THE ALPHA'S LUNA AND HIS TRIPLETS

"Wolfless! Defective! No wolf!" The chant was louder than the drums of the Blue Blood Moon ceremony. Louder than my own heartbeat. Jane Storm, 18 years old, stood in the middle of the Silver Moon Packhouse circle. My white hair was down to my waist, tangled and dirty. My ice blue eyes were full of tears. I wore the same old white dress that every unshifted she-wolf wears on her shifting night. Tonight was supposed to be my night. The night every eighteen-year-old finally shifts for the first time under the Blue Blood Moon. The night I would finally prove I belonged. One by one, my batchmates shifted. Donna, my cousin, shifted into a brown wolf with golden eyes. The pack cheered. Jessa, my childhood friend, shifted into a sleek grey wolf. The pack cheered louder. Even weak little Nina, who was always sick, shifted into a small white wolf. She howled and everyone clapped. Then it was my turn. Alpha Marcus, my own uncle, called my name. "Jane Storm of Silver Moon Pack. Step forward." My legs shook as I stepped into the center. The huge red moon was right above us. The Moon Goddess statue was watching. Every wolf in Silver Moon was watching. Three hundred wolves. I closed my eyes. I called her. I begged her inside my chest. "Come out, please. Please, wolf. Please show yourself. I'm begging you." Nothing. No burning in my bones. No cracking of my spine. No fur sprouting. No howl tearing from my throat. Silence. Complete silence inside me where my wolf should have been. I opened my eyes. Tears fell. Alpha Marcus stood up from his throne. His face was red with anger. "Jane Storm of Silver Moon. You have no wolf. You are wolfless. You are defective. You have no place in Silver Moon Pack." My knees gave way and I fell on the cold dirt. "No... please... I can still feel her... she's just late... she's just sleeping... please give me one more chance..." "Late?" Luna Sarah, my aunt, laughed and threw a small old bag at my feet. It hit my face. "Eighteen years late? You are an omega. No, worse than an omega. An omega has a wolf, even if weak. You don't even have that! You are a human pretending to be a wolf!" The whole pack laughed. The same pack that raised me. That fed me. That I called family. "A wolfless omega cannot be a Luna. Cannot be a warrior. Cannot even be a pack maid. You are useless! You are a liability! What if humans find out we have a wolfless wolf? They will hunt us!" I looked around for one friendly face. My best friend Lily. My cousin Ben. The elder who taught me. No one looked at me. Everyone looked away, disgusted. "Leave," Alpha Marcus ordered, his Alpha voice booming and making my chest hurt even without a wolf to submit. "Tonight. Leave Silver Moon. Go to the human city. Live as a human. Because you are not a wolf. The Forbidden Forest is your only way out. If the rogues kill you, not our problem. We will announce tomorrow that Jane Storm died from weak blood during her shifting ceremony. No one will look for you." Leave. That one word broke me. Lily finally ran to me, crying, shoving the small bag into my hands. Inside: two hundred pesos, a bottle of water, one small bread, and my mother's old locket. My mother died giving birth to me. "Run, Jane. Please run before they change their mind and kill you here. I love you. I'm sorry I can't do more," Lily whispered. I hugged her one last time. Then I ran. I didn't look back at the packhouse where I grew up for eighteen years. Where I swept floors and washed dishes as an omega. I ran into the Forbidden Forest, barefoot, in my white ceremony dress, under the red Blue Blood Moon. The forest was dark and scary and cold. Every wolf in our region knew not to enter this forest. Because this forest was not ours. This forest belonged to the North. To the empire. To the Cursed Alpha. Draven Sinclair. I had only heard his name in whispers when traders came to Silver Moon. Alpha Lycan of the North. Twenty nine years old. Six foot four. Billionaire CEO of Sinclair Tower that sits on the edge of this forest. The most feared Alpha in the whole country. They say he was cursed since he was ten years old when his Luna mother was killed by rogues. No she wolf can touch him without burning. No wolf can go near him. His own Lycan is half dead and raging inside him. He hasn't had a Luna in nineteen years. Silver Moon was a small pack of three hundred wolves. Sinclair was an empire of ten thousand Lycans. We were nothing compared to them. But I didn't have a choice. The human city was on the other side of this forest. Three days walk if I don't get eaten. On my first night in the forest, I heard them. Howls. Not pack howls. Rogue howls. Hungry and wild. I climbed the tallest tree I could find, my dress tore more, my feet bled. I sat on a branch and hid, hugging my knees, sobbing silently. "I'm wolfless... I'm really wolfless... Moon Goddess, why? Why did you make me like this? What did I do wrong?" I touched my chest where my wolf should have been. Empty. Cold. No second heartbeat. Just my own human heart beating fast with fear. The wind blew cold. The forest smelled of pine and danger and wet earth. I was hungry. My bread was gone. My water was half empty. I looked at the red moon through the leaves. "I will survive," I whispered to myself, to the Moon Goddess, to anyone listening. "Even without a wolf. Even as defective. Even if no pack wants me. I will reach the human city. I will find work. I will live. I will prove them wrong. That a wolfless girl can live without a pack." I wiped my tears with my dirty hand. My white hair glowed silver under the moonlight. My ice-blue eyes, which my pack said were cursed, shone with tears but also with determination. I was Jane Storm. Wolfless. Omega. Defective. Rejected. But I was alive. And tomorrow, I would keep walking. The Forbidden Forest was only the beginning.