Chapter 4 The Accidentally

Sera's POV

The first thing I became aware of was the pain.

It was everywhere, spreading through my body so quickly that for several seconds I could not tell where the worst of it was coming from.

My ribs felt as though something had driven straight through them, my left leg burned from my hip to my knee, and my head throbbed with every beat of my heart. I tried to breathe deeply and immediately regretted it when a sharp pain tore through my side and forced a broken gasp from my throat.

My eyes opened slowly, but the world refused to come into focus. Bright headlights shone somewhere ahead of me, making me squint against the glare, while the darkness around them seemed to move strangely as I tried to understand what I was seeing.

The last thing I remembered was running along the road, hearing the screech of tires and turning toward the headlights before the car struck me.

I had been hit.

The thought came with a rush of fear that was almost as powerful as the pain itself.

I tried to move, but my body seemed determined to stay where it was. My right hand responded when I flexed my fingers, although my shoulder screamed when I tried to lift my arm. My left leg was worse. The moment I attempted to move it, pain shot through my hip and down toward my ankle, making me gasp as I dropped my head back against the cold surface beneath me.

The road.

I was still lying in the road.

I turned my head as carefully as I could and saw the car several metres away, its headlights illuminating the stretch of asphalt around me. The engine was still running, and the sound of it seemed strangely loud in the silence of the forest.

I couldn't see the driver from where I was lying, and I couldn't make myself move far enough to find out what had happened.

My first instinct was to call for help, but my throat felt dry and raw.

“Help.” The word barely left my mouth.

I swallowed and tried again, forcing as much strength into my voice as I could manage.

“Please, somebody help me.”

There was no answer. I stared toward the car, waiting for someone to appear, but the road remained empty. I wanted to believe the driver was coming for me, that someone would kneel beside me and tell me an ambulance was already on the way, but every second that passed made the silence feel heavier.

I reached toward my pocket and immediately remembered that my phone had been with me when I left the pack grounds. I searched the ground beside me with my eyes, hoping it had fallen nearby, but all I could see was darkness, scattered leaves, and the harsh beam of the headlights.

My heart began beating faster.

I needed to get back to the pack.

I knew that was impossible in my current condition, but the thought of staying there frightened me even more. Nobody knew where I had gone. I had left after Cairn rejected me without telling anyone that I was leaving the territory, and I had no idea how far I had travelled. If I remained unconscious on the road, there was no guarantee anyone would find me before morning.

I tried to sit up. The pain was immediate and overwhelming, but I forced myself to continue until I was resting partly on one elbow. My vision blurred so badly that I had to close my eyes for a moment, breathing through the nausea that rose in my stomach.

Something warm trickled down my side. I touched it carefully and looked at my fingers.

Blood.

There was enough of it to frighten me, but not as much as there should have been after an accident like this. I could feel the warmth of my blood beneath my fingertips, yet even as I watched, the bleeding seemed to slow.

I frowned and touched the wound again. The skin beneath my hand was hot. Not feverish, but strangely warm, as though something beneath it had been heated from the inside. The sensation spread outward from my ribs, moving slowly through my chest and down toward my stomach.

I froze. I knew that feeling. I had felt it at the track several nights ago.

That was when I had first heard the voice.

My breathing became shallow as I waited for it to happen again, although I wasn't sure whether I wanted it to. There had been no explanation for the voice then, and there was even less of one now. I had never shifted, never seen my wolf, and never experienced anything that would make me believe there was another presence living inside me.

Yet the warmth continued spreading through my body.

I pressed my palm against my chest and felt my heart racing beneath it.

For years I had been told I was an Omega, and I had never argued with anyone who said it because I had never had anything else to show them. I had never felt my wolf's presence the way other wolves described theirs, and I had never experienced the pull toward a shift. Even after turning twenty-four, I had remained exactly the same, which had only strengthened everyone's belief that there was nothing unusual about me.

I had accepted that explanation because it was easier than wondering why my body sometimes felt as though something was waiting beneath the surface.

Now, lying injured on an empty road, I couldn't ignore it.

The warmth reached my injured leg, and almost immediately the terrible pain began to dull.

I stared down at myself, confused by the change.

The pain hadn't disappeared completely, but it had become bearable, as though something inside me was easing it. I moved my fingers over the wound near my ribs and felt the torn skin beneath them.

The bleeding had almost stopped. I should have been relieved but instead, I was frightened.

My body was doing something I didn't understand, and I had no one to ask.

I closed my eyes and tried to gather enough strength to move, but a faint sound suddenly brushed against my thoughts.

Stay awake.

My eyes opened. I stared into the darkness, my heart pounding harder than before. The voice had been unmistakable. It was the same feminine voice I had heard at the track.

For several seconds I couldn't move because fear had taken over where the pain left off. I listened for footsteps, for someone moving through the trees, for anything that could explain where the voice had come from, but there was nothing except the distant hum of the car and the wind moving through the branches.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

The question sounded ridiculous the moment I said it, but I needed an answer.

None came.

I swallowed and forced myself to look toward the road again. The headlights were still shining, and the cold night air was beginning to settle over me.

My clothes were damp, my body was shaking, and exhaustion was becoming harder to fight.

I couldn't stay here.

I placed both hands against the road and tried to pull myself forward, but the moment I shifted my weight, pain tore through my ribs again. I gasped and stopped, waiting until I could breathe properly.

I wasn't going anywhere. That frightened me more than the accident itself. I had always been able to rely on my body. Running had taught me that even when something hurt, I could keep moving if I controlled my breathing and refused to give in. I had trained through injuries, exhaustion, disappointment, and every cruel comment my family had thrown at me because running had always given me somewhere to put everything I couldn't say.

Now my own body was refusing to cooperate.

I lowered my head against the road and fought the tears gathering in my eyes.

I didn't want to die here. The thought was simple, but it carried a weight that made my chest tighten.

I had spent fourteen years surviving people who wanted me to feel unwanted. I had survived being treated like a burden, being compared to Elara, watching Cairn choose someone else, and being told in a hundred different ways that I would never be enough.

I wasn't ready for my life to end because of a single moment on a dark road.

The warmth inside me returned, stronger this time, moving through my chest and into my arms. For a few seconds the cold seemed to retreat, and the trembling in my hands eased.

I didn't understand it, but I held onto it anyway.

Then I heard something in the distance. At first it was so faint that I wondered if I had imagined it, but the sound grew steadily louder until I recognized the low rumble of another vehicle approaching through the trees.

Relief rushed through me. Someone was coming.

I tried to lift my head, but my neck felt too heavy. I forced myself to remain awake as the sound grew closer, knowing that whoever was driving might not see me lying on the road until it was too late.

I gathered what little strength I had left and tried to lift one hand. It barely moved.

“Help,” I whispered, although I wasn't sure anyone could hear me.

The approaching engine became louder, and light began to appear between the trees. I fixed my eyes on it and fought against the darkness that was already beginning to close around me. My body was exhausted, my injuries were becoming harder to ignore, and whatever strange warmth had been keeping me conscious was slowly fading.

I knew someone was coming. I just didn't know whether they would reach me before I lost consciousness again.

The lights drew closer, washing over the road and my battered body, and I forced my eyes to remain open for as long as I could before the darkness finally began pulling me under.