1 - Her Scent
1570 Words
Lucia
The night reeked of smoke and sorrow.
Lucia had never known wolves to be quiet, any gathering the human girl observed was full of shouts, howls, and at least one fight, if not two.
This silence felt especially heavy—a hush born of desperation, not reverence. Even an outsider like her could sense it.
She knelt beside a coughing child near the fire, murmuring soft words as she pressed a cool hand onto the girl’s brow. Her other hand hovered, not quite touching, as she felt the flicker of illness through her gift, like heat rising off coals.
Lucia couldn’t fix it, not when her fires burned so low from her most recent healing. Or…she should say, her most recent failure, since neither mother nor child had been saved.
Her throat tightened, and she pushed the memory back. Not now.
She did what she could, even if it was just a light caress of energy. Not much better than a cold towel pressed to a forehead, in truth.
The girl relaxed with a soft sigh. Lucia smiled faintly and tucked a blanket tighter around her small shoulders. That was all she could offer tonight.
Around her, the Blackwood Pack mourned—not for a death, but for something more insidious: the slow, creeping loss of a future.
Every empty cradle. Every stillborn pup. Every woman who bled without ever knowing life stirred in her womb.
Lucia didn’t belong to the grief, but she felt it just the same.
The fires crackled weakly, their smoke curling into the canopy above like unanswered prayers. Hunters murmured in tight clusters, furs pulled close. Elders sat stiff beneath the weight of history and fear. Children clung to their mothers, wide-eyed and restless.
And above them all, watching like a predator in stillness, stood the pack's Alpha. Kaelen.
Lucia hadn’t meant to look for him, but her eyes found him anyway. He stood apart from the others, tall and tense, the firelight glinting off the sharp angles of his face. His expression was unreadable—stone beneath the fur-lined cloak he wore. Alpha of the Blackwood, a title that must feel heavier every day.
Her gaze lingered too long.
He felt it. He always did.
Kaelen turned, eyes locking with hers.
Heat rushed to her face. She looked away quickly, fingers suddenly busy adjusting the blanket again.
She should’ve stayed home.
A breeze stirred the clearing, carrying with it the scent of pine, fire, and something darker. Her own scent, she knew, now drifted with the wind—something faintly floral, yet layered with something ancient and wild. Something other. She didn’t smell like them.
She never had.
Raised among wolves, Lucia had always been the exception. The girl with no fur, no fangs, no howl in her throat. A healer with a gift no wolf could explain. They tolerated her presence and respected her skill. But she was not one of them.
And now, she wasn’t even invisible anymore.
Lately, the stares had changed. They were sharper, longer, weighted with something she couldn’t name. Instinct prickled along her spine. Hunger. Curiosity. Something close to… claiming.
Kaelen hadn’t taken his eyes off her. Lucia felt pinned under that jade green stare, stomach tight, palms clammy.
Before she could look away again, a familiar voice cracked through the stillness.
“The forest remembers,” Maeve murmured. The old woman’s silver hair shimmered in the firelight, her eyes unfocused. Her voice floated like smoke, soft and strange. “The earth holds the answer. The blood of the outsider... the heart of the pack…”
A shiver ran through Lucia’s chest. She knew that tone. Knew what came next.
People looked away. The elders exchanged glances. Most dismissed Maeve’s ramblings. Ever since the former Alpha’s death, her mind had wandered deeper into riddles and whispers. But Lucia saw the way Kaelen stiffened. The way he stared at his mother like she was speaking in tongues meant only for him.
Then his gaze snapped back to Lucia—and it was different now. Sharper. Possessive. As if Maeve’s prophecy had peeled back a layer he’d been trying to keep hidden.
Ragnar appeared beside him, his tall frame shadowed but alert. Lucia had always had an easy, if slightly exasperating, banter with Kaelen’s right-hand wolf, a loose alliance forged over years of his playful provocations and her sharp retorts.
The blonde wolf was a true hunter, wily and ruthless. Lucia often mused that he was the edge of cruel strategy that Kaelen’s raw power needed.
Ragnar’s nostrils flared. He was scenting the wind too.
She took two steps closer to the flames, hoping that the smoke would cover her scent.
His eyes found her, anyway, gleaming a brighter gold in the moonlight. A slow smile spread across his face, with an artfully deliberate flash of canines.
Darn. Caught.
“She smells different tonight,” he murmured to Kaelen, louder than he needed to, loud enough for her human ears to catch. “Not like prey. Like something waking up.”
Lucia held her breath.
Maybe he would leave it at that, and for once, not provoke anyone further.
Kaelen moved—swift and sure, stepping between Ragnar and her like a silent snarl. The Alpha's presence rippled through the clearing.
“Back off,” Kaelen said, voice low.
“I didn’t touch her,” Ragnar replied in an amused drawl.
“You were about to.”
A charged silence stretched between them. Ragnar’s lip curled slightly, not quite a snarl or smirk. “You’re the one who said we need to strengthen the bloodline, Alpha. Or does that rule stop applying when it comes to her?”
Yep. That was her cue to make a quick exit. Lucia turned to look for a way out of the central clearing, but the crowds were pressed in tight, waiting for Kaelen’s announcements.
Kaelen stepped closer, voice low and edged with warning. “It’s dangerous to breed with humans.”
“Perhaps,” Ragnar said, eyes gleaming, “but if the blood of the outsider is what saves us, you might want to decide who claims it before someone else does.”
“I already have. Lucia is our best healer. It is too reckless to risk her. You going to stay in line, or do I need to rip you to shreds with children watching?”
Even Ragnar knew better than to keep pushing. “Yes, Alpha.”
But when Kaelen strode away, the Beta turned back to grin at Lucia, who just shook her head at him. Perhaps there was a part of him that liked receiving regular beatings.
“Troublemaker,” she mouthed and then rolled her eyes at his answering shrug.
A hush blanketed the clearing.
Kaelen stood tall on the stone dais, flanked by flame and shadow, the air around him thick with unspoken expectation. His voice—low, steady, and absolute—broke the silence like a blade.
“The council has spoken.”
Lucia felt her breath catch. Around her, the wolves shifted—some in anticipation, others in wary silence. Even the elders raised their heads.
“It is time to act,” he continued. “Our bloodline fades. The Moon Goddess has gone silent. And so, we will not wait for destiny to find us.”
Lucia’s stomach turned, though she’d sensed it coming. The whispers. The tension. The way the elders had gathered more frequently, always glancing her way like a question no one wanted to speak aloud.
Kaelen’s gaze moved across the crowd like a searchlight—cool, calculating, heavy with the weight of a man carrying a dying legacy.
“We will choose.”
The words struck like a drumbeat. Final. Unyielding.
Not guided by fate. Not chosen by the Goddess.
Chosen by strategy. Survival. Breeding.
Lucia swallowed hard, trying not to let the tremor reach her hands. A few wolves nearby murmured; others remained silent. But all eyes flicked toward the women—young, strong, fertile.
And then… toward her.
The human. The outsider.
Her hands clenched at her sides. She didn’t need to see their faces to feel the judgment. The fear. The strange, unsettling interest.
Kaelen continued, unmoved by the shift in the air. “The trials will begin at the next full moon. All who are eligible will be considered.”
Eligible.
The word landed with a thud in her chest. Not just pack-born. Not just wolves. Anyone the Alpha deemed necessary.
Her skin prickled as if frost had touched her nape. He hadn’t looked directly at her, not since the firelight caught her face. But she could feel his awareness like a rope tied between them, pulling tight with each breath.
The crowd murmured again—questions, protest, eagerness. She barely heard it. Her focus was on Kaelen, on the way his jaw flexed as if bracing for backlash.
“The traditions of the past will not save us,” he said, voice rising just enough to command silence. “What we need now is strength. Unity. Bloodlines that will endure.” And then, softer—quieter—but somehow more dangerous: “All will be revealed in time.”
Lucia took a step back, her boots crunching against the packed dirt. She wasn’t meant to be here. Not truly. Not for this.
And yet, she had a feeling this was only the beginning.
- Writer
