Monday, October 21st | Waning Crescent Moon
The rules were simple...
Don't draw attention.
Don't ask questions.
Don't take up space.
Liora woke up before the bell.
She always did on Mondays. The habit had formed years ago, drilled into her body long before she understood why it mattered. Being awake early meant being prepared. Being prepared meant fewer mistakes.
The room was dim, the narrow window showing only a sliver of sky just beginning to pale. The moon still clung there, thin and fading, a curved bone of light barely holding its shape.
Waning... Retreating...
The kind of moon that promised nothing new. It promised, instead, the continuation of things... There perpetuation, which was both reassuring and daunting.
She lay still for a moment, listening.
The house creaked softly around her, old wood settling as the temperature shifted. Jonas Vale's breathing drifted from the next room, slow and even. Marta Vale would already be awake, moving quietly through the kitchen pn the first floor, setting water to heat, planning out the day before it could surprise her. Although it never it.
Liora pressed her palm lightly to her abdomen, just below her ribs. It had become both a habit and a ritual.
There was a presence there.
Not pain.
Not hunger.
Awareness.
She had learned that feeling early too. Not through instruction, but repetition. Through watching others misstep and disappear from notice. Through careful observation of what earned tolerance and what earned correction. She did not know which was better (or worse).
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold beneath her feet. She welcomed it.
Cold grounded her. It put things into perspective and sharpened it.
She dressed quickly. Practical clothes. Fabric chosen to disappear rather than announce. No bright colors, but colors that helped her to blend in and almost disappear. The word being ALMOST.
She pulled her hair back with a hair tie, fingers moving automatically, and paused only once, catching her reflection in the thin full-length mirror near the door.
Broad hips. Strong thighs. A narrow waist that curved sharply into fullness she could never disguise, flowing into a rounded, powerful build that made her impossible to (be) overlook no matter how she stood. Her belly was soft beneath her ribs, responsive to breath rather than effort, and her breasts were heavy and round, impossible to flatten no matter how carefully she dressed. She stood just under average height for a wolf, solid rather than tall, her weight carried low and balanced. Her face was unremarkable at first glance. Brown eyes. Dark hair. Pale skin. Nothing that announced danger.
The mirror did not show what lived beneath her skin.
That was fine. That was better. That was how it was supposed to be.
Outside, the early air carried the scent of damp earth and pine. Grimholt pack lands stretched ahead, dense forest pressing close around clustered buildings. The ground was worn smooth by generations of feet, by rituals repeated until they lost meaning and became habit.
Nothing wild.
Nothing fresh.
Nothing new.
Nothing (ever) out of place.
Belonging made visible through erosion.
Wolves gathered in loose formation in the pack yard, arranged without being told. Rank did not require announcement. It lived in posture, in scent, in the way space curved around certain bodies and collapsed around others.
Alphas at the center.
Betas close enough to matter, close enough to be seen.
Gammas forming the inner ring, watchful and precise.
Deltas set just beyond them, bodies angled outward, already positioned as shields.
Everyone else farther out, where space thinned and attention faded, no matter if they were of any other rank and unclassified.
Liora took her place there, close to the edges, but not quite there.
As she crossed into the trainingyard, the presence inside her shifted — not alarmed, just alert.
Morning chill crept through the thin fabric of her shirt, but her body stayed warm. Heat coiled beneath her skin in a way she didn't fully understand. She had learned to ignore it. Learned to ignore many things.
Hunger.
Fatigue.
Emotions.
Feelings.
Loneliness.
The quiet ache of being too much and never enough at the same time. A constant pull and push of condradictions and being who (what?) she was.
Her body took space even when she tried to make it small. Curves angled inward. Shoulders kept slightly rounded. Chin lowered just enough to avoid challenge.
Compliance was a language here.
And she spoke it fluently. Probably better than ayone.
Alpha Thorne stepped forward.
His presence pressed outward, sharp and heavy, dominance honed by repetition and reward. Authority passed by blood and earned by the passing of time. The pack reacted instantly.
Heads bowed.
Muscles tightened.
Breath caught.
Submission rippled through the group like a held exhale.
Wait!, Nyx murmured.
The word wasn't sound per say. It was pressure. It was a feeling. A gentle hold, as if something inside her had lifted its head and then decided to rest again.
Nyx had been with her for as long as she could remember. Not as a voice. More like a shadow that knew when to step closer and when to stay back.
Nyx never pushed.
Never demanded.
Nyx watched.
"Kneel!," Alpha Thorne said.
The command rolled through the yard, through bone and blood and instinct, demanding obedience as naturally as gravity demanded fall. For most, impossible to resist. For most would not even think of resisting.
Liora lowered her head.
Not because she had to.
But because timing mattered. It was crucial and the foundation.
The pressure brushed against her and slid away. No pull. No ache behind her eyes. No instinct screaming compliance.
Nothing at all.
Fear came a second later.
She counted the beat. One. Two.
Then on the third she let her shoulders slump. Let her knees bend with practiced hesitation. She sank with the rest of them, head bowed, breath steady.
The Alpha's gaze passed over her without pause.
She exhaled slowly.
This was the space no one noticed. The fraction of a second where obedience was chosen instead of forced. Where survival was decided.
Where SHE decided.
When the pack rose, Liora rose last.
Always last.
"Slow," someone muttered from behind her.
"Sorry," she replied softly and whithout thinking.
It was an automatically (self) thought response
Better to be slow than wrong. Better to be slow than noticed.
Training followed. Conditioning meant to exhaust rather than improve. Commands meant to reinforce hierarchy rather than skill. Liora ran when told, halted when signaled, turned on command, reset her stance without complaint.
Her body moved with a balance that surprised people when they bothered to look. 'When' being the imperative word.
Weight settled naturally in her hips, power anchored low, center steady. She didn't fight gravity. She worked with it. She had learned how to carry more than she appeared able to, how to pace her breath, how to let pain dull instead of sharpen.
Most didn't notice.
"Again," Enforcer Crowe snapped when she completed a sequence too cleanly.
She complied.
Muscles burned. Sweat slicked her palms. Breath came steady, controlled. Pain stayed manageable. She knew where her limits were, and how far past them she could go without drawing attention.
Someone watched her.
She felt it before she saw him.
Cassian Thorne, future Alpha, stood a short distance away, posture controlled, scent restrained. He wasn't staring. That would have been rude, even for him. He was observing, the way predators did when they sensed something that didn't fit.
Liora kept her eyes down.
Hope was a dangerous thing. She'd learned that too, althought she could not quite remember when or why. She just did.
When drills ended, the pack dispersed in clumps and pairs. Liora bent to collect the equipment she'd been assigned, movements economical, precise. She didn't notice the quiet until it settled too deeply, until the sounds around her thinned.
"Liora."
Her name sounded different in Enforcer Crowe's voice. Careful. Measured. Like it mattered. Dangerous. For mattering meant visibility, and that was dangerous.
She turned.
He stood a few steps away, not close enough to imply interest, not far enough to dismiss her. His gaze flicked briefly to her face, then away, like he didn't want to be seen looking.
"Yes?" she asked.
"You did well today."
Her chest tightened before she could stop it. A stupid reaction. An old one. One that should not exist.
"Thank you." The words were not spoken as an affirmation, nor as a full question, but somewhere in between.
A pause stretched between them, weighted with something unsaid.
He seemed to consider something, jaw tightening, then said, "Be careful."
It wasn't a warning she understood.
Before she could ask, he turned and walked away, leaving her standing there with the echo of his words. And her doubts lingering...
Liora stood longer than necessary, heart unsteady. She hated that part of herself. The one that still wanted to believe kindness meant safety. That attention meant belonging.
She bent and picked up the last of the equipment.
Across the training yard, Alpha Thorne issued another command to someone else. The pressure rolled outward instinctively.
Liora didn't feel it.
She never had.
She probably never would.
She kept walking.
------------------------------------------------------
Crowe POV
Crowe did not miss patterns.
Packs survived on repetition. The same mistakes. The same corrections. The same bodies folding the same way under the same pressure.
Liora Vale did not fold.
Not fully.
It wasn't obvious. That was the problem. She delayed just enough. Bent just enough. Obeyed without responding. Her scent never spiked the way it should have when Alpha Thorne spoke.
Crowe had seen wolves resist before.
They broke.
Liora didn't resist.
She absorbed.
That was worse.
------------------------------------------------------
Cassian Thorne POV
Cassian told himself he was imagining it.
From where he stood, the outer ring blurred together. Unranked bodies. Background noise. Necessary, replaceable.
Except one of them didn't move like noise.
Liora Vale carried herself like someone who understood gravity better than everyone else. Like balance came naturally, and was not learned. When his father's dominance rolled through the yard, Cassian felt it settle into his bones as it always had.
She didn't.
The absence was louder than defiance.
Cassian looked away first.
He had learned, even as a child, that noticing the wrong thing was how trouble started.