Retreat to the Woods

The heavy tires of Kieran's truck finally skidded to a halt in the loose gravel of the Argent packhouse driveway. The engine cut off, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. Kaelie crawled out of the passenger seat in a state of absolute, devastated silence. Her movements were sluggish, entirely devoid of their usual vibrant energy.

Kieran stepped quickly around the hood of the truck. He looked down at his sister, deep, aching concern etched into his usually stoic alpha features. He gently reached out, placing a warm hand on her shoulder.

"Do you want to tell mom and dad?" Kieran asked softly.

Unable to muster the physical or emotional strength to form a single word, Kaelie simply shook her head back and forth. Her glassy, tear-stained eyes were completely unfocused, staring blankly past his shoulder at something far away in the distant trees.

Kieran let out a heavy sigh, nodding in quiet understanding. "Alright. I'll handle them. I'll run interference so they don't bother you."

Dragging her exhausted body through the massive front doors of the packhouse on pure muscle memory alone, Kaelie completely bypassed the grand living room where she could hear her parents talking. She slowly walked up the stairs, pushed open her bedroom door, and instantly collapsed face-first onto her bed. She violently clutched her fiercely aching chest, her fingers digging into her shirt as if physically trying to hold her shattered heart together. Unable to stand the blinding pain, she squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could muster, letting the darkness swallow her whole.

For two agonizing, endless days, Kaelie barely left the suffocating confines of her dark room. She completely drowned in her profound pain, aggressively overanalyzing the horrific events at the King's door on a torturous loop. She lay tangled in her sheets, constantly agonizing over her two completely unmade choices: whether she should proudly storm into the royal palace, declare her rightful place, and furiously claim her cheating mate, or if she should ruthlessly suppress the mate bond entirely, erase the traumatizing experience from her memory, and never speak to Cyrus again. She made absolutely no move to do either.

Her miserable, self-imposed isolation was finally broken on the morning of the third day. The door clicked open, and her brother Kieran casually strolled into her room, completely ignoring the heavy, depressing atmosphere.

"Get up," Kieran demanded, his voice holding absolutely no room for argument.

Muffled deeply beneath a mountain of thick pillows, Kaelie fiercely told him to get out and leave her completely alone.

Kieran scoffed loudly. He walked straight over to the window and aggressively ripped the heavy curtains open, letting blinding sunlight flood the previously pitch-black room. Kaelie hissed, squeezing her eyes shut against the harsh glare.

"No, you're gonna get up and fold. We're going camping," her brother insisted, crossing his muscular arms over his chest as he stared down at the pathetic lump in the bed. He pointed a finger at the speakers sitting on her desk, bluntly stating, "With the amount of Taylor Swift that has been coming from this room, you are absolutely not fine."

Kaelie took in a deep, shuddering breath and slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. "Why are we going camping?"

"Simple. You aggressively need to get out of this room, but I know you don't want to be around a bunch of people. Plus, we're wolves. Breathing the raw, wild air of the deep woods is good for us." He shrugged. "We leave in thirty minutes. Pack a bag. I've already told mom and dad, so don't worry about them."

Begrudgingly conceding that completely isolating herself wasn't working, and that breathing the raw, wild air of the deep woods might actually do her restless inner wolf some immense good, Kaelie slowly dragged herself out of bed. She shoved some basic gear into a duffel bag and followed him out.

The twins hiked silently side by side for most of the day. The crisp, biting mountain air immediately began to clear the heavy fog from her exhausted mind. They pushed up the steep, rocky inclines until they finally reached a massive cliff's edge that overlooked the vast, breathtaking territory below.

Kaelie took a deep breath, looking out over the endless green canopy. She turned to quietly thank her brother for forcing her out of her dark room. "I'm glad I came, thank you—"

"Don't thank me yet," Kieran interrupted, a secretive smirk spreading across his face as he revealed his massive secret.

"What?" Kaelie asked, a nervous flutter hitting her stomach.

Right on cue, a chorus of loud, obnoxiously familiar voices rounded the dense corner of the trail.

"What up, Apex Circle!"

Cal, Thatcher, Tamsin, and Hadley practically stumbled into the clearing. The entirety of the Apex Circle had secretly arrived at the mountain campsite.

"I told you we were going the right way!" Thatcher loudly argued.

"I'm pretty sure we took at least three wrong turns," Tamsin quickly retorted.

"Both of you shut up," Hadley demanded. She dropped her heavy pack to the dirt and immediately sprinted forward, wrapping Kaelie in a fiercely tight, warm embrace. She squeezed her best friend, dramatically declaring to the trees, "All for one and one for all."

"Evander sends his best, but he's drowning in paperwork," Kieran added from the sidelines.

The utterly goofy, chaotic arrival successfully pulled a genuine, albeit small, smile to Kaelie's face for the absolute first time in agonizing days. They set up camp and spent the entire evening gathered tightly around a roaring campfire. The heavy tension in Kaelie's chest melted away as they shared ridiculous inside jokes, wildly sang off-key to old songs at the top of their lungs, and happily devoured the fresh meat the alpha men successfully hunted in the surrounding woods.

As the fire slowly burned down to glowing embers, the group decided to call it a night. Cal insisted on aggressively delivering dramatic, overly affectionate goodnight kisses to the tops of everyone's heads.

"Goodnight best friends, go to bed, get your beauty sleep," Cal announced, planting a kiss on Tamsin before turning his sights on her brother. He delivered a sharp, teasing jab specifically aimed at Kieran's stoic demeanor. "God knows Kieran desperately needs his beauty sleep."

"Goodnight Cal!" the group sang in a unified chorus.

"Hey!" Kieran loudly protested, rubbing the top of his head as the entire group erupted in a chorus of loud, genuine chuckles before they finally retreated to their tents.

By the time dawn painted the mountain sky in hues of purple and orange, the group parted ways to head back to their respective packs.

Entirely recharged and grounded by the healing trip into nature, Kaelie shifted into her powerful wolf form and ran fiercely all the way back to the Argent packhouse. She burst through her bedroom doors with a completely renewed, fierce resolve to forcefully face her terrible, suffocating situation with Cyrus absolutely head-on. No more hiding.

She aggressively threw open all her tall windows to let the fresh air in. She meticulously cleaned her room until every surface was spotless, practically dancing across the hardwood floor as she worked.

Her sudden, soaring newfound peace was abruptly interrupted when her little sister, Macy, saunteringly pushed open the bedroom door and plopped down on the bed.

"So, mom and I were thinking we are gonna go take a trip into town to go buy some new dresses, and wondered if you wanted to come with?" Macy casually asked.

Kaelie stopped wiping down her desk, looking at her sister in complete bewilderment. "Why do you need new dresses?" she asked blankly.

Macy looked at her as if she had completely lost her mind. "For the ball of course?" Macy said, rolling her eyes.

"What ball? When?"

"What do you mean, what ball? The ball everyone has been talking about," Macy excitedly explained. "King Cyrus is suddenly throwing a massive, unprecedented royal ball for all the Alphas and their families before the Leadership training officially starts next week. I guess it's like some celebration. Anyway, there is a ball and we're going. Have you been living under a rock or something? How didn't you know about this?"

*Well, not a rock, but a pillow,* Kaelie thought to herself.

Kaelie's stomach immediately did a series of violent, sick somersaults. While she had been cowardly hiding under her pillows, completely cut off from the world, the heavy political machinery had aggressively moved on without her. There would be absolutely no avoiding King Cyrus now; they would inevitably be forced to have that terrifying, confrontational conversation she had been desperately running from.

Faking a sudden, convenient illness to skip the ball absolutely wouldn't work when she was scheduled to be physically living directly at the royal palace for months of training anyway. She would see him eventually. She had to step up and face him head-on. She made an iron-clad vow to herself that she was going to look completely, terrifyingly gorgeous doing it. She would be undeniably beautiful and ferociously brave, no matter how much her chest ached.

Turning to Macy with a fierce, unbreakable glint in her crystal blue eyes, Kaelie finally spoke.

"Well, I guess I will need a dress."