BEAST OF THE NORTH

CHAPTER 4: FIRST BLOOD

Snow was still falling when Damien dragged me out of bed.

“Training starts at dawn,” he said. Like it was a fact, not a question. He tossed a set of black clothes on the bed. Pants, shirt, boots. All too big for me.

I stared at them. “You expect me to fight in these?”

“No,” he said. “I expect you to learn how to make them fit.”

Chei. No soft words. No “poor you”. Just work. Part of me hated him for it. The other part… respected it. Kyle never trained me. He just called me broken and walked away.

The training yard was behind the castle. Stone walls. Frozen ground. Wind that cut through skin. Three wolves were already waiting. Big. Scarred. All staring at me like I was meat.

Damien didn’t introduce them. He didn’t need to.

“This is Rook,” he said, pointing at the one with a torn ear. “He teaches pain.”

“This is Vex.” The female with silver eyes. “She teaches speed.”

“And this is Ghost.” The last one didn’t even blink. “He teaches death.”

I swallowed. “What do you teach?”

Damien stepped forward. His black coat snapped in the wind. “I teach you how to survive when the whole world wants you dead.”

He turned to me. “Shift.”

I froze. “I… I don’t know how.”

My wolf had been locked away for eighteen years. She woke up last night, but she didn’t come with an instruction manual.

Damien’s eyes narrowed. “Then we’ll do it the hard way.”

Rook stepped forward before I could ask what that meant. He hit me. Not hard enough to break ribs. Just hard enough to knock the air out of me.

I hit the ground. Pain exploded in my side. The wolf inside me snarled.

_Up,_ she growled. _They think we’re weak._

“Again,” Damien said. No emotion.

Rook hit me again. And again. Each time, the wolf got louder. Angrier. More awake.

By the fifth hit, I wasn’t thinking about Kyle. I wasn’t thinking about Bella. I was thinking about teeth. About claws. About making them bleed.

Something cracked in my chest. Not bone. Chains.

My vision went red. My bones twisted. Pain ripped through me, but this time I didn’t scream. I welcomed it.

Fur burst from my skin. Claws tore through my fingers. In seconds, I was no longer Selena Woods, the wolf-less trash. I was something else. Something with teeth.

I was huge. Bigger than I expected. Grey and black fur, eyes glowing silver. Not weak. Not broken.

The three wolves stepped back. Even Rook looked surprised.

Damien just watched. One eyebrow raised. “Took you long enough.”

The wolf inside me looked at him and bared her teeth. Not at him. At the memory of Kyle. Of rejection. Of eighteen years of being nothing.

_Run,_ she told me. _Let’s show them._

I lunged.

---

*Three hours later, I was bleeding from a dozen places. But so were they.*

Vex taught me speed. She was fast. But wolves are patient. I learned to wait. To watch her feet. To strike when she thought I was slow.

Ghost taught me death. He fought like a shadow. No sound. No warning. I got three scars from him. But I got one in too. Across his throat. He nodded at me after. Respect.

When it was over, I shifted back. Collapsed in the snow. My whole body shook. But I was smiling. For the first time in years, I was smiling because I was strong.

Damien walked over and crouched beside me. He pressed a cold cloth to the cut on my cheek.

“You did well,” he said. Quiet. Like he didn’t want the others to hear.

I looked up at him. Sweat and blood on my face. “Did I pass?”

His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “No one passes Ghost on day one. You drew blood. That’s enough.”

For one second, the Beast of the North looked proud. Of me. Of trash.

Then his head snapped up. His eyes went black. Not storm-cloud black. Void black.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me up. “Inside. Now.”

“What? Why?”

“Because Kyle feels it,” he said. Voice low, dangerous. “The bond he broke snapped. He knows you’re mated. He knows you’re alive. And he’s coming.”

The wind howled. Somewhere far away, a wolf howled back. Not one of Damien’s.

Silver Fang Pack.

Kyle was coming. And he wasn’t coming to apologize.

Damien looked down at me. At the blood on my face. At the new strength in my shoulders.

“Good,” he said. “Let him come. You’re not nothing anymore, Selena. Let’s show him what he threw away.”