Sold to the Cruel Alpha

Settling In

Sierra

Every morning here begins the same—with staleness, cold air, and silence. I wake up before the sun rises, wrapped in heavy blankets, staring at the cracked ceiling of my tiny room. It’s the only part of my day I have any control over. For a few minutes, I can pretend I’m still the Sierra I used to be.

Then the light shifts, the forest breathes outside the window, and reality sinks in like teeth into bone.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and let the cold floor slap me awake. The cabin creaks around me—wood stretching, sighing like it misses the warmth of a bigger fire, a louder family. I tiptoe down the stairs. My parents are already up, whispering in the kitchen like every morning.

Their voices die when I enter the room.

“Morning,” I say, pretending not to notice the tension.

My mom offers a tired smile. “Good morning, sweetie. There’s bread and jam.”

Bread and jam. Again. We’ve been in Briar Glen for three weeks, and the only thing more repetitive than our breakfasts is the way my father avoids eye contact.

I sit at the table and tear the bread in half. “Are we going to talk about it?”

My father’s eyes flick up. “Talk about what?”

“About why we’re here. What we’re running from. What I’m not allowed to know.”

He sips his coffee. He doesn’t answer.

I stare at him. “You keep saying you’re protecting me. But it feels more like I’m in a prison.”

“You’re alive,” he says flatly. “That’s all that matters.”

I push away my plate. “That’s not living.”

My mom reaches for my hand. “Sierra—”

“No,” I snap, standing. “You both act like silence is the answer. Like if we just don’t talk about what happened, it won’t hurt anymore.”

My dad finally looks at me, his expression made of stone. “Because it hurts too much.”

His voice is sharp enough to cut the room in half. I flinch. My mother pulls her hand back. Silence falls again, heavy and bitter.

I grab my coat and storm out of the house before one of us says something we’ll regret.

---

The village smells like wood smoke and wet leaves. I pull my coat tighter around me and head down the narrow trail toward the main road. It’s quiet… too quiet. Nothing like home—our real home—where the wind always carried the scent of wolves and the sound of life.

Briar Glen is all old stone buildings, sleepy shops, and friendly smiles that feel like masks. No one here knows me, and I’m not allowed to be myself. I walk with careful steps. Head down. Like a human. Always human….

The bakery on the corner lets off waves of warmth and cinnamon. A bell jingles above the door as I step inside, and the owner—Mrs. Alden, I learned—offers a grandmotherly smile from behind the counter.

“Morning, sweetheart,” she says. “Out and about already?”

“Just walking,” I say. “Needed air.”

“You and me both. Cold air clears the head.”

I nod, forcing a smile. She doesn’t know exactly what I need to clear from my head. How my wolf claws at the inside of my chest every time I have to lie about who I am.

I buy a croissant and thank her before heading back out. The sky is a dull gray, like it can’t make up its mind whether to rain or snow. I keep walking, past the post office, the town square, the tiny school where I’m not enrolled because my father doesn’t trust anyone here.

I wander past houses with flower boxes and wreaths, past woodpiles and laundry lines. Everyone is normal here. Normal in a way I’ll never be.

I end up at the edge of the forest.

Of course I do.

The trees call to me every time I leave the cabin. The woods are deep, dark, and endless; like the ache I have for my wolf form. I step off the road and into the woods before I can talk myself out of it. The quiet wraps around me like a familiar blanket. Out here, I can almost forget that I’m supposed to be someone else. Almost.

I hike until I can’t hear the village anymore. Until the wind is the only thing speaking to me. I find a fallen log and sit, closing my eyes. I let out a heavy sigh, dispensing all the air in my lungs; the weight in my chest.

I miss the shift. I miss the way the world opens up when I’m in my other form. The way the wind talks, the trees sing, and the moon feels like it belongs to me.

I miss being me.

“Just one shift,” I whisper to no one.

But I know I won’t. Not with so much at stake. Not when my father has made it clear that exposure is a death sentence.

So I sit, letting the wind tease my long, brown hair, and the cold numb my fingers. I think back to the hundreds of times my hair was fur, pushed back by the breeze as I sped through similar woods on four paws. I remember my pack, and my chest aches for them. As my memories fade and the earth beneath my feet calls me back to the present, I pretend it’s enough to be here, now.

---

By the time I return home, the sun is higher, and my parents have left for errands. I slip inside and go upstairs, heading straight for the closet where my old things are hidden.

I pull down the box I’m not supposed to touch.

Inside are a few folded clothes I’ve outgrown, a cracked photo of our old pack, and my father’s old journal—locked tight.

And at the bottom, my pendant.

It’s a small, crescent-shaped charm carved from moonstone, strung on a thin leather cord. The symbol of our family, our pack. I haven’t worn it since the night we fled.

I hold it in my hands like it might whisper answers.

“Who am I now?” I ask the pendant, half expecting it to respond.

Of course, it doesn’t answer.

I slip the pendant around my neck and tuck it beneath my shirt. It’s heavy in a way that’s not physical. Like it carries the weight of everything I’ve lost.

I return to the picture of our pack. I drag my finger along the crack in the glass, across the family I once had. The crack seems symbolic. I look at each face in the photo, reminding myself and willing their faces to be etched in my mind forever. I don't want to ever forget. I set the picture frame on the desk in perfect view.

When I go back downstairs, I find the corner where my father keeps his maps. I’ve seen him studying them at night, murmuring under his breath. I sit and pull one closer, tracing the lines with my finger.

There—our old territory. Lark lands, once sprawling and strong. Now marked with an X.

Land that is now destroyed. Territory that was ours, now claimed by them. By the Draven Pack.

A chill runs down my spine, not from the cold. My father says the Dravens were always ruthless. That their Alpha—Darian Draven—is a tyrant wrapped in fur and blood. He says they’re the reason we lost everything.

But he never says how.

I press my hand to the map, and a strange anger stirs in my chest. I want to know the truth. Not pieces. Not whispers. The whole damn thing.

My father walks through the front door just as I’m closing the drawer.

He pauses. His eyes narrow.

“What were you doing?”

“Looking,” I say.

“For what?”

“For answers.”

He sighs. “I don't think you're going to find those in a drawer.”

“No,” I say, standing. “But it’s a start.”

He doesn’t stop me as I walk past him, but I feel his gaze like a weight between my shoulder blades.

---

That night, I lay awake staring at the ceiling again.

My wolf is restless. She wants to run, to howl, to remember what it feels like to belong to something wild and real. But instead, I’m stuck here—half a girl, half a ghost, in a place where no one knows the truth.

My parents won’t talk. The village is a lie. And me? I’m just existing.

I sit up in bed and pull the pendant from beneath my shirt. The moonstone catches the light, glowing faintly in the dark.

I grip it tight.

Tomorrow, I’ll go farther into the forest.

Tomorrow, I’ll push the line between hiding and living.

And if no one’s going to give me the truth—I’ll find it myself.