The Fifteenth Morning

They called me wolfless. A cursed widow who brought death to her mate. My name is Elara. I am twenty-one years old, and for three years I have lived as a ghost in my own pack, the Silverfang Pack. I was not always a ghost. I was once the Beta's daughter, loved, celebrated. My parents said I would have a strong wolf. But I never shifted. On my eighteenth birthday, I mated Jaxon. He was the Beta's son, strong, handsome, kind, and destined to be the next Beta. He loved me even though I had no wolf. He said, "You don't need a wolf to be strong, Elara." The elders said our mating was blessed by the Moon Goddess herself. The whole pack celebrated. For one night, I thought my curse was over. But when the morning came, he was cold. He lay beside me, his beautiful face pale, his heart stopped. No wounds on his body. No poison in his blood. No scent of a rogue. The pack healer checked him three times. Just death. A silent, unexplained death on our mating night. And they blamed me. "Elara is wolfless," Luna of Silverfang hissed that morning, her eyes full of venom as she pointed at me while I was still holding Jaxon's cold hand. "A girl with no wolf is not a true werewolf. She is a curse. She killed him with her emptiness. Her cursed soul sucked his life." From that day, my name was erased. I became only "The Cursed Widow." When other girls at sixteen felt their wolves howl for the first time, felt that powerful presence inside them, I felt nothing. Only a vast, empty silence. An empty space in my soul where my wolf should have been. I would sit in the woods for hours, begging, "Please, come out. Please, save me." But no one ever answered. My own family disowned me. My mother, who once braided my hair, told me I was a disgrace to our bloodline. My father told the Alpha to banish me. The Alpha did not banish me — he did worse. He let me stay as a servant. For three years, I lived in the old storage hut behind the pack house. The roof leaked. In winter, the snow came inside. I cleaned floors, washed dishes after feasts I was never allowed to eat, and ate the leftovers the omegas left. The pack that once celebrated my birth now threw stones at me when I walked past to fetch water. Children called me cursed. I learned one thing in three years: silence is my only protection. If you say nothing, they get bored. If you cry, they laugh louder. Today is the worst day of my life. Worse than the day Jaxon died. Today is my second wedding. Last week, Alpha Kael of the Blood Moon Pack arrived. He is the Alpha King, the strongest Alpha in the entire northern region. His pack, Blood Moon, is five times bigger than Silverfang. Silverfang needs his protection because rogue attacks have increased. Alpha Kael made a deal with my Alpha. To seal the alliance, a marriage must happen between the packs. He ordered his younger brother to marry someone from Silverfang. His younger brother is Alpha Rhys. Everyone knows Alpha Rhys. They call him the Cruel Alpha. He is twenty-six, ruthless, cold, and he hates weakness more than anything. He kills rogues with his bare hands. He does not forgive. And he hates me more than anyone, because he was Jaxon's best friend since childhood. He believes I really did kill Jaxon. He told me at Jaxon's funeral, "I will never forgive you, Elara." "Elara! Hurry up! The Alpha does not like to wait! You think we have all day for a wolfless thing like you?" The sharp voice of Luna Margaret, Rhys's mother, screamed from outside my hut, making me flinch. I looked at myself in the broken mirror nailed to my wall. I was wearing a simple white dress. It was not a wedding gown. It was old, faded, with a small tear on the sleeve, and it was too big for me because it belonged to Luna Margaret's old maid. My long black hair was tangled because I had no brush. My green eyes, which Jaxon once said looked like forest light, were dull and tired, with dark circles. I looked like a servant going to clean, not a bride going to marry an Alpha. I stepped out. Luna Margaret was standing there in her fine silk dress, her face twisted with disgust. "Goddess," she muttered, looking me up and down. "You should be grateful, you wolfless thing. My son Rhys is sacrificing his future by marrying you. Alpha Kael ordered it to keep the alliance with Silverfang. Do you know how many beautiful, powerful she-wolves want to be his Luna? And he has to marry you. A cursed widow who killed her first husband. If it were up to me, I would have thrown you to the rogues long ago to be their meal." I said nothing. I just stared at the mud on her shoes. "Let's go. Don't embarrass us," she snapped. The ceremony was held in the great hall of Blood Moon, not Silverfang. The entire Blood Moon Pack was there, hundreds of wolves, whispering, pointing, laughing when they saw me walk in with Luna Margaret. I could hear them. "That's her? The one who killed her mate?" "She doesn't even have a wolf. How can she be Luna?" "Alpha Rhys must be so angry." And at the altar, at the very end of the long hall, he stood. Alpha Rhys. He was devastatingly handsome, more than any story. Tall, with broad shoulders that filled his black suit, jet-black hair that fell slightly over his forehead, and icy blue eyes that could freeze your soul with one look. He looked like a god of war. But his face... his face was a mask of pure, cold anger. He was not looking at me like a groom. He was looking at me like I was a punishment. When I walked towards him, my old shoes making a soft sound on the marble, his eyes locked with mine. And the hatred in them made me flinch and look down. He grabbed my arm roughly as soon as I reached the altar, his claws slightly extended, digging into my skin. I winced but did not make a sound. "You," he whispered, so low only I could hear, his voice like ice cutting. "If you think this marriage will save you, you are wrong. You will be my wife in name only, for the alliance. You will never be my Luna. You will never share my room, let alone my bed. You are nothing but a cursed widow who killed my best friend, and I will make you regret the day you were born, Elara. Every single day." The priest, an old elder with shaking hands, began the ceremony. "Do you, Alpha Rhys of Blood Moon, take Elara of Silverfang as your wife and Luna, to protect even though she is wolfless?" Rhys did not look away from me. "I do," he said, his voice cold as ice, loud enough for all to hear. "For duty. For my pack." The hall laughed. A few clapped mockingly. "Do you, Elara of Silverfang, take Alpha Rhys as your Alpha and husband, to obey and serve?" I wanted to say no. I wanted to run out of that hall, into the snow, even if the rogues took me. I wanted to scream that I did not kill Jaxon. But where would I go? I had no wolf to run fast. No family to hide me. No money. No home. If I said no, they would banish me to the rogue lands tonight and I would be dead by morning. "I do," I whispered. My voice was so small, I thought no one heard. But the Moon Goddess heard. And as soon as I said it, a strange, searing, white-hot pain shot through my chest. It was not my heart. It was deeper. It was in my very soul, in that empty space where my wolf should have been. It was like lightning cracking open a dark cave. I cried out and fell to my knees, clutching my chest. The whole hall gasped. Rhys grabbed my arm, thinking I was doing drama to get attention. "Don't you dare cause a scene here, you cursed—" he hissed. But I was not causing a scene. For the first time in twenty-one years, I heard something inside the darkness. A faint, weak, but incredibly powerful growl. Far away, but coming closer. Like a giant wolf waking up from a thousand-year sleep. ...Elara... my Elara... Was that... my wolf? I gasped again, tears in my eyes, not from pain, but from shock. Something was waking up. Something powerful and ancient and made of pure moonlight that had been sleeping inside me for twenty-one years, waiting for this exact moment. The Moon Goddess had not cursed me that night Jaxon died. She had not taken my wolf away. She had been keeping it safe. Waiting for me to be strong enough. And tonight, on my second wedding night, in front of the pack that called me cursed, the Blessed Luna was finally going to rise.