To Break a Wolf

Chapter 31: Muscle and Memory

Mira hit the ground for the third time in under five minutes, breath knocked from her lungs as if Selene had landed a sucker-punch.

“Again,” Selene said calmly, arms crossed, not a hair out of place.

Mira groaned, rolled onto her back, and glared at the overcast sky. “Remind me why I thought sparring with you was a good idea?”

Selene smirked, that infuriating tilt of her lips as she circled slowly. “Because deep down, you like the punishment.”

“Sadist.”

“You say that like it’s an insult.”

The clearing behind the cabin was thick with morning mist, the grass still damp enough to soak through Mira’s pants at the knees. Her boots kept sliding in the slick earth, her tank top clung to her collarbones, and she was pretty sure her shoulder had connected with every rock in British Columbia. The staff sat nearby, propped against a smooth stone as if it were judging her.

Selene lifted a brow. “You hesitated again.”

“I’m busy wheezing,” Mira snapped, pushing to her knees. “And not just from the human-sack-of-potatoes routine you’ve got going.”

“Good. Use that. Let it sharpen you, not scatter your thoughts.”

Mira exhaled harshly through her nose and lunged. She tried to catch Selene off guard, to change up the rhythm, hoping to get a hit in finally. Instead, Selene slid sideways, caught her elbow, and sent her flying—again.

She hit the ground with a thud and a puff, coughing through dirt and frustration. “Do all werewolves have to be this freakishly fast?”

“Most,” Selene shrugged. “But I’m exceptional.”

Mira flopped onto her back again, arms sprawled across the grass, and stared at the canopy overhead. “You know, I’m beginning to think you’re enjoying this.”

“If I wanted to hurt you,” Selene said cheerfully, “you’d be dead.”

“Comforting,” Mira muttered.

Selene tossed a water bottle down beside her. “Hydrate, Luna.”

Mira gave her a withering look. “Don’t call me that.”

“You’re going to have to get used to it.”

“You keep saying that like it’s inevitable.”

Selene didn’t answer right away. She crouched beside her, expression softening.

“Because if you stay,” she said carefully, “you need to be ready for what that entails. The Council’s already whispering. Not all of them are happy with Bastian’s choice.”

Mira sat up straighter. “His choice?”

Selene nodded. “You as Luna. They wanted him to bond with someone from within. Someone with a legacy. A bloodline. Someone like—”

“You,” Mira said, finishing it for her.

Selene didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”

“But you didn’t want that,” Mira said slowly.

“No,” Selene said. “But that doesn’t mean the others won’t try to use me anyway. They’ll push, call your place into question. Not because of who you are… but because no one expected you.”

Mira looked down at her hands—dirt-smudged, scraped raw. “Because I’m not one of you.”

“No,” Selene said. “Because you’re different. And they don’t know what to do with that.”

Mira exhaled shakily. “What happens if I’m not what they want?”

Selene looked at her with something closer to respect than pity. “Then you show them what they didn’t know they needed.”

The air shifted.

A low pulse of energy moved through the clearing, and Mira sensed the movement before she saw it, as if an ageless being brushed against her skin. She turned.

Ellie stepped from between the trees, pale cloak trailing over the grass, her presence both quiet yet thunderous. A single wolf walked at her side, paws silent on the ground, silver fur dappled with dew.

“Training already,” Ellie said, gently but grounded. “Good. The body must temper itself with the mind.”

Mira scrambled to her feet, brushing off dirt and grass, instinctively straightening under Ellie’s gaze. “We didn’t expect company.”

Ellie didn’t answer. Her eyes had already drifted past Mira to the staff leaning against the stone. Her expression deepened, becoming unreadable as she slowly approached it.

She stood beside the weapon, one hand brushing the carved silver moon near the top. Her lips moved, words too soft to hear, and the moment her fingers made contact, Mira felt a rush of energy flood the space: Soundless but a demanding presence.

Ellie rose. “That staff,” she murmured, “has waited a very long time.”

Mira’s throat tightened. “You know what it is?”

“I know what it was,” Ellie said, meeting her gaze. “What it becomes… only you can decide.”

With those mysterious words, she turned, the wolf at her heels, and disappeared into the trees, a ghost made flesh.

Silence rushed in behind her.

Mira blinked after her, pulse racing.

“That woman gives me chills,” Selene muttered.

Mira didn’t answer. Her gaze returned to the staff. It hadn’t moved, but its presence was undeniably heavier. It didn’t alter the physical weight, just the expectation. And somewhere, deep in her chest, a stirring occurred in answer. Not readiness. Not courage. Just the faintest spark of awareness, the part of her that had awaited this reckoning, too.

The staff still gleamed in the soft morning light, but something about it had changed. Not visibly. Not physically. Just… deeper.

Mira stepped toward it without thought, her fingers brushing the wood near the etched crescent. She expected it to feel cool, maybe inert. Instead, it was warm. Vibrating faintly, like it had a pulse of its own.

Selene rose from where she’d been crouching in the grass. “What just happened?”

“I don’t know,” Mira whispered. Her hand drifted down the length of the staff, tracing the runes she hadn’t realized she’d memorized. “But it felt like… like she woke it up.”

Selene frowned. “Ellie?”

Mira nodded.

A beat of silence passed between them.

“You ever get the feeling everyone knows more than they’re telling you?” Mira asked softly.

Selene’s eyes met hers. “Every damn day.”

They both peered toward the trees where Ellie had vanished. Mira’s pulse was still thudding from training, or maybe from what had taken place. Something inside her had begun to hum the moment Ellie’s fingers met the staff. Not a song exactly, but a memory of one. A vibration she didn’t understand, but one she subconsciously recognized.

Selene crossed her arms. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she showed up now.”

“You think she was waiting for a sign?”

“I think she’s always watching. And I think she’s known what that staff is a lot longer than she let on.”

Mira didn’t answer. She was still trying to process Ellie’s words. What it becomes, only you can decide.

Power always came with choice. That was the part no one ever warned you about. Everyone talked about destiny as if it were a road, a crown, a title. But no one warned about what it meant to choose to walk into it. To step up. To carry the weapon. To let it know you.

“I don’t want to be someone’s legend,” Mira said suddenly, her voice quieter now. “I just want to survive this without becoming someone I don’t recognize.”

Selene didn’t argue. She just nodded, grounding the moment in truth.

“You’re not becoming someone else,” she said. “You’re becoming more of who you’ve always been.”

Mira looked down at her scraped palms, then at the staff still humming against her skin.

“I don’t feel ready.”

Selene stepped beside her, bumping her shoulder. “Good. The ones who feel ready are usually the ones who get people killed.”

That earned a breath of a laugh. Mira’s chest loosened, if only slightly.

“Come on,” Selene said, stepping toward the trail leading back to the cabin. “You’ve got bruises to ice and a legend to ignore.”

Mira followed, staff in hand. It didn’t hum this time, it thrummed. Like it had been waiting for her to stop fighting it, it had recognized her at last.