Destined for Greatness ✔️

Chapter 8

Everything was different.

Ryleigh had hoped that she could return to her old life like nothing had happened at all. That she would fit right in with her people again, that she could follow her father the way she always had, that she could be perfectly content being shut off from the world again.

Outwardly, that was exactly how she presented herself. She mixed with her people, listened to their stories, avoided telling her own; she laughed when they laughed, and she pretended to feel at home. But every once in a while her eyes would search the room for Jade, only to realise that she wasn't there. And when she woke up in the morning – sore from sleeping curled up on one of the sofas in her wolf form – there was this one second before reality hit in which she could swear she was lying in Austin's bed, his arms around her, his gentle snoring the only sound she could hear.

Sometimes, if it had rained during the night and she threw open the windows to let the smell of petrichor permeate the house, she could fool herself she caught his scent. Sometimes she could feel the ghost of his touch on her skin and she could hear a whisper of his voice echoing through her mind.

Sometimes, she would climb the rickety stairs to the top floor of the house, lock herself in the remotest room she could find, and punch holes into the weathered walls until her hands were bleeding, just so she could tell herself that it was physical pain she was feeling.

Sometimes she woke up in the middle of the night, haunted by images of the past, and she held her breath for just a moment to see if he would come barging into the room to calm her down. Only he wouldn't, because he was half a country away and didn't love her anymore.

And sometimes – sometimes she just stood at the window, gazing out at the bustling street below her, and she wouldn't think of anything at all. She would stand there, rooted to the floorboards, her gaze fixed on some human drunk teetering over the road, nearly getting himself driven over by hasty carriages, or on a group of orphans begging every passer-by for scraps or coins; or she would listen to the family across the street cussing each other out, until the father came barging out onto the street, marching off towards the inn. Or if there weren't any people about, she would just stare at the cobblestone and imagine her bones shattering against them if she dropped herself from the window.

Even her wolf – usually such a voice of reason – didn't put any effort in keeping her sane. They were done, the both of them. Completely and utterly defeated. All they had was their pain and their anger, and they turned the former into the latter so that at the end of the day all she felt was white-hot rage smouldering in her chest, scorching her lungs and stealing her breath.

Usually, she was left alone if she sought refuge on the top floor. Maybe it was because everybody knew that she was the only one invited to her pity-party, or maybe it was because there were some holes in the stairs that Ivy broke her leg on when they first moved in, and now no one rightly dared venture up.

The boards creaked and Ryleigh would have recognised Parker's footsteps anywhere. She didn't turn towards him, didn't react when he briefly rapped his knuckles against the already open door. She listened to him dancing around the rotten floor boards, felt the air shift as he neared her, took in his scent when he halted behind her.

Parker smelled like the woods, but not in the way that Austin smelled like the woods. Austin smelled like pine and rain and fresh air, but Parker smelled like autumn – which may sound similar, but it was completely different. Or maybe she just thought it was different because when she smelled Austin, no, when she used to smell Austin, all her senses would spark to life, and her skin would start tingling, and her heart would start racing, and her entire world would be reduced to him and his scent and his nearness.