Chapter One
1317 Words
Thalia’s hands were raw.
The floorboards were wet with the remnants of spilled water, her sleeves soaked as she scrubbed in circles, trying not to miss a single spot.
Aunt Mara’s shadow fell across the kitchen doorway.
“You call that cleaning?” Mara’s voice was low, sharp, a whip in the air.
Thalia flinched, her fingers trembling.
Mara stepped closer, heel clicking against the wood.
“You’re going to get us all in trouble,” she snapped, grabbing Thalia’s wrist and twisting it lightly, just enough to make her wince.
“Yes, Aunt Mara,” Thalia whispered, bending her head, trying to make herself smaller than she already was.
Outside, laughter.
Wolf pups shifting for the first time—fur sprouting along arms, teeth sharpening, eyes glowing gold.
Thalia pressed her cheek against the cool windowpane, wishing she could join them, wishing her bones would burn with that power.
But nothing happened. She stayed human, fragile, invisible.
The door slammed open.
Alpha Darius’s boots thudded across the floor. Thalia froze, heart pounding. Even his shadow carried authority, and when his golden eyes flicked toward her, she felt every mistake she’d ever made crawl over her skin like ice.
“Clumsy,” he said, almost casually, voice smooth, dark.
Thalia flinched.
His gaze lingered longer than it should have, a predator sizing up prey.
“I can’t have useless pups in my pack,” he added, and turned, leaving a chill in the air where he had stood.
The scent of him lingered—iron, smoke, dominance. Her stomach twisted.
She exhaled slowly, forcing her fingers to keep scrubbing.
That night, she curled in the corner of the laundry room, mattress thin beneath her, ears straining for the distant howls.
Wolves marking territory. Wolves testing strength. Wolves that weren’t hers.
She pressed her hand to her chest, heart hammering.
If she had a wolf, she thought, maybe it would answer back.
Maybe someone would see her then.
Maybe someone would care.
The dark outside her window whispered in response.
But only the wind howled back.
And Thalia’s hands shook. Not from cold. From something else.
Something she didn’t yet understand.
Night fell like a velvet shroud, thick and heavy, pressing the forest close.
Thalia knelt by the thin window of the laundry room, fingers pressed to the cold glass, staring at the silver glow of the rising moon.
“Moon Goddess,” she whispered, voice barely audible, trembling. “If you’re out there… if you see me… why am I always so alone? Why can’t I… be like them?”
The wind swept through the trees, carrying the scent of pine, damp earth… and wolves. Wolves she could hear, feel, but not become.
Her thoughts flicked back to Darius.
Even now, hours after he left the kitchen, the memory of his gaze lingered. Golden eyes that seemed to pierce into her, reading her very bones.
It wasn’t just judgment, she realized. Something darker. Something… hungry.
Her pulse quickened, a mix of fear and confusion.
Why did she feel it?
Why did her stomach twist at the thought of him?
She pressed her hands over her ears, trying to push the thought away. But the whisper of the moonlight on her skin seemed to answer back—warm, pulsing, like it understood her longing.
She shifted on the thin mattress, curling in on herself.
A lone howl echoed through the night—sharp, urgent, filled with purpose.
Thalia’s breath caught in her throat.
She froze, listening.
Her fingers tightened against the thin blanket as she waited, every muscle tense, every sense straining inward. She had heard others talk about this moment before, whispered between older pups and said with reverence by the adults. The first response. The answering call. The way something inside them woke up when the moon sang.
She waited for heat.
For pressure in her chest.
For a pull in her bones.
For anything at all.
Nothing came.
The howl faded into the distance, swallowed by the trees, leaving behind only the quiet creak of the old laundry room and the faint whistle of wind slipping through the cracks in the walls.
Her heart continued to beat—too fast, too loud—but it was just a heart. Human. Fragile. Alone.
She pressed her palm flat against her chest, as if she could reach inside herself, as if she could find whatever everyone else seemed to have been born with. Her fingers curled into the fabric of her shirt, nails digging in hard enough to hurt.
“Please,” she whispered, not sure who she was begging anymore. “Just… something.”
She closed her eyes.
She imagined it the way she had a hundred times before. A spark. A warmth spreading beneath her skin. A presence that was hers—strong, loyal, alive. Something that would stand with her instead of leaving her behind.
The silence answered.
It pressed in on her, thick and heavy, wrapping around her ribs until it felt hard to breathe. The emptiness inside her was vast, echoing, merciless.
Her throat tightened.
A bitter, familiar realization settled over her like cold ash.
Of course nothing happened.
It never did.
Her hand fell limply back to her side. She stared up at the low ceiling, at the water stains and cracks she had memorized over the years, each one a reminder of how small her world was. How contained. How easy it was to forget she existed at all.
The moonlight slipped through the narrow window again, pale and distant. It brushed over her skin without warmth, without recognition. It did not linger. It did not respond.
She turned her face away from it.
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back fiercely. Crying only made Aunt Mara angrier. Crying made her weak. Crying changed nothing.
Outside, another howl rose—then another. Wolves calling to each other, voices overlapping, confident and sure. They belonged to something bigger. They were something bigger.
She wasn’t.
“I know,” she murmured to the darkness, voice rough. “I know I don’t have one.”
Saying it aloud hurt more than she expected.
She pulled her knees closer to her chest, curling inward until she felt impossibly small. The thin mattress offered no comfort. The room smelled faintly of soap and damp cloth, a reminder of her place—useful only when there was work to be done.
The pack would be stronger tonight. Louder. More alive.
And she would remain here, tucked away like something inconvenient.
Her thoughts drifted, unwanted, to the kitchen earlier—to the weight of Alpha Darius’s gaze, to the way his eyes had lingered on her just a second too long. The memory made her stomach twist, unease coiling low and slow.
She didn’t understand it.
She didn’t want to.
She shoved the thought aside, forcing herself to focus on the rhythm of her breathing instead. In. Out. Slow. Quiet. Invisible.
That was how she survived.
The night stretched on. The howls gradually faded, replaced by distant movement, the forest settling back into itself. Time passed without ceremony, without acknowledgment.
Just like her.
Eventually, exhaustion pulled at her limbs, heavy and relentless. Her eyes burned. Her body ached in places that had nothing to do with work and everything to do with being unwanted for too long.
As sleep crept in, one last thought surfaced—soft, aching, stubborn.
If she had been born different…
If she had been chosen…
If the Moon Goddess had looked her way even once…
But the thought dissolved before it could finish.
The darkness claimed her instead.
And Thalia drifted into uneasy sleep knowing one simple, unchangeable truth:
She was still wolfless.
Still unseen.
Still alone.
And the night did not care.
And Thalia’s pulse quickened.
A storm was coming.
And it had her name written in silver light.
- Writer
