Return to Ashes - Elara
The town smelled of smoke and baked bread, a scent that should have brought comfort but now only twisted in my stomach. My legs ached with every step, muscles trembling, ribs screaming in protest, but the memory of the dungeon and the forest propelled me forward. I had survived. I had clawed my way through pain and darkness. Surely, I could make it home.
The streets were eerily quiet. Windows shuttered, doors closed. No friendly faces. No one called my name. Every step echoed across the cobblestones, a hollow reminder that the town I had known had moved on without me—or perhaps never cared at all. My stomach tightened as I approached the familiar slope where my cottage leaned tiredly against the hillside, the forest behind it like a shadowed wall.
My heart sank. My home—my refuge—was no longer mine. The front door hung slightly ajar. Paint peeled in angry streaks where Hector had left his mark, but now it wasn’t just vandalism. I slowly went down the street to my shop, just to see the sign that read Elara’s Creations was broken, splintered along the edges. My chest tightened, every rib stabbing as if the stones of the town itself were pressing down.
And there he was. Hector. My landlord. His silhouette filled the doorway, broad-shouldered and smug, arms crossed over a chest that had never known a day’s labor. Behind him, a couple of other villagers lingered, faces indifferent, eyes trained elsewhere. No one came to help. No one spoke.
“You’re late,” Hector said, voice low, almost casual, as if I were nothing more than a mule he had expected to collapse under its own weight. “No payment. No excuses. Your shop belongs to me now.”
I swallowed, tasting blood and iron in my mouth from my escape through the forest and the dungeon. My knees threatened to give out, but I straightened. My hand went to the strap where the breastplate use to be attached to my back, the only thing that felt like a lifeline.
“I—” I started, but Hector’s laugh cut through me like a whip.
“You think your little escape matters? You owe me, especially after being late by 3 days. You’ve failed. And I collect.” My head spins for a moment realizing that I was trapped and in and out of conciousness for 3 days!
His fist hit first, shoving me backward. Pain exploded across my ribs, my shoulder, and my face smacked against the rough wood of the doorway. I stumbled but tried to keep upright, tried to stand tall, but the world spun with every strike. The villagers didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t intervene.
He struck again, this time a sharp kick to the side, and I fell to the cobblestones, gasping for air, wind knocked out of me. My vision blurred, dark spots dancing across the edges. My head pounded with each heartbeat. Still, a flicker of determination burned within me. I had survived worse. I would survive this.
“Get up,” Hector sneered, looming over me. “Or I’ll make sure you never walk again.”
I coughed, blood streaking my lips, and forced myself to my hands and knees. Every movement tore into my ribs, every breath a knife in my lungs. My knuckles scraped against stone as I rose, sheer will keeping me upright.
“You don’t own me,” I rasped, my voice cracking but defiant.
He laughed, the sound cruel, hollow. “I own everything in this town that doesn’t pay. And that includes you.”
The villagers watched, silent witnesses, their faces blank or turned away. No hand reached out. No one stepped in. I realized then that I was utterly alone—completely and utterly alone—against a man who had spent years crushing anyone weaker than him.
Another blow caught me across the face, spinning me sideways. Pain surged, sharp and consuming. I stumbled again, hitting the edge of my shop door. I could hear Hector moving, heavy and confident, claiming the space I had built with my own hands. My chest heaved, tears of rage and exhaustion mixing with blood and dirt.
And then, faintly, a glimmer of gold caught my eye. A flash through the open doorway—a movement in the shadows, impossible to place in the dim light. Two points of light, glowing with intensity. Golden. Watchful. Alive.
The golden eyes.
But this time they were the eyes belonging to a man I had never seen before.
I froze, heart hammering, disbelief crashing over me. And beside him, another presence stepped from the shadows: Beta Marcus, solid and unwavering, eyes sharp, a quiet authority that demanded attention. Their arrival shifted the air. Suddenly, the street felt smaller, the town quieter. Hector’s confidence faltered, just slightly, but enough for me to notice.
The golden eyes of this Alpha held mine for a heartbeat, calm and assessing, and for the first time in hours, I felt a flicker of hope. I wasn’t entirely alone anymore. Someone—had seen the injustice, had heard the cries my body could not voice. And though he hadn’t intervened yet, the weight of their presence was enough to make Hector hesitate.
I rose a little taller, chest heaving, face bruised, eyes swollen. My body ached. Every nerve screamed. But the fire inside me—sharpened in the dungeon, honed in the forest—burned brighter than ever.
I didn’t know what would happen next, but I knew this: I had endured. I had survived. I had clawed my way back into the town I had built and into a fight I wasn’t yet ready to lose.
And now, with this Alpha's golden eyes watching me, and Beta Marcus stepping into the light beside him, the world had shifted. The rules had changed.
Hector didn’t yet know the storm he had awakened.