Claimed by the Feral Commander

Summer opened her eyes, but the body she inhabited felt like water trapped beneath brittle ice. Her lungs burned with the memory of muddy river water, freezing and foul. Every ragged breath sent sharp spikes of agony radiating through her fragile ribs. As an elite post-apocalyptic combat medic who had died in a biological quarantine blast, she was no stranger to physical trauma, but this frail, bone-thin vessel was pathetic. The pulse fluttering against her bruised wrists was faint, erratic, and threadbare—the body of a chronically sick eighteen-year-old girl who had just been dragged out of the freezing currents of the Blood Ridge River. "That absolute dog! That treacherous, scoundrel bastard Julian Thorne!" A shrill, thunderous roar tore through the thin timber walls of the cabin, vibrating with righteous fury. "If anything happens to my daughter—if my little Summer loses so much as a single breath—I swear on the graves of the ancestral frontier guards, I’ll take my woodchopping axe and hack that sniveling worm into six bleeding pieces!" Through the half-open door of the small bedroom, Summer saw a broad-shouldered woman pacing furiously across the packed-dirt floor of the main room. Martha Linwood, the mother of this body, was an imposing frontier matriarch with hair wound into a severe bun, forearms corded from decades of chopping firewood, and eyes blazing like hot coals. In her right hand, she genuinely was gripping an iron-headed timber axe, its broad blade glinting wickedly in the dim light filtering through oil-paper window panes. Beside her sat a seven-year-old boy with round, dirt-smudged cheeks, sniffling into the sleeve of an oversized padded cotton jacket. Toby, the orphaned nephew of the Linwood family, had tears streaming down his face as he clutched a battered wooden toy. "Auntie Martha... Auntie Martha, don't yell at Uncle Julian..." Toby hiccuped, trembling. "Auntie Summer is waking up! Her fingers moved!" Martha dropped the axe with a dull thud against the woodblock and rushed into the cramped bedroom. Her rough, calloused hands, scarred by frontier frostbite, gently cradled Summer's feverish forehead. The woman’s fierce demeanor vanished in an instant, replaced by raw, trembling maternal panic. "Summer? My baby girl? Do you know who I am? Don't scare your mother like this. You’ve been coughing up black river sludge for three days straight!" Summer swallowed, her throat feeling as though it had been scraped with sandpaper. "Mother..." Her voice was little more than a whisper, but it was steady. The moment she spoke, a jolt of psychic energy surged behind Summer's temples. In her previous life, she had possessed a rare S-rank cognitive sensory perception—the ability to map bio-frequencies, detect hidden heartbeats, and read emotional fluctuations like rippling water. To her astonishment, the psychic core had crossed the threshold of death with her. Though weakened by this malnourished body, her sensory network blossomed outward like an invisible spider’s web, passing straight through the cabin walls and spreading across the mist-shrouded fields of Blood Ridge Outpost. Within seconds, her mind caught two irregular bio-rhythms roughly three hundred yards south, concealed within the dense, frosted reedbeds along the riverbank. One heartbeat was shallow, breathless, and agitated—Julian Thorne, the polished village scholar and so-called fiancé who had deliberately stepped aside when Summer slipped into the swollen river, leaving her to drown while he pretended not to hear her screams. The second heartbeat was faster, erratic, and punctuated by muffled feminine gasps—Chloe, the village elder's spoiled daughter, who had spent the last year feigning sisterly affection while secretly meeting Julian behind the stone granary. Right now, while the entire settlement believed Summer was taking her final breaths, the two lovers were rutting like feral dogs in the freezing reeds, whispering hurried promises about Julian taking Summer's family inheritance once she died. A cold, razor-sharp smile touched the corners of Summer’s pale lips. "Mother," Summer croaked, reaching out to press Martha's trembling wrist. "I’m alive. And I’m going to stay alive." Martha wiped away a tear with the back of her sleeve, sniffing loudly. "You just rest, my sweet girl. That spineless toad Julian claims you tripped on the slick stones. He swore to the outpost magistrate that he tried to jump in after you but the current was too fast. The nerve of him! He’s walking around the market right now looking like a grieving martyr!" "He isn't in the market, Mother," Summer said calmly, her dark eyes glittering with terrifying clarity. "Toby. Come here." The little boy scrambled over to the edge of the wooden pallet, looking up at his aunt with wide, frightened eyes. Summer ruffled the boy’s messy hair, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. "Toby, do you want to help Auntie get justice? Do you want to see a pair of wild river pheasants caught with their feathers plucked?" Toby's eyes widened. "Pheasants? Big ones?" "Very big," Summer murmured. "Take the copper dinner gong hanging on the back porch. Run down toward the southern floodway where the village men are transplanting the spring barley seedlings. When you get to the ridge above the frost-reeds, bang that gong as hard as you can and scream at the top of your lungs: 'Help! A wild river beast is devouring Teacher Julian in the reeds! Help! Bring the pitchforks before he's torn apart!'" Martha froze, staring at her bedridden daughter in utter shock. "Summer... what are you talking about? Julian is—" "Julian is with Chloe," Summer stated without an ounce of hesitation, pushing back the coarse wool blanket and swinging her slender legs over the side of the pallet. A wave of dizziness hit her, but she forced her spine straight. "They are in the willow hollow behind the reedbeds right now, celebrating my supposed demise. If Toby sounds the alarm, every laborer, councilman, and elder working the spring fields will arrive with hoes and scythes within three minutes." Martha’s jaw dropped, then clicked shut with the force of an iron bear trap. Her face flushed a terrifying shade of crimson. "That lowlife dog... in broad daylight, while the spring planting is underway?!" "Don't go alone, Mother," Summer said, her tone commanding despite her frail frame. "Let the whole outpost be our witnesses. If we catch them ourselves, Julian will spin another lie about how he was merely offering pastoral comfort. But if thirty frontier laborers catch them with their trousers around their ankles, he will never be able to look this settlement in the face again." Toby didn't need to be told twice. The boy grabbed the heavy brass gong, bolted out the kitchen door, and took off across the frosty road like a hound released from a leash. Within five minutes, the peaceful stillness of the Blood Ridge floodplains was shattered by deafening, rhythmic clanging. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! "Help! Help!" Toby’s frantic, childish voice echoed across the terraced fields. "The river beast has Teacher Julian! He's screaming in the reeds! Bring the axes! Hurry!" The reaction was instantaneous. In a remote northern outpost where wild wolves and river predators occasionally strayed from the frozen tundra, such an alarm was treated as a matter of communal survival. Dozens of burly frontiersmen dropped their seedling bundles, grabbed iron spades, wooden staves, and heavy scythes, and surged toward the southern bank like a tidal wave. Behind them, supported by Martha’s iron-strong arm, Summer walked steadily out onto the frosty levee. Her face was chalk-white, her coarse blue tunic hanging loose on her emaciated frame, but her dark eyes were cold, sharp, and merciless. Down in the muddy depression of the reeds, the sudden roar of approaching boots and shouting voices had turned passion into sheer, unadulterated panic. "What is that sound?!" Chloe’s panicked shriek carried clearly over the rustling grass. "Julian! Someone is coming! Where are my stockings?!" "Quiet! Put that down—give me my belt!" Julian’s frantic voice cracked with terror. "Who is banging that cursed bell?!" Before Julian could fasten his brass buckle, the reed wall was violently kicked aside. "Die, beast!" bellowed Caleb Linwood, Summer’s eldest brother, an ox of a young man who swung a six-foot timber timber-hook with terrifying force. The heavy tool embedded itself three inches into the frozen mud, right between Julian Thorne’s bare, shivering knees. Behind Caleb, thirty armed villagers halted in stunned silence. The scene before them was grotesque in its vulgarity. Julian was half-tangled in a briar patch, his woolen trousers bunched around his calves, clutching an unbuttoned tunic to his pale, skinny chest. Beside him, huddled behind a rotting log, was Chloe, her floral apron twisted backward, her hair filled with river cockleburs, and her face drained of all color. "Teacher... Julian?" muttered old Man Miller, lowering his pitchfork, his weathered face contorting in disgusted disbelief. "You... you were supposed to be praying for Summer Linwood at the ancestral shrine!" "I... this is not what it looks like!" Julian stammered wildly, his teeth chattering against the biting wind. "Chloe slipped on the bank! I was merely... I was administering emergency warmth! I am a scholar! An educated gentleman!" "Administering warmth with your belt undone, you shameless degenerate?!" Martha's roar parted the crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea. The furious mother pushed forward, brandishing her woodchopping axe. The crowd shrank back in sheer terror of the woman's wrath. Julian turned green, scrambling backward on his hands and knees until his bare backside splashed directly into a puddle of freezing slush. "Mrs. Linwood! Listen to me!" Julian squealed, holding up his hands. "It was an accident! Chloe is innocent!" "And was pushing me into the black rapids an accident too, Julian?" The crowd went dead silent. Summer stepped through the line of villagers. She looked fragile enough to be snapped by the northern gale, but her gaze pinned Julian to the mud with the force of an iron spear. "What did you say?" someone in the crowd gasped. "Three days ago," Summer said, her voice clear, distinct, and carrying effortlessly across the frozen flats. "Julian asked me to meet him by the weir to discuss our betrothal grain allotment. When I refused to sign over my deceased father's veteran pension certificate to his family, he shoved me from behind into the swollen sluice gate. He didn't jump in to save me. He stood on the stone embankment and watched me watched me drown until the water dragged me under." The murmurs rippling through the crowd turned into a deafening wave of outrage. "He tried to drown the veteran's daughter?!" "To steal her father's military stipend?!" "Gods above, and we let this viper teach our children their letters!" Julian's face went from pale to ghostly grey. "Lies! Slander! You have no proof! You were delirious from fever!" "If I am lying," Summer said softly, pointing a pale, slender finger toward the frost-bitten ground beside his discarded boots, "then why is my father's bronze military seal sitting right there in your coat pocket?" Julian’s breath caught in his throat. He reached instinctively for his coat, realizing too late that he had just confirmed her words. Before he could pull his hand back, Caleb’s massive boot crashed into Julian’s ribs, sending the scholar skidding through the frozen reeds with a sickening crunch. "You cowardly dog!" Caleb roared, his fists shaking with murderous intent. Just as the crowd erupted into absolute chaos, a heavy, rhythmic thudding vibrated through the frozen earth—the sound of iron-shod warhorses pacing slowly down from the northern ridge. A cold, primal dread settled over the clearing. The yelling ceased instantly. Even the furious Martha lowered her axe, her breath misting into silence. At the crest of the hill, backlit by the pale, wintry sun, sat a squad of heavily armored frontier scouts. And at their head was a man whose presence swallowed the entire valley in suffocating silence. He wore the black-and-silver wolf-pelt mantle of the Imperial Vanguard. His shoulders were broad as a stone rampart, his silver hair cropped short, and beneath the shadow of his steel helm, a pair of chilling, icy-blue eyes scanned the muddy hollow. Commander Noah Vance—the Feral Alpha of the Northern Frontier, a warrior whose name made enemy warlords tremble in their fortified citadels. His cold gaze swept over the kneeling Julian, skipped past the sobbing Chloe, and locked directly onto Summer Linwood. For a heartbeat that seemed to stretch into eternity, their eyes met. Summer felt her psychic senses flare violently, striking an impenetrable, razor-sharp wall of primal energy that made her soul shudder. The wolf had arrived.