novelraw The Clearing Between Us:
The Clearing Between Us:
[POV: Aria]
* Present *
I didn’t know why I was going back there.
The clearing. The one where Cole had found me nearly a week ago.
It wasn’t smart. It wasn’t safe. But my legs moved anyway, pulled by something restless inside me—an itch I couldn’t scratch, a thought I couldn’t silence.
I moved through the trees, careful and slow, keeping to the darker patches of moonlight and shadow. I’d walked this path before.
I told myself it was just a walk. Just a way to clear my head after another nightmare. But that wasn’t the truth. I was going back to the clearing. Back to the place where I’d seen him.
Cole.
Almost a week had passed since that night. I thought maybe the memory would fade, that the storm of emotions would settle into something quieter—easier. But they hadn’t. If anything, they’d only grown louder.
And tonight, I couldn’t keep still. I had to see him again. Even if it hurt. Especially because it hurt.
Every step felt heavy, like the forest itself was pressing down on me. Or maybe that weight was just mine to carry. The weight of unanswered questions, of feelings I couldn’t silence no matter how hard I tried.
And always—always—the silence inside me. Yoka.
I stopped in the center of the path and closed my eyes, drawing in a breath so deep it burned my lungs. I reached inward like I always did, searching for the part of me that was supposed to be wild. Powerful. The wolf that had never come.
“Yoka,” I whispered. “Are you there?”
Nothing.
“Please… just say something.”
Silence.
She stirred sometimes. I’d felt her—twice. Once when I crossed into Crimson Fang, and again… when Hayden was near.
I didn’t understand it.
Frustration clawed up my spine, bitter and hot. I opened my eyes and kept walking, faster now, my boots crunching over sticks and stone. The trees thickened, the path narrowing into the familiar trail that led to the clearing.
“What is it about him?” I muttered, teeth clenched. “Why does he wake you?”
The question hung in the air like fog.
“Why not me?” I snapped. “Why not when I was begging for you—bleeding for you? Why not when I needed you the most?”
She didn’t answer. Of course she didn’t.
“I carried us this far,” I whispered harshly. “I kept us alive. I clawed my way out of that place. You were supposed to help me. And all you’ve done is stay silent—until he shows up.”
My hands curled into fists. I hated how she stayed hidden. Hated how she stirred for Hayden’s presence like a moth drawn to flame, but left me cold and hollow when I cried for her.
It wasn’t fair. None of it was.
And then I reached the clearing. I stepped past the final thicket of brambles and stopped at the edge, heart stuttering once in my chest.
He was already there. Cole.
His shoulders were turned slightly toward the trees, as if listening for the faintest sound. He wore no armor, no weapons, no trace of the warrior he was trained to be. Just simple clothes. Just him.
And he was looking right at me. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t speak.
He just smiled.
Not the smirk I remembered from the old days—when he trained with Dayana and thought I wasn’t watching. Not the pitying grin he wore the last time I saw him back home, wrapped around my sister like she was his whole world.
No. This smile was real.
Wide, warm, and full of something I couldn’t name—something that looked a lot like joy.
Seeing me.
His presence lit up the clearing like firelight. Familiar. Unbearably familiar. My chest ached with the heat of it, with the sudden rush of everything I’d tried so hard to bury.
Anger. Pain. Longing.
I hadn’t forgotten what he’d done. Hadn’t forgiven it either.
His betrayal still burned behind my ribs like an old scar rubbed raw. Choosing Dayana. Standing silent while she destroyed me, again and again. Letting me walk away like I was nothing more than an inconvenience.
And yet my heart wouldn’t forget what he’d once meant to me.
All the times he’d slipped me food. Spoken to me gently. Protected me when no one else would. All the warmth he’d given me in the quiet places between the cruelty.
He was a safety once. He was a hope.
And even now, I hated how deeply I still felt it. Still missed it. Missed him. No matter how hard I tried to kill it. No matter how much I told myself I had moved on.
He smiled like none of that pain existed.
Like I hadn’t bled for him. Like I hadn’t stood in that hall, watching my sister wrap herself around him like a prize. Like I wasn’t still shattered.
And somehow, some terrible part of me wanted to smile back.