Aurora's POV
The dream starts soft.
Eighteen years old, and I am standing in the Hawthorne Pack's yard in the last of the evening light, and I already know what today means. I hold my breath the way I have been holding it for weeks — waiting for the shift, waiting for the pull, waiting to feel something new take root inside my chest.
Nothing comes.
The sun goes down. The ceremony ends. I stand in the yard with empty hands and the same silence inside me that has always been there.
Then my mother finds me.
She doesn't say anything at first. She just wraps both arms around me from behind and holds on, and I feel her chin come down on top of my head.
"My girl." Her voice is quiet. "Having a wolf or not having one — that has nothing to do with how much you are loved."
My father's hand c
