Howl against Hunt

Chapter 2: Orders and Obedience

Lyra couldn’t sleep last night.

Not really.

The pull from the forest never really left her, even after she had returned to her cabin. She paced round her room, replaying the encounter again and again. The way the trees shifted…the way he stood there.

Her wolf throbbed under her skin, restless and angry, whispering things she didn’t want to hear.

He’s dangerous. This is wrong. STAY AWAY.

Lyra flopped on her bed, hugging her knees to her chest. She tried to push the thoughts out of her mind, tried to convince herself it was all part of her imagination.

Hunters didn’t freeze. Hunters don’t…hesitate.

And yet…

The pull was there…quiet, insistent and nagging.

Her father would kill her if he ever found out that she went that far. Not just scold her. Not just punish her. Kill her.

The thought made her release a humorless laugh despite herself.

He may try. She knew he had a temper. But she wasn’t a child anymore. She wasn’t going to crawl back like she used to.

Still, when her father entered the main hall the next morning, all her confidence evaporated.

Alaric…

The alpha. Her father. The man whose shadow stretched across the entire pack like a living thing. He was broad, tall, impossibly solid, and he didn’t even need to say a word for the room to tighten around everyone.

“Lyra,” he said, voice low, controlled, like a river of ice.

She froze mid-step.

Oh s**t.

“Yes, father?”

He studied her, eyes sharp as steel. There wasn’t anything in his expression that gave her away, she hoped so, yet she felt it. The quiet accusation. The awareness. The scrutiny. Like he knew but was waiting for her to out herself.

Like hell she’d do that.

“Borders,” he said finally, and the word was heavier than any whip. “They exist for a reason. Not for you to wander because you’re… curious.”

‘How’d he-‘

Lyra tilted her head, trying to keep her voice steady “I don’t know wh-“

“You disobeyed.” His tone cut her off. Precise and fatal.

Her wolf stirred. Protective. Angry. Shoving at her ribcage as if it could fight her father for her.

Alaric ignored it. Of course he did. He had no idea. Not yet.

“You will not go beyond the inner territory again,” he continued. “Not alone. Not at night. Not for… whatever pull you think you feel.”

Lyra clenched her fists. Her teeth. Her heart.

“Yes, Father,” she said. The words tasted like ash.

She wanted to argue. To tell him that the pull wasn’t just curiosity. That it was something alive, something…

But her words died before they reached her throat.

Alaric’s eyes softened for a brief moment. Just a flicker. And then they were steel again. “Good. Learn obedience. You are an Alpha’s daughter, not some wandering fool. Your wolf may think otherwise, but you will obey.”

Obey.

She repeated the word in her mind as she left the hall. Obey. Obey. Obey.

Her wolf growled softly. The sound was a whisper in her skull.

Liar.

Lyra shook her head and forced herself to walk to the training grounds. The patrols would be running drills today, and she had to be seen. She had to be obedient. She had to be… normal.

Her friends were there already. She forced a smile, shoved the pull, the forest, the hunter, the bond all into a tight little box in her chest where it couldn’t escape.

But it wouldn’t stay contained.

Every time her eyes drifted toward the tree line, her chest clenched involuntarily.

And deep down she knew, tonight, she’d be pulled again.

The moon never forgets.

The moon wouldn’t let her forget.

And neither would he.