The Hollow Gestures

My throat throbs with every beat of my heart. Swallowing feels like dragging broken glass down my windpipe. I pull the collar of my scrub top higher, adjusting the stiff fabric to hide the faint, bluish bruises blooming along my skin. The suffocating pressure of Mateo’s grip from yesterday afternoon still haunts my flesh. His psychotic, glowing red eyes flash in my mind every time I blink. The sickeningly sweet scent of Daphne’s vanilla perfume clings to my hair and my clothes, turning my stomach. I scrubbed my skin raw in the shower this morning, but the phantom stench remains, mocking me.

I walk into the maternity floor of Veridia General Hospital, keeping my head down. My classes are over for the day, and I just need to get through this shift. But the moment I step out of the elevator, the atmosphere shifts. The usual chaotic hum of nurses, beeping monitors, and squeaking cart wheels pauses. Eyes track my movements. Whispers break out behind clipboards and computer screens. I feel their gazes scraping against my skin. I speed up my pace, rushing into the employee locker room to drop my bag.

Sienna is standing by the lockers. She turns around when the door swings shut. My stomach drops. She is Daphne’s half-sister. Under normal circumstances, she is a decent coworker, but today, she is the last person on earth I want to look at. We share the same rotation schedule, so avoiding her is impossible.

"Bells?" Sienna says softly.

I freeze, my hand hovering over my locker dial. "Hey, Sienna."

She gives me a pitiful, tight-lipped look. It stings. I hate being looked at like a wounded animal.

"Don't," I warn her, keeping my voice low.

"This is awkward," she murmurs, scratching the back of her ear. Her eyes dart away from mine. "But the alpha sent roses."

"What?" I frown, dropping my hand from the locker.

My mind flashes to last night. After he forced me into submission, I locked myself inside the home office. I curled up on my giant bean bag chair, shivering and crying until exhaustion dragged me under. When daylight broke, he was gone. He had slept in the main apartment bedroom. The sheets were tangled, and his expensive suit lay discarded on the floor exactly where he stripped it off. He left it there, fully expecting me to pick it up, clean it, and play the obedient little mate. I despise a messy room, but my resentment outweighed my neatness. I shoved the suit into a garbage bag and threw it down the building's trash chute on my way out.

I shove my bag into the metal locker, slam the door shut, and follow Sienna out to the main reception desk.

Five massive, obnoxious bouquets dominate the counter space. Blood-red roses mixed with bright yellow sunflowers. They take up half the desk, blocking the view of the waiting area. A few nurses hover around them, tracing the petals and cooing over the sheer expense of the display.

"Here. They came with this," Sienna says. She reaches into the center of the largest bouquet and pulls out a hot-pink envelope.

Mateo wrote my name across the front in his distinct, harsh handwriting.

"These are so beautiful," Brielle says. She is one of the ultrasound techs, and she flashes me a wide, dreamy smile.

I stare at the vibrant red petals. They look like blood.

"You guys can have them," I say. I turn my back on the desk and walk over to my computer station, logging in with swift, sharp keystrokes. "I don't care for flowers."

Harper, the charge nurse, frowns at me over her glasses. "They were a gift from your mate, Arabella. It’s a gesture."

I stop typing. The silence in the room stretches out, thick and heavy.

"I don't have a mate," I say.

Putting those words out into the open air hits me like a physical blow. The crushing weight of the lie slams into my chest. It feels exactly like the moment the rogue wolf mauled me—the tearing of flesh, the snapping of bones, the sheer helplessness of watching that monster rip my brother to pieces right before my eyes. The trauma echoes through my ribs, knocking the breath out of my lungs.

No one says another word. The nurses exchange knowing, uncomfortable glances. They understand the warning in my tone. Within five minutes, the massive bouquets vanish into the breakroom, out of sight.

I bury myself in my work. I check vitals, update charts, and assist the pregnant mothers on the floor. I move like a machine, shutting down my brain, refusing to let a single thought of Mateo breach my defenses. The hours drag on. When my shift finally ends, the sun has dipped below the horizon, plunging the city into darkness.

I drive back to my apartment complex. The moment I turn onto my street, my headlights wash over a familiar, sleek black car parked right in front of the building.

Mateo.

My pulse skyrockets. The bruised skin around my throat burns. I don't even tap the brakes. I press down on the gas pedal, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turn stark white, and drive right past my own home. I can't go inside. I need space. I need oxygen that doesn't smell like his dominance or Daphne’s perfume. I need time to piece together the fractured shards of my reality.

Veridia General Hospital is situated close to the main tourist strip, an area constantly flooded with out-of-towners and loud, glowing neon signs. The restaurants and stores stay open late into the night. I park a few blocks down and walk toward my favorite Korean BBQ spot. The air smells like roasted garlic, charred meat, and exhaust fumes.

I grab a small table in the back corner of the restaurant. The place is packed with loud groups laughing over sizzling grills and clinking beer glasses. I keep my head down, poking at the grilled meat on my plate, chewing without tasting a single bite. I just want to disappear into the noise, to be a nameless face in a crowd of strangers.

Sitting here, surrounded by people who have no idea how shattered I am, drags my mind back to the past. I think about the night I found out I was a broken vessel. The night I realized I wasn't worthy of possessing a wolf spirit.

It was a night very similar to this one. The same heavy, suffocating dread hanging in the air.

I was eighteen. It was the night of the full moon during my birth month. The defining moment for every werewolf.

The night air was freezing, biting through my thin jacket. I sat cross-legged in the damp grass of our backyard. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, bleeding dull orange light across the sky. Behind me, sitting on the patio chair, was my grandmother.

The hours had ticked by. Midnight came and went. The moon reached its peak and began its descent.

Nothing happened.

No bone-breaking agony. No surge of supernatural strength. No shifting of senses. Above all, there was no voice. The internal link where my wolf’s spirit should have awakened remained hollow and dead.

I stared at my shaking hands, the silence in my mind roaring louder than any scream.

My grandmother stood up, her shoes crunching softly against the grass. She walked over and crouched down directly in front of me. Her icy blue eyes studied my trembling form. I couldn’t bring myself to lift my chin. I couldn't meet her gaze. The shame was a physical weight crushing my spine.

"It could be late because of the trauma from the attack," she said. Her voice was firm, stripped of any soft, coddling pity. "Go back to school on Monday. We will meet again next month. I’ll book an appointment for you later today. Go to bed, Arabella."

I stayed on the grass long after she went inside. There has never been an omega in my bloodline. Not a single one. It is the sole reason the Varg family was accepted into the elite city ranking system. My father fought tooth and nail, building a fierce reputation for himself long before he met my mother, who was a local. It was my grandmother who pushed him to relocate, demanding he secure better opportunities for our name. The Vargs are warriors. We are strong.

And here I was. Broken. Empty.

My whole body shook as the cold morning dew soaked through my jeans. Panic clawed at my throat. What am I going to say to Mateo? He was the golden boy, the alpha heir. How will his proud, powerful family react to me being a dud? They wouldn't even need to say the word aloud. I already knew what was happening. I had been deemed an unworthy vessel by the Moon Goddess herself.

As if my spiraling thoughts summoned him, my phone pinged in my pocket. I pulled it out. The screen lit up with his name and a picture of us smiling together. A voice memo waited on the screen.

I pressed play.

"I'm looking forward to seeing you on Monday," his deep, confident voice filled the quiet backyard. "I love you."

I dropped the phone on the grass. There was a tiny, microscopic chance that my wolf was just delayed because of the extensive surgeries I endured after the rogue attack. I was twelve years old when the monster tore into me. That was almost seven years ago. The doctors had stitched me back together, but they couldn't fix my soul.

I couldn't bring myself to open his next text message, let alone type out a reply. I dragged myself inside, dried my damp hair, and crawled into bed. I pulled the heavy blankets over my head, seeking out the dark. Sleep never came. My eyes burned, wide open, staring at the wall for hours.

Later that morning, my grandmother opened my bedroom door.

"Get up. You have an appointment to get checked out."

I dragged myself out of bed, put on clean clothes, and followed her out to the car. She drove us to a private clinic on the outskirts of the territory. I knew she had already paid off the doctor and the entire staff to keep their mouths shut. The shame of a Varg omega was not something she would allow to become public gossip.

Dr. Astrid stood in the examination room, holding a tablet.

"Hey, Bella," she greeted me. Her tone was careful, the exact same tone she used years ago when I first met her in the trauma ward. Back then, everyone in the room thought I was going to bleed out and die. Being an omega in my fiercely proud family felt exactly the same. A death sentence.

"Hey," I muttered, my voice barely audible.

"Okay." Dr. Astrid took a deep breath, forcing a tight smile. She glanced past my shoulder at my grandmother.

Grandmother Katerina gave a single, curt nod and stepped out of the room, letting the heavy door click shut. It was just the two of us.

"There are a lot of reasons why your wolf is a little late," Dr. Astrid began, setting her tablet down on the counter. "Have you been stressed lately? Anything you want to tell me before I start probing and running tests?"

I gripped the edge of the examination table, the crinkly paper tearing under my sweaty fingers. "A little," I nodded slowly. "I found my mate. Or rather, he found me."

Dr. Astrid’s face softened. "Congratulations," she smiled, genuinely relieved for a split second. "Why would this be stressful for you? Finding your mate is a good thing. The bond usually triggers a delayed shift."

"He's the next alpha of the city," I whispered.

The smile vanished from her face. Her shoulders tensed. The air in the sterile room grew ten times heavier. I knew exactly what was running through her head because the exact same fears had been torturing me all night.

Alpha and Luna Rossi. They are ruthless about bloodlines and strength. They are not going to accept a wolfless omega for their precious heir. Luna Rossi is Alpha Rossi’s chosen mate. No one in the pack really knows what happened to their true mates, or if they ever even had them. They built their power on strategic alliances, not fate. They would view me as a stain on their legacy.

Dr. Astrid stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a hug. I breathed in the scent of sterile alcohol wipes and mint gum. She sniffed the crook of my neck, analyzing my scent, then pulled back, keeping her hands on my shoulders.

"You've mated with him," she stated. It wasn’t a question. She could smell his claim on me.

I nodded, fighting back tears.

"We can start there," she sighed, her expression turning grim. "But I have to be honest with you, Bella. If being intimate with your fated mate doesn't bring her out, the possibility that you are a true omega is high. This condition can be directly linked to all the severe nerve and tissue damage that was done during the rogue attack—"

"That's not what I want to hear," I choked out, the tears finally spilling over my lashes.

"I know. I know, Bells," she said softly, wiping a tear from my cheek. "The only way this situation moves forward in your favor is if he marks you. A true alpha mark might force a shift. But even then, the chances of the wolf you turn into being a higher rank are close to zero. You will not be a warrior."

She paused, letting the harsh truth sink in.

"You have to drop your combat training program immediately."

I squeezed my eyes shut. Combat training was my lifeline. It was the only thing that made me feel safe after the attack. Giving it up meant surrendering.

"You have to tell Mateo the truth," she continued, her tone urgent. "Because if you lie to him, and he finds out later, it's going to look very bad on you. Pack law does not favor deception. I'm going to take some blood samples right now to ensure everything else is medically sound. But I don't want you to get your hopes up. Do you understand? Okay?"

I couldn't answer her. The knot in my throat was too thick, too painful. I just gave a stiff nod.

I rolled up my sleeve and let her slide the cold needle into my vein, watching the dark blood fill the vials. When it was over, I went home and locked myself in my bedroom for the rest of the weekend. I didn't eat. I didn't speak.

Sunday afternoon arrived.

"Come down," my grandmother’s voice ordered through the bedroom door.

I dragged my exhausted body downstairs. She was standing in the foyer, her sleek black luggage waiting by the front door. It meant she was leaving. She was heading back to Ironridge, the harsh, unforgiving Lycan domain where she served.

"Thank you for coming, Grandma," I said softly, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

She let out a heavy sigh, the icy facade cracking just a fraction. She walked over, reaching out to tilt my chin up with her cool fingers, forcing me to look into her eyes.

"You survived one of the most gruesome attacks in our pack's history, little one," she said, her voice vibrating with a fierce, ancient pride. "You gave up a physical part of you to ensure that justice was served and to avenge your family. Do not let anyone in this city take that survival away from you. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I choked out, but the word felt empty. I didn't believe it. I didn't feel like a survivor. I felt like a failure.

"Come," she commanded, dropping her hand. She turned and opened the heavy fire door that led into the garage.

I followed her inside.

Parked in the center of the concrete floor was a gleaming, cobalt blue Volkswagen Beetle convertible.

I stared at it, stunned.

"Your mother had this arranged from the exact moment she found out she was having a girl," my grandmother explained, running her hand along the shiny blue hood. "Varg women are incredibly rare. Unfortunately, it has always been the men who have taken the glory and the titles in our bloodline. So, we were very excited when you were born. Finally, a little girl our family could all dote on." She turned back to me, her sharp eyes softening. "Take care of it. Yes?"

"Thank you," I gasped, fresh tears welling up. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her waist, burying my face in her shoulder.

Grandma has always carried an icy, untouchable aura around her. Growing up, I was under the impression that she hated my mother and me. She was always so strict, so rigid. But feeling her stand there, I realized it wasn't hate. It was the lingering, militaristic coldness of having to serve under the Lycan King. It was survival.

Grandma Katerina is about four or five inches shorter than I am. Her hair is pitch black, heavily highlighted by the grays and whites growing out from the roots. She doesn't look old, her skin tight and sharp, but her eyes give away the decades of hardship she has endured. She has always been fiercely elegant and refined. I worshipped her. I wanted to be just like her. It was the exact reason why I had given up on the medical program and joined the brutal combat team at the very start of my training.

I started to cry harder, soaking the fabric of her expensive coat. And for the first time in my life, she didn't push me away. She wrapped her arms around my back and tightened her hold on me.

I don't know how long we stood together in the quiet garage. When she finally pulled away, she reached up and wiped the wetness from my cheeks with her thumbs. She stared at my face for a long moment, memorizing my features, before letting me go.

"Things will change for you now, little one. Drastically," she warned, her tone dropping into a serious, tactical register. "If you ever need me to come pick you up, you call me. Do not hesitate. Do you understand? You are still a Varg by blood, and I will not allow you to be disrespected by anyone in this territory. If I am unable to come personally, I will send my soldiers on my behalf. Okay?"

"Okay," I nodded, swiping at my nose.

"I must be going. Try to keep your status to yourself for as long as you can."

"I can't," I blurted out, the panic rising again.

She paused, her brows drawing together. "Why not?"

"Mateo Rossi is my mate," I confessed. The words tasted like ash.

She inhaled deeply, her eyes widening for a fraction of a second. The political and social danger of that match hit her instantly. Without another word, she reached out and pulled me into her chest again, holding me even tighter than before.

"You call me immediately if you need me, Arabella. Do you understand me?" she demanded against my hair.

"Yes."

"I must go. I promised my general I'd be back before sundown. My heart stays here with you, Granddaughter. As always."

"Be safe," I nodded, stepping back to let her leave.

After she drove off in her own vehicle, I walked over to the blue convertible. I unlocked the door and climbed into the driver's seat. It smelled brand new. Fresh leather, clean plastic, untouched potential.

The sharp scent of Korean BBQ smoke clinging to my jacket snaps me back to the present.

I am sitting in the exact same driver's seat of the blue convertible, parked in the dark shadows of the tourist strip. Just like that night years ago, I sit here, gripping the leather steering wheel, not knowing what to do or where to go.

My phone vibrates in my scrub pocket, buzzing against my thigh. It's Mateo. It's always him. His relentless pursuit is suffocating.

I don't have the energy to reach for the phone. I don't have the strength to look at his name flashing on the screen.

I lean my head back against the headrest and shut my eyes, desperately needing just a single moment of peace. The bustling city noise outside my windows fades away. I need anything to get my head out of the vicious cycle of thoughts attacking the very essence of my soul.

But the truth remains, heavy and crushing in the silent car.

I am unworthy. There was no wolf spirit for me, and no mate.