again, his hand firm on my upper arm. A low murmur rippled through the clearing.
"She can't even stand," someone muttered.
"Pathetic."
"So this is the killer?"
Heat flooded my face, shame burning through the fear. I tried to straighten, to pull away from his grip, but my body betrayed me, trembling violently.
"Enough," the alpha said.
The sound cut through the noise like a blade.
Silence fell.
He stepped forward, pulling me with him until I stood at the center of the clearing. Every gaze locked onto me. I felt stripped bare, weighed and found wanting.
"This human killed one of ours," he said.
"The curse transferred."
A wave of disbelief washed over the crowd.
"That's impossible."
"She's lying."
"She smells wrong."
"I didn't lie," I said hoarsely. "I didn't even know"
"Quiet," the woman snapped.
The alpha studied me for a long moment.
"What's your name?"
The question startled me.
I hesitated, then answered. "—"
Saying it aloud felt strange, like offering up something precious.
He nodded once. "You will stay here."
My heart dropped. "I can't. I don't belong here"
"You do now," he said.
A growl rippled through the pack, some approving, some not.
"She'll die," someone said. "Or turn feral."
"Then we'll deal with it," the alpha replied calmly.
He turned to me. "You will follow our laws.
You will submit to supervision. You will not leave the territory without permission."
The word submit made something ugly coil in my chest.
"And if I don't?" I asked, my voice shaking despite my effort to keep it steady.
His eyes flicked to mine, gold and unyielding.
"Then you won't survive."
There it was. Simple. Final.
I swallowed hard and nodded.
A lie, maybe. Or a promise I didn't yet understand.
"Good," he said. "Take her to the lower quarters."
The woman grabbed my arm again, hauling me toward a path leading away from the clearing.
As we walked, I felt it then, a pull in my chest, subtle but undeniable. Not fear. Not submission.
Recognition.
Something in the forest answered something in me.
I glanced back once, meeting the alpha's gaze across the clearing.
For just a heartbeat, the pressure between us shifted.
Not dominance.
Not yet.
But awareness.
And somewhere deep inside me, beneath the fear and the shame, a quiet, dangerous thought took root:
They thought they were taking me.
But the forest didn't feel like a cage.
It felt like the beginning of something that belonged to me.