Betrayed By One. Bound To Three-Chapter 91: Wrong distance.

Selena.

Morning began quietly, but nothing about it felt gentle to me.

I walked a few steps behind them, my arms loose at my sides, my eyes fixed on the uneven path ahead. The forest felt different now. Still familiar. Still quiet. But no longer entirely safe. And the silence between me and the three men in front of me felt deadlier than anything else.

Kael, Edris, and Ronan moved together easily.

They always had.

But I used to be part of that ease.

Now I was not.

Their voices carried low through the air, too quiet for me to catch every word, but enough for me to know they were speaking to each other.

Once, they would have slowed without thinking, allowing me to fall into step between them. Once, one of them would have glanced back, checking on me without needing a reason.

Now they kept walking.

I told myself it did not matter. It was just a morning. Just a quiet stretch of road. Just a mood that would pass once whatever was bothering them settled.

It had to be that simple.

Still, I could not ignore the way the distance had formed so naturally, as if it had always been there and I was only just now seeing it.

My wolf stirred beneath my skin.

It had been restless since I woke, shifting in a way that made it hard to focus on anything else. It did not like this distance. It did not understand it. The bond that once felt warm and steady now felt stretched thin, like something being pulled too far without care.

I inhaled slowly, steadying myself.

Whatever this was, it would pass.

Ahead of me, Edris said something that made Kael let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh. Ronan responded, his voice low, and though I could not hear the words clearly, the ease between them was unmistakable.

It twisted something inside me.

Not jealousy.

Something closer to loss.

I tightened my fingers slightly and forced my attention back to the ground. The path had grown rough, scattered with loose stones and hidden roots that pushed through the soil. I adjusted my steps carefully, though my mind was still too divided to give it the attention it needed.

My foot caught before I realized it.

One moment I was steady, the next the ground shifted beneath me and my balance slipped. My body lurched forward, and I hit the earth harder than I expected, my palms scraping against rough stone as my knee struck the ground.

The sting came sharp and immediate.

For a second, I did not move.

The world seemed to pause around me.

They heard it.

I knew they did.

The sound had not been small. The fall had not been quiet. It had broken through the stillness in a way that should have pulled them back instantly.

Before, it would have.

Before, one of them would have been at my side before I even fully hit the ground. Hands on me, steadying me, lifting me, checking me without needing to ask.

Before, I would not have been alone.

My wolf flinched.

It was not the pain in my knee or the sting in my palms that made it recoil. It was something deeper. Something instinctive. The absence of them hit harder than the fall itself, like something that had always been there had suddenly been taken away.

A space where they should have been.

I pushed myself up slowly, keeping my movements controlled even as the ache settled into my body. Dirt clung to my hands, and a thin line of red marked where my skin had scraped against the stone.

Only then did I look up.

They had stopped.

All three of them stood a short distance ahead, turned halfway toward me. Their expressions were not panicked. Not even concerned.

Just aware.

The pause stretched longer than it should have.

Ronan’s gaze lingered on me for a moment before shifting away. Kael glanced down briefly, then back ahead. Edris exhaled under his breath, the sound quiet but edged with something I could not quite name.

No one moved.

No one came to me.

No one asked if I was hurt.

"You should watch your step," Edris said.

That was all.

The words settled heavily between us.

I held his gaze for a second, searching for something behind it, something familiar that would make sense of this distance, but I found nothing.

Just indifference.

Or something close to it.

"I am fine," I said.

My voice came out steadier than I felt.

I rose fully to my feet without help, brushing the dirt from my hands. My knee protested when I put weight on it, but I ignored it.

I would not give them a reason to look at me like that again.

They turned away before I was even fully upright.

Just like that, they continued walking.

I stayed where I was for a moment, my eyes fixed on their backs as they moved ahead of me, as if nothing had happened.

As if I had not fallen.

As if I had not been left behind.

A memory surfaced without warning. The way Kael used to steady me even when I did not need it. The way Edris would complain and still reach for me without hesitation. The way Ronan’s presence alone used to feel like a shield around me, quiet but constant.

That had been real.

I knew it had been.

The way they all used to reach for me without thinking that was not something you imagined.

What I did not understand was how something that felt so certain could disappear so completely.

My wolf shifted again, restless and unsettled. It did not pull away from them. It did not turn its back. Instead, it lingered, reaching for something that no longer reached back the same way.

The distance felt wrong.

Nothing about this made sense anymore.

I drew in a slow breath and stepped forward, closing the space they had left between us. Each step felt heavier than the last, not because of the pain in my leg, but because of the weight settling quietly in my chest.

When I reached them, I did not try to speak.

Not this time.

Instead, I listened.

Their voices lowered slightly as I approached, just enough to remind me they knew I was there, just enough to keep me out of whatever they were saying.

I caught fragments.

"...not necessary..."

"...we will handle it..."

"...no need to involve..."

My gaze sharpened.

Not necessary.

We will handle it.

No need to involve.

The meaning settled slowly, but once it did, it stayed. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

This was not just distance.

This was something else.

Something deliberate.

They were leaving me out.

My jaw tightened, but I said nothing.

If they thought I would chase their attention or demand answers, then they had already forgotten who I was.

I had not come this far, had not fought through everything that had been thrown at me, only to be pushed aside in my own war.

Silas still controlled a pack that belonged to me by right.

That had not changed.

And whatever this was, whatever had shifted in them, it would not change that either.