This Is Just The Beginning
986 Words
Vespera's Pov
I stood there in the misty forest, holding my first kill, and something inside me roared to life.
The blood scent hit me like a drug. Rich and copper and vital. My stomach clenched with desperate hunger. I didn't think. Didn't hesitate. I tore into the rabbit with my teeth.
The taste should have disgusted me. .
The old Vespera—the one who'd attended pack dinners in pretty dresses and tried to use the right fork—would have been horrified. But that woman was gone. This new version of me, the one with a wolf, the one who'd been forced to survive, devoured the rabbit and felt power singing through her veins.
*Good,* Nyx purred. * That's good. But you need more. That's not nearly enough.*
She was right. The rabbit had barely taken the edge off my hunger. If anything, it had awakened something worse—a bottomless pit that demanded to be filled.
I spent the rest of the morning hunting. Nyx taught me how to move silently, how to use the wind to hide my scent, how to wait with perfect stillness until prey came close enough to strike. I caught two more rabbits and a squirrel. Ate them all raw, blood dripping down my chin.
It still wasn't enough.
By midday, the gnawing hunger had become unbearable. I was eating more in a few hours than I would normally eat in a week, and my body was still screaming for more. Something was wrong. This wasn't normal hunger. This was something else.
*We need to find a more substantial food source, Nyx said. Deer, maybe. Or we could try the human village.*
"The village?" Panic spiked through me. "I can't go there. Someone might recognize me. Julian's hunters—"
Are looking for a well-groomed Luna with long hair and expensive clothes. Not a wild girl with short hair and blood on her face. You don't look anything like the woman you were.
She had a point. I'd barely recognized myself the last time I looked in a reflective surface. Still, the risk seemed enormous.
But my stomach was cramping again with hunger. I was getting lightheaded. I needed food, and I needed it soon.
Just be careful. Stay in the shadows. Get what you need and leave.
I waited until late afternoon, when the village would be busy with people finishing their daily tasks, too distracted to pay close attention to one more scruffy traveler. The village was smaller than I expected—just a cluster of buildings around a central square, with a few shops and what looked like a market.
The smell of fresh bread hit me from fifty yards away. My mouth watered.
I moved between the buildings like a shadow, staying out of sight. There—a merchant's cart, piled high with bread and dried meat, sitting unattended while the vendor argued with a customer about prices.
Just one loaf. They'd never miss it. I'd leave money when I could. This wasn't stealing, not really. It was survival.
I crept forward, staying low. My hand reached out toward a round loaf on the edge of the pile—
The merchant turned.
Our eyes met for a fraction of a second. His mouth opened, probably to shout for the guards or accuse me of theft. I didn't wait to find out.
I ran.
The world blurred around me as I tore through the village streets, my new speed carrying me faster than any human could follow. Behind me, voices called out, but they faded quickly. By the time I hit the tree line, I was alone.
I didn't stop running until I was deep in the forest, lungs burning, heart hammering. Then I collapsed against a tree trunk and laughed. Actually laughed. It felt manic, maybe a little unhinged, but I couldn't help it.
I'd almost been caught stealing bread. The irony was too perfect.
*That was reckless,* Nyx scolded, but I could hear the amusement underneath her disapproval.
"I know. But did you see how fast we were? He couldn't even follow me with his eyes.”
*Yes. You're beginning to understand what we're capable of. But that was just the beginning.*
Night fell as I made my way back toward the cabin, moving more carefully now. The failed theft had taught me something important—I couldn't rely on human solutions anymore. I needed to embrace what I was becoming.
As darkness settled over the forest, something strange happened.
The shadows didn't get darker. Instead, everything became sharper. Clearer. I could see individual leaves on trees twenty yards away. Could make out the texture of bark, the movement of small creatures in the underbrush. It was like someone had turned on lights that only I could see.
*Night vision,* Nyx explained. *One of our gifts. There are others. Want to learn?*
I spent the next several hours discovering abilities I'd never dreamed of. My sense of smell could track a deer trail from hours ago, find water sources hidden in the undergrowth, sense human presence from miles away. I could move with supernatural speed and grace, my body responding to my thoughts almost before I finished thinking them.
And the strength. Gods, the strength.
*Try hitting that tree, Nyx suggested, indicating a thick oak. Full power. Don't hold back.*
I hesitated. "I'll break my hand."
*You won't. Trust me.*
I pulled my arm back and threw a punch with everything I had. My fist connected with the trunk and–
The tree exploded.
Not the whole tree—just the section I'd hit. Bark and wood sprayed outward like I'd used a battering ram. A chunk the size of my head flew off and crashed into the undergrowth twenty feet away.
I stared at the damage, my heart racing. "How did I—"
*Power. Our power. And that's just the beginning.*
- Writer
