Chapter 1 Wolfless
CHAPTER 1 The Wolfless Girl
They made me clean the floors on my knees because they said if I stood up too fast I might forget I was nothing.
My name is Kaia Thorne and I was born without a howl.
In Ashen Hollow, you are born, you shift at twelve, you find your mate at eighteen. I did none of that. At twelve, I bled from my nose while the other kids sprouted claws. At eighteen, I waited in the mating hall while the pack boys sniffed the air and then sniffed me and laughed, because I had no scent. No wolf has no scent.
“Wolfless,” Lira had whispered that night, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Mama should have drowned you with your dead mother.”
I am nineteen now. Still wolfless. Still here.
“Mop faster, Kaia!” Lira's voice snapped from the doorway. She was in her Nocturne uniform already, black blazer with silver threading, the crest of a howling wolf over a volcano. I was in grey rags. Her suitcase was packed. Mine was a trash bag.
The Alpha of Ashen Hollow, Gregory Ashworth, the man who adopted me as a charity case, stood behind her. “You will go with Lira to Nocturne. The Headmaster is allowing a human liaison. You will be her hands and feet. You will make sure she eats, sleeps, and is not... inconvenienced. If she fails because of you, you will not have a pack to return to.”
It was an order. It was also exile. Nocturne Academy was 800 miles north. Only Alphas went there. A wolfless girl would be a joke.
We left at dawn. The bus that takes Alphas to Nocturne doesn't take roads. It runs through the veil. Lira sat in leather seats. I sat near the luggage, watching the world blur from forest to black rock to a mountain that breathed smoke.
Nocturne Academy was carved into the mouth of a sleeping volcano. The sky above it was always purple. The air smelled like ozone and old wolves.
When we walked into the entrance hall, a hundred heads turned. A hundred noses flared. And a hundred wolves in human skin looked at me and knew exactly what I was.
Nothing.
Then the four of them walked down the main staircase.
I had heard stories. Everyone had. Four boys born under the Bone Moon.
Kieran Blackthorn, shadow in a uniform, eyes like a winter sky.
Jax Wilder, sleeves rolled up, lightning scar on his neck, grinning like he already knew how I'd scream.
Silas Crowe, beautiful in a terrifying way, who stopped mid-step and stared right at me, frowning.
And Rhys Alistair, who smiled at me softly, and that was the scariest of all.
Silas tilted his head. “She has no thoughts,” he said, loud in the silent hall. “How fascinating. An empty girl.”
Laughter rippled.
Kieran didn't laugh. He looked at me and said, “Human liaisons are not allowed on the Alpha floor. Put her in the kennel basement.”
That was how I met my mates. And that was how I knew Nocturne Academy was going to kill me.
