Chapter 35: Live From The Rejection Trail

The second Nova’s boots crossed the tree line, she stole a glance down at her hands.

Still glowing. Fantastic.

This trail was supposed to swallow the rejected quietly. At the moment, it was doing the opposite of that because the trees weren’t thick enough to hide her and the crowd still had a clean shot of her back. There was no universe where they had looked away.

When prey runs, wolf instinct is to chase. Nova knew that. But it didn’t matter.

Instinct and panic finally won and she broke out into a dead sprint, moving at a speed she didn’t know she was capable of until right now.

Naturally, someone started chasing. Footsteps sounded behind her. Heavy. Fast. Not a priestess or an elder. Definitely male.

"I’m going," a familiar voice growled, but it sounded like two voices speaking through one man, so she couldn’t be sure.

"No, you’re not."

"Wasn’t asking."

"Think."

"Done. Thought about it. Still going."

"No one outside of draftees goes on that path. That is wolf law, not mine. You know this."

"Do I look like I give a flying fuck about wolf law? Write me a goddamn citation."

The man sounded like he was three seconds from bulldozing wolf law, the wolf blocking him, and the entire concept of consecrated ground, and the only thing stopping him was a Beta with bigger balls than common sense.

"You look like a man about to make my job very difficult. Walk it off."

Lightning flashed in the sky at that moment. The thunder came a few seconds later. Nova glanced up just as a raindrop hit her head.

Wonderful.

The trail was consecrated ground for draftees only, which meant no Alphas or males allowed. Hopefully no crazy lady priestesses or elders either. Just Nova getting rained on, by herself, along with every wolf in Helix streaming it.

They would get bored eventually. That’s what Nova told herself. That ceremony would start again and they would tune back into the sacred flame crushing spirits one girl at a time instead of the one girl who’d already had hers crushed, repackaged, and resold as a stage five glower.

Just give it five minutes. That’s what she told herself as she continued walking in the pouring thunderstorm that came from nowhere and was getting worse.

Only when the clearing disappeared behind a bend did she lose the battle with her composure.

Tears came without permission. Without buildup. One second her face was dry and the next it wasn’t, the transition so fast that her body had clearly been queuing this behind a door and the door had been waiting for privacy and privacy had arrived and the door was off its hinges.

She wiped them with shaking hands, still glowing, using the backs of her fingers because her palms were wet and her knuckles were the only dry surface left. The tears caught the light from her own skin, which meant she was crying in high definition, illuminated by her own misery, a one-woman show with production value she hadn’t asked for.

She didn’t know why she was glowing. She didn’t know if that fire meant the Goddess hadn’t forgotten about her after all, or if it meant something else. She didn’t know how she’d flicked the clicker out of Kai’s hand without touching it. She didn’t know what had spoken through her mouth or why the priestess had dropped like her knees had been repossessed.

She knew nothing. The list of things she didn’t know was longer than the trail and growing with every step.

The rain stopped after ten minutes, thankfully. It was at that point in time that Nova realized she wasn’t the only one crying.

The trail was littered with women who hadn’t made it. Girls sitting on boulders with their faces in their hands. Girls curled against tree roots with their arms wrapped around their knees. Girls standing in the middle of the path staring at the dirt like it owed them an explanation. Every single one of them had walked up to that flame believing tonight would change her life and every single one of them had been right, just in the wrong direction.

The first girl saw Nova and gasped. She shifted and bolted into the trees before Nova could open her mouth.

The second did the same. Faster.

The third made a sound that was half scream, half hiccup, and was gone on four legs before Nova’s hand got halfway up in a gesture that was supposed to communicate I’m harmless, please don’t run, I’m literally just a crying girl who happens to be radioactive.

By the fourth, Nova stopped trying.

By the fifth, she expected it.

By the sixth, she was counting them like a morbid hobby. Six for six. She was a glowing, floating-haired, tear-streaked horror movie walking through a forest full of emotionally devastated wolves and every single one of them took one look at her and ran for their lives.

She had just counted thirty of them when it happened.

FWHOOOM.

A fireball detonated through the canopy to her left. Trees lit orange. Leaves crisped midair. A flaming wolf the size of a small horse bulldozed into the clearing, skidded across the trail, and phoenixed back into Maria Emberclaw in a burst of red flame that singed exactly one fern and zero princesses.

Maria was already talking before the flame was gone.

"Okay, first of all, that priestess is having a complete spiritual meltdown. Full-on, on-the-ground, rocking-back-and-forth, somebody-get-this-woman-a-drink situation. I’m going to be honest, I have no idea what you did. But you are GLOWING and that was the single coolest thing I have ever seen in my entire life and I have seen my brother bench-press a canoe full of people so the bar was already high and you cleared it by a mile and I need you to know—"

Nova stopped walking. She was surprised. She was also crying and she turned away from the princess because Maria shouldn’t have to see that. Maria had left a sacred ceremony where her own fate was about to be revealed to chase a radioactive slave into a dark forest and the least Nova could do was spare her the waterworks.

Maria was having none of it. She circled into Nova’s sightline with the navigational persistence of a golden retriever who had decided that eye contact was happening whether you consented to it or not.

"—oh my gods, and the TORCHES, Nova! Every single one turned off—"