Morning in the Wolf's Den
1926 Words
BRISEIS
I didn’t remember falling asleep.
But I remembered waking up.
Slowly. Carefully. Like surfacing from deep water.
The warmth around me was disorienting at first, real blankets, a soft pillow under my cheek, the low crackle of a fire still burning.
For a long time, I didn’t move. I just lay there, blinking up at the ceiling beams, listening to the silence.
No shouting.
No boots outside my door.
No harsh voice calling me to scrub floors or gather kindling or clean blood from someone else’s mess.
Just… stillness.
And then,
A knock.
Gentle.
I sat up quickly, heart stuttering, breath catching.
But the door didn’t open.
Instead, I heard a voice I hadn’t yet grown used to. Deep. Steady. Familiar now.
Orion.
“It’s me,” he said.
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t have to.
The door cracked open slowly, and then he stepped inside.
He didn’t look like a king this morning.
No cloak. No armor. Just loose, dark clothes and bare feet. His hair was slightly damp, like he’d just come from bathing. His eyes found me immediately, but he didn’t approach.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.
“You didn’t.”
Silence stretched between us again, thick and awkward.
I expected him to say something about the pack. About yesterday. About what he’d done. What he’d claimed.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he looked at the small wooden wolf still on my bedside table, Lyra’s.
“She told me she gave you one of her warriors,” he said softly.
“She said this one cries a lot.”
A faint smile ghosted across his lips. “It’s true.”
I picked it up and turned it slowly in my fingers. “She’s… kind.”
“She doesn’t know how to be anything else.”
I swallowed. “She said her mother left.”
His eyes shifted slightly, still calm, but darker now. “She did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
I looked up at him, surprised.
“She left the moment she realized I wouldn’t be controlled,” he said. “She didn’t want a bond. She wanted a throne. When I took it from her, she left.”
The room felt colder suddenly.
I set the carved wolf down.
“I don’t understand why you chose me,” I said, my voice small. “I’m not...”
“Don’t,” he said. Not sharp. Just firm. “Don’t say you’re not worthy again.”
“But I’m not like the others,” I whispered. “I’m not trained. I haven’t shifted. I don’t even know if there’s anything inside me worth,”
“There is,” he said, stepping closer. “I felt it the moment I scented you.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you survived them.”
His voice softened then, so quiet I almost missed it.
“I know what it means to grow up thinking no one will ever protect you. I know what it’s like to fight every day just to keep breathing.”
I blinked. My throat burned.
He wasn’t looking at me like I was a burden.
He was looking at me like he understood.
And that broke something open in my chest.
“You don’t have to be anything right now,” he said. “You don’t have to shift. You don’t have to impress anyone.”
“Then what do I do?”
“Breathe,” he said. “Eat. Sleep. Let your wolf wake up in her own time.”
“She’s… quiet.”
“She’s scared,” he corrected gently. “Let her know it’s safe now.”
A knock came again, this time from the hall.
He didn’t look away.
“Come,” he called out.
The door opened and Thalia entered, calm as ever.
“The council’s waiting,” she said. “They want an audience.”
Orion’s jaw tightened.
“Of course they do.”
Thalia glanced at me. “They also requested… to see her.”
A spike of cold shot through my stomach.
Orion turned back to me.
“You don’t have to say a word,” he said.
“But I have to stand beside you.”
“Yes,” he said. “But you’ll be standing beside me. Not behind. Not beneath.”
I nodded slowly.
Because I didn’t know how to say no.
Because part of me wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, I could stand there and survive it.
The stone beneath my bare feet was smooth, polished by years of power and presence. Every torch we passed flickered low with silver-tinted flame. Wolves stepped aside when he walked past. They bowed their heads. Some stared at me, but quickly looked away.
I tried to mimic Orion’s calm.
But my hands were clenched into fists at my sides.
Every step felt like I was walking toward a noose.
At the end of a long corridor, the double doors to the council chamber loomed ahead, iron and obsidian, carved with the crests of ancient bloodlines. My throat dried.
He didn’t slow down.
So I didn’t either.
The doors opened without a word.
Inside, the chamber was circular, lit only by the moonlight pouring in through the domed glass ceiling. Ten wolves sat around the crescent-shaped table, elders, high-ranking warriors, trusted alphas from Orion’s inner circle.
Every gaze turned to me.
I wanted to disappear.
But I didn’t.
Because Orion walked straight to the center of the room.
And pulled me beside him.
Not behind.
Not tucked into the shadows.
Beside.
“Alpha Orion,” one of the older wolves began, voice careful, “we heard troubling rumours from the Rite.”
“They weren’t rumours,” Orion said flatly. “I claimed her.”
The silence that followed was sharp.
Then the protests came, stacked on top of each other.
“She’s unshifted,”
“She hasn’t been tested,”
“She’s from Blackridge, that cursed cesspit,”
“She’s clearly traumatized,””
“She could be a spy,”
“Or a trap,”
Orion didn’t speak.
Not yet.
And neither did I.
I couldn’t.
I stood there like ice carved into a girl. Shoulders square. Heart slamming against my ribs.
Then one voice broke through the noise, slower, colder.
Thane.
I remembered the name. Orion’s oldest advisor.
He stood now, tall and scarred, with a long streak of white through his dark hair.
“If you want to protect her,” he said, “fine. Let her recover in the keep. Let her rest. But claiming her? Declaring her as your mate in front of the Rite? That’s more than instinct. That’s a political move. That’s...”
“I don’t need your permission,” Orion cut in, voice steel.
Thane didn’t flinch.
“But you do need your pack.”
Orion stepped forward.
“She is my mate,” he said. “Chosen by the bond. The Moon saw fit to give her to me. If any of you have a problem with that… take it up with the Goddess.”
No one moved.
No one dared.
Then Thane turned his eyes on me.
And suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
“She’s weak,” he said. “Quiet. She flinches at shadows.”
“I’m right here,” I whispered.
The room went still again.
“I’m right here,” I said louder, swallowing the tremor in my throat. “If you have something to say about me… say it to me.”
Orion didn’t hide the smirk that twitched at the corner of his mouth.
Thane’s brow lifted. “Very well.”
He stepped closer, not unkind, but firm.
“What can you offer the crown, Briseis of Blackridge?”
My tongue was dry.
What could I offer?
I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t lead. I hadn’t even shifted. All I had were scars and silence and a wolf inside me that hadn’t spoken in years.
But…
I met his eyes.
“Nothing,” I said.
The council murmured.
Thane tilted his head.
“I have nothing to offer,” I repeated. “I’m not strong. I’m not trained. I wasn’t raised to be anyone’s mate, especially not his.”
Orion turned slightly toward me, expression unreadable.
“But I’ve survived more than you can imagine,” I went on. “And I know how to endure. I know how to watch, how to listen, how to remember things no one else notices. I may not be what you want, but I won’t break. And I will not be ashamed of standing here.”
Silence.
And then,
Orion’s voice, low and certain.
“She doesn’t need to prove herself to you. She’s mine. That’s all that matters.”
He looked at Thane.
“At least, if you still serve me.”
Thane didn’t speak for a long time.
Then he nodded once.
And sat.
The rest of the council followed.
And I stood there, shaking.
But still standing.
The doors closed behind us with a heavy groan of stone and silence.
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until they shut completely, and even then, I couldn’t seem to let it go. My shoulders were tight. My fingers still curled into fists. I felt like I’d just walked barefoot across broken glass.
I kept my eyes on the floor as we moved down the corridor.
Orion said nothing.
And neither did I.
Until I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“I wasn’t supposed to say anything,” I said quietly. “I know. I just… I couldn’t let him look at me like that.”
Orion glanced down at me. “You did exactly what you should’ve.”
I frowned. “They all hate me.”
“Yes.”
My stomach twisted.
“But they’ll learn to fear you first,” he added, softer now. “Respect will come later. If they’re lucky.”
I looked up at him, startled.
His eyes weren’t cold.
Not now.
They were studying me, quietly, intently. Like I was something fragile, but not worthless. Like he hadn’t expected to see me stand there and speak, but had known I could.
“I’ve never seen anyone talk back to Thane,” I whispered.
“He needed it.”
My steps slowed as we turned into a narrower hall. “Do you… do you really think the Moon gave me to you?”
He paused beside me.
His voice dropped to something deep, almost reverent.
“I think… I’ve lived long enough to know power when I feel it. Even if it’s buried.”
My breath caught.
“I think,” he continued, “whatever the Goddess gave me… is still waking up.”
He looked at me like I was the beginning of something, not the end.
“Let it come on its own,” he said. “You don’t have to be ready yet.”
I didn’t respond.
Because the truth was, part of me didn’t believe him.
But another part, the part that had stood in front of a room full of wolves who wanted to rip me apart, that part wanted to.
I followed him in silence after that, back toward my rooms.
And for the first time since leaving Blackridge… I didn’t feel like I had to keep looking over my shoulder.
Because the most powerful wolf alive was walking beside me.
And for now, at least,
No one could touch me.
- Writer
