Chosen by the Alpha Who Destroyed My Pack

Chapter 12 – Learning to Walk Without a Wolf

The first time Sylvi tried to shift after the whiteout, nothing happened.

No prickle along her spine. No liquid heat in her bones. Just… skin. Flesh. A stubborn, human weight.

She stood alone on the edge of the training clearing, boots in the dirt, dawn mist clinging to the grass. The air smelled of wet bark, smoke, and the ghosts of last night’s fear. Somewhere behind her, someone laughed; metal rang on metal as wooden practice swords clashed.

Inside her, her wolf paced.

Come on, Sylvi thought, jaw clenched. Just a little run. Ears, teeth, the works. We could use it.

Her wolf huffed, then pressed up against the inside of her ribs like a hand against glass.

Blocked.

Sylvi swore under her breath.

“Language,” Riven said mildly, appearing at her side like he’d grown out of the nearest tree. “You’ll scandalize the pups.”

“Pretty sure they’ve invented new curse words this week,” she muttered.

He studied her profile. “You tried?”

“Several times.” Her fingers dug into her forearms. “In the infirmary I blamed it on exhaustion. Out here… it feels like I’m pushing against a door that got welded half-shut.”

“You’re not the only one,” he said. “We’ve got at least six who say their other skin feels… further. Like someone moved the moon a few inches.”

“That’s comforting,” she said. “Systemic malfunction. Love that for us.”

Riven’s mouth twitched. “Ilyss said you should practice moving without shifting. Balance. Reflexes.” He gestured toward the packed-dirt circle in the middle of the clearing. “You and me. Walk the perimeter. Barefoot.”

She eyed him. “You’ll make me do yoga next, won’t you.”

“Only if you’re very bad.” His grin flashed, then faded. “Come on, Arkett. You’re not the only one who hates feeling like half a wolf. Might as well hate it together.”

She kicked off her boots with more force than necessary. The ground was cold, damp seeping into her socks, then her skin. Riven set an easy pace along the edge of the ring, and she fell in beside him.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

“Absolutely not.”

“Humor me.”

She did, reluctantly. The world narrowed to the soft pad of their feet, the whisper of their breath, the murmur of the pack behind them. Without sight, her other senses should have surged—wolf scent flaring, instincts mapping every obstacle.

Instead, there was only the ordinary: damp earth, pine sap, the faint salt of Riven’s sweat.

“Pick out three scents,” he said. “Not mine.”

She inhaled, focusing. Smoke from the cookhouse. The sharp tang of training oil on the wooden blades. The warm, flour-and-honey halo that always clung to Serah near the kitchen.

Her chest eased a fraction.

“Good,” Riven said. “Now three sounds.”

“Kids arguing about who gets the bigger stick,” she said. “Someone tripping and pretending they meant to. Your annoyingly calm voice.”

He snorted. “Flatterer.”

They walked. The circle seemed to go on forever.

“You know what saved my ass in patrols more than claws?” he asked after a while. “Counting steps. Listening to my own breath. Remembering I was more than fur.”

“I liked the fur,” she said quietly.

“Yeah.” His tone softened. “Me too. You’ll get it back. But until then? You’re still here. Your head still works. Your hands still fix what idiots like me break.”

Idiot like you. Not i***t like Corren. The distinction wasn’t subtle.

“You rehearsed this speech?” she asked.

“Serah beat some of it into me,” he admitted. “She said if I let you stew out here alone, she’d revoke my kitchen privileges.”

“That’s a real threat.”

“You have no idea.”

They walked another lap. Her body began to remember small things: the micro-adjustments of her ankles over uneven ground, the way her weight shifted when Riven’s arm brushed hers, the rhythm of her own breathing when she wasn’t consciously strangling it.

Inside, her wolf settled, not content, but less frantic. Watching. Waiting.

On the third lap, Sylvi misjudged a dip in the dirt and stumbled. Reflex made her reach for the fluid strength that should have rolled her through the movement on four paws.

Nothing.

Hands closed around her forearms, steady and sure. Corren’s scent hit her a split second before his voice.

“Easy.”

She opened her eyes.

He stood in front of her, close enough that she could see the darker ring around his pupils, the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw. His grip was firm but not possessive, thumbs light against her skin.

“I was managing,” she said, breathless for reasons she didn’t want to examine.

“I saw you about to introduce your face to the dirt,” he said. “Call me sentimental, but I intervened.”

Riven cleared his throat, entirely unrepentant. “And on that note, I have patrol routes to pretend to check.” He ambled off, whistling, leaving a very deliberate bubble of space around them.

Coward, her wolf muttered, with a flicker of humor.

Sylvi eased back a step, testing her weight. Corren let her go immediately, hands falling to his sides.

“How bad?” he asked.

“On a scale of one to ‘I woke up human and screamed’?” she said. “We’re at ‘walking without tripping is an achievement.’ Shifting feels… far.”

He nodded once. “Same.”

She blinked. “You?”

“I can shift,” he said. “But the… chorus is quieter. The pack. The land. It’s like trying to listen to a storm through thick glass. I can’t feel them like before.” His mouth flattened. “Makes the alpha piece… less precise.”

She heard the ache under the understatement.

“You’re still in there for them,” she said. “I watched half the room stand up straighter when you walked in last night.”

“That’s habit,” he said. “Not magic.”

“Habits are magic,” she said. “The slow kind.”

Their eyes met. The thread between them pulsed, faint but steady, like a vein under skin.

“You’re doing the work,” she added. “With them. Without the bond telling you who needs what. You’re asking. Listening. That counts.”

He studied her for a beat. “Look at us,” he said softly. “Two wolves who spent years insisting we didn’t need anyone, giving each other pep talks about community.”

“Truly nauseating,” she said. “We should probably never admit it to anyone.”

“Too late,” Riven shouted from somewhere by the trees. “We heard everything.”

Sylvi didn’t even bother to turn. “Go trip over a root, Dask.”

He laughed, the sound light for once.

Corren’s gaze softened. “I’m not going to tell you it doesn’t matter if you can’t shift,” he said. “I know it does. I also know this—” he lifted his hand, not quite touching his own chest, “—doesn’t define all of you.”

“Funny,” she said. “Feels like it.”

He hesitated. “Can I… try something?”

Her pulse jumped. “That depends heavily on what ‘something’ is.”

“The bond,” he said. No flinch, no euphemism. “Just… reaching for it. Lightly. See if it steadies you or makes it worse. You can shove me out if you don’t like it.”

Old Sylvi would have said no on reflex.

This Sylvi, shaky on two legs with a wolf pacing inside glass, considered the way the thin line between them had steadied in the worst of the storm.

“Gently,” she said. “Or I puke on your boots.”

“Terrifying incentive,” he murmured.

He closed his eyes.

At first, she felt nothing different. Then—careful as a hand extended through fog—something brushed against the edge of her awareness. Not a grab. Not a command.

A question.

She exhaled, tension easing an inch, and let her own awareness tilt toward it.

The connection brightened from faint ember to small, shared glow. Not the overwhelming rush from before. More like two lanterns held close together, their circles of light overlapping.

Her wolf, who’d been sulking in the corner of her inner landscape, lifted her head.

Oh, she said, surprised. Him.

Heat swept Sylvi’s cheeks. “She… notices you,” she muttered.

“Good,” Corren said, a low thread of warmth coloring the word. “Tell her I see her too. Even if I can’t hear her clearly yet.”

Her wolf huffed, then—very cautiously—pressed closer to the glass.

Sylvi’s balance shifted. The ground under her feet felt a fraction surer. Her breath came easier.

It wasn’t magic in the old sense. It didn’t snap her bones into fur. But the world… aligned. Like someone had adjusted a picture that’d been hanging crooked.

“That better?” Corren asked.

She opened her eyes. His were still closed, brow furrowed in concentration, like he was holding himself very still so as not to spook her.

“A little,” she admitted. “Don’t get smug.”

He smiled without opening his eyes. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He let go slowly, easing the bond back to its softer hum. The absence of the brighter glow made her sway for a second, but she didn’t fall.

“See?” he said. “Still standing.”

“For now,” she said. But inside, something small and stubborn unfurled.

Maybe she couldn’t run on four legs yet.

Maybe the world had taken the easy chorus of her wolf away.

But she wasn’t walking alone. And that, for the first time in a long time, made learning how to move worth the effort.