Maria.

"Get out, rogue!" Anabel’s voice snapped like a whip behind me, sharp enough to sting even though I tried to pretend otherwise.

My lips curled faintly into a humorless chuckle as I stepped out of the room and let the door close softly at my back.

Rogue.

The word chased after me like a shadow.

I used to flinch when I heard it, every syllable was a reminder of what I had lost.

My name, my place, my dignity. But somewhere along the way, it stopped hurting the same way. Somewhere between the punishments, the looks of disgust, and the whispers I pretended not to hear, rogue had become something of a second skin.

I should have been shattered by being called that again. Instead, I laughed, low and tired, because I had almost forgotten I had a name at all.

Still, the name wasn’t what twisted my chest painfully. It was seeing Anabel’s arms tightly wrapped around Noah like she owned the air he breathed.

The image replayed in my mind without permission, like my brain enjoyed torturing me.

Her rushing in, all joy and eagerness. Her arms snaked around him, her body pressed flush against his, dragging him down to the bed like they had done it a thousand times before.

My stomach knotted.

Were they together?

Had they been together for years while I struggled, suffered, disappeared into nothing?

The question scraped at the inside of my chest, and I hated that I cared even a fraction.

A tiny ripple of jealousy slithered through me, unexpected and unwelcome.

Jealousy.

For a man I had rejected more than once.

For a man who owed me nothing.

"What are you even expecting, Maria?" I hissed quietly to myself as I descended the hallway.

"For him to still love you? For him to still chase after someone who pushed him away a thousand times?"

My voice sounded too raw, too truth-laced, and I swallowed hard. I forced a breath through my lungs, trying to calm the foolish storm inside my mind.

"Come on, Maria. Get your head together," I muttered under my breath, shaking my head as if I could dislodge the ache building behind my ribs.

I should be grateful.

Relieved, even.

Noah offered to take me away, offered kindness, warmth, safety, and I said no. I walked away with my pride intact, or whatever pieces were left of it.

If I had agreed...

The thought trailed behind me bitterly.

If I had agreed, Anabel would have laughed me out of the building. The entire pack might have mocked me, rogue Maria, clinging desperately to a man she once rejected. I could already imagine their smirks, their words dripping with superiority.

"No wonder she’s a rogue. She can’t survive without a man."

"She rejected him then, now she wants him back?"

"She must be desperate."

A shiver ran down my spine, not fear, not exactly... humiliation imagined so vividly it felt real.

Thank goodness I hadn’t said yes.

Thank goodness I hadn’t let that small, softened moment sway me.

I paused halfway down the corridor, pressing a hand to my chest as if I could press out the ache.

"No matter what, Maria," I whispered aloud to the empty hallway, "you will need to stay away from Noah."

Saying it made something inside me clench painfully, but it also anchored me. A necessary promise. A rule to protect myself from disappointment.

He wasn’t mine.

He had never been mine, no matter how persistent he once was. No matter how his eyes softened or how his voice warmed when he said my name.

Those days were gone.

And if fate thought it was funny to throw us into the same room again, I wouldn’t play into its cruelty.

I scoffed inwardly, straightened my spine, and resumed walking, each step firmer than the last.

Stay away.

Keep your head down.

Do your work.

Survive.

By the time I reached the quiet wing where my small room waited, just before the last turn, the echo of laughter from the upper floor had faded, and the air around me was still.

Lonely but still.

And that, at least, was something I could control.

But before I could take the turn into the quieter wing of the corridor that led to my room, I saw something that stole the air straight out of my chest.

I froze where I stood.

It was Galen.

She stood a few paces ahead, half-hidden in the dim glow of the hallway lights, her posture stiff yet strangely softened at the same time. She wasn’t alone. Someone was with her, a man, his back partly turned, his face concealed by the angle. I strained to see more, but all I caught was a sharp silhouette: tall, broad shoulders, impeccably dressed in deep colors and expensive fabric that didn’t belong to just anybody. It screamed wealth, power...authority.

He wasn’t from around here, at least not from this pack, that much I knew instinctively. His clothes alone whispered status, not a soldier, not a servant, not a casual guest. Someone important, someone who shouldn’t be meeting anyone in secret.

My heart thudded once, hard and cold.

Could he be one of the visiting Alphas? A representative? A guest whose name had been whispered through the halls earlier?

I didn’t know, but the question burned hotter with every breath I pulled in.

Not that Galen standing with a man was the part that rattled me. She could talk to anyone she wanted; she didn’t belong to me or owe me explanations. No, that wasn’t what made my pulse stumble.

It was the way they were acting.

Sneaky. Hidden. Like shadows pressed together in a corner, keeping the rest of the world out.

They were careful, not touching, not quite leaning into each other, but there was something between them anyway. A hum. A charge. An understanding that didn’t need words.

Every now and then, the man said something low, too soft for me to make out, and Galen laughed quietly in response. A small, contained laugh, the kind someone released only when they didn’t want to be overheard. She tilted her face up toward him to listen, her smile relaxed, her eyes glowing, not with fear, or discomfort, but with familiarity.

My curiosity clawed sharp and insistent inside my ribs.

I edged back behind the nearest pillar, just enough to stay unseen, my pulse thudding in my ears as if I’d been caught doing something wrong.

Why were they meeting out here?

Why in the dimmest corner of the corridor?

Why not in the open, like any ordinary conversation?

From where I stood, I still couldn’t make out the man’s identity, but I could tell one thing, he wasn’t a random passerby. He mattered. At least to Galen. I was sure of that.

Time stretched painfully slow, every second feeling like a minute. They stayed there, locked in their quiet pocket of secrecy, and I remained rooted in place, too stunned and too curious to move.

At last, finally, the man shifted, his body turning more toward the main hallway, and my breath caught.

He was about to step into the light.

But before I could get a proper look at his face, he moved swiftly, and like someone who wanted to be gone before anyone else appeared. He murmured one last thing to Galen, something that made her expression falter, soften, then steady, before turning down the opposite hall.

He disappeared fast, walking with purpose, almost too quickly to seem casual. Thank the heavens, he took the other path.

If he had gone in my direction, I might have been caught spying like some desperate gossip. My heart thudded wild and relieved against my ribs as he vanished.

The moment he rounded the far corner, I snapped into motion, my steps quick and light as if the floor might betray me with a sound. I didn’t want Galen turning and finding me lurking behind her like some suspicious shadow.

I reached our door in what felt like a heartbeat. And Galen... she hadn’t moved.

She still stood there, staring after the vanishing figure as though the world around her had temporarily faded out. She didn’t even flinch at my hurried steps.

I swallowed, glanced once at the empty hallway, then back at her unmoving profile.

"Who was that?" I asked.

My voice wasn’t loud, but the words seemed to slice through whatever trance she was in.

Galen jolted, not violently, but enough to show she hadn’t sensed me at all. Her head whipped slightly toward me, eyes wide and startled, breath caught in her throat like she’d been robbed of it.

For a single second, her expression betrayed something, fear, confusion, guilt, I couldn’t tell which. But it was there. Sharp and flickering.

Then, like a curtain falling, she schooled her features, pushing whatever she felt back behind her usual smooth facade.

And just like that, the secret hung between us, invisible but heavy.