The first thing Elara became aware of was the smell of pine.
Not the gentle, woodsy scent of the forest behind St. Magdalene's Orphanage, where she'd spent eighteen years pretending to belong somewhere. This was different—sharp, cold, overwhelming. It pressed into her lungs like a living thing, demanding attention.
The second thing was the pain.
Her ribs screamed with every breath. Her head throbbed in time with her heartbeat, a sickening pulse that made her want to curl into herself and disappear. But she'd learned long ago that disappearing wasn't an option. Not for girls like her.
Girls like me.
What did that even mean anymore?
Elara forced her eyes open.
Wooden ceiling. Rough-hewn beams. Firelight flickering against walls covered in animal pelts and ancient tapestries depicting wolves mid-hunt. The bed beneath her was surprisingly soft—furs upon furs upon something that might have been straw—but it smelled wrong. Like them.
Like wolves.
The memories crashed back in fragments.
The rogue attack. Running through the forest outside Millbrook, the orphanage's lone human girl taking her nightly walk despite Matron's warnings. The snap of branches behind her. The thing that emerged from the shadows—not quite wolf, not quite man, all teeth and yellow eyes and hunger.
Then nothing.
Then... here.
"Ah. You're awake."
Elara's body reacted before her mind caught up. She jerked upright, ignoring the protest of her injured ribs, and pressed herself against the headboard. Her hands found nothing to defend herself with. Of course. They never did.
An old man stood in the doorway. Human-looking, if human meant weathered skin, pale eyes that seemed to glow faintly in the dim light, and hands that had definitely seen more than their share of blood. He carried a clay bowl steaming with something that smelled herbal.
"Easy, child." He approached slowly, deliberately, the way one might approach a wounded animal. "You're in Blackthorn Pack territory. I'm Elder Thorne, the pack healer. You were brought here three days ago."
Three days.
Elara's throat worked, but no sound came out. She tried again. "The... the thing that attacked me—"
"Rogues." The word dripped with contempt. "Packless wolves with no law, no honor. They've been testing our borders for months. You were simply... in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong girl.
The story of her life.
Elara pulled the furs higher, suddenly aware she was wearing someone else's clothes—a soft linen shift that reached her knees, miles better than the scratchy nightgowns at the orphanage. "Who undressed me?"
"One of our female warriors. Lyra." Thorne set the bowl on a small table beside the bed. "Drink. It will help with the pain."
"I'm fine."
"You're not." He didn't push, just watched her with those unnerving pale eyes. "You've been running from something long before those rogues found you, haven't you, child?"
Elara said nothing. She'd learned silence young. Silence was safe. Silence didn't get you noticed.
Thorne sighed. "The Alpha will want to see you. He doesn't like humans in his territory. Doesn't like complications. You're both."
The Alpha.
She'd heard stories, of course. Everyone in Millbrook had. The Blackthorn Pack ruled these northern forests, and their Alpha was rumored to be the most feared wolf in hundreds of miles. Cold. Ruthless. Merciless to enemies, demanding of his pack, and utterly contemptuous of the human town that existed only because his ancestors had allowed it.
Elara had always assumed the stories were exaggerated.
She was about to learn otherwise.
---
The pack compound spread across a valley nestled between snow-capped peaks, a collection of wooden buildings that somehow managed to look both primitive and fortress-like. Elara saw it through a window while Thorne fetched someone to escort her.
Training grounds where massive wolves shifted into equally massive men mid-stride. Women running alongside them, faster than should be possible, their laughter carrying on the wind. Children tumbling in the snow, teeth elongating playfully, fur rippling across small bodies before receding.
They're born with this, she thought. Born knowing exactly what they are.
She'd never known what she was. Only what she wasn't.
Wanted. Loved. Chosen.
The door opened.
A woman entered—young, maybe nineteen, with short-cropped dark hair and the kind of warrior's body that spoke of years of training. She carried a bundle of clothes and looked at Elara the way one might look at a stray dog that had wandered into a nice neighborhood.
"I'm Lyra." No warmth. No cruelty either. Just... assessment. "Get dressed. Alpha wants you in the great hall in ten minutes."
"What does he want?"
Lyra's eyes flickered with something—pity? warning?—before she turned away. "Does it matter? You're human. You're here. You're his problem now. Move."
The clothes were simple—leather pants that fit surprisingly well, a wool tunic, boots that had clearly been worn before. Elara dressed quickly, ignoring the way her fingers trembled. She'd faced Matron's rages. She'd faced hungry winter nights with no food. She'd faced eighteen years of being the girl no one wanted.
She could face one Alpha.
Liar, whispered a voice in her head. You're terrified.
The great hall was exactly what she expected—massive, dominated by a long table scarred with claw marks, walls decorated with weapons and trophies, a fire pit in the center that could have roasted an entire deer. Wolves filled every corner, some in human form, some partially shifted, all watching her with open curiosity or barely concealed hostility.
And at the head of the table, in a chair that looked more like a throne...
Oh.
Elara's feet stopped moving.
He was younger than she'd expected. Twenty-five, maybe. But age meant nothing when power radiated from someone like heat from a forge. Black hair, cut short but slightly disheveled. Jaw sharp enough to cut glass. Body that spoke of violence and control and absolute authority.
And his eyes.
Silver.
Not grey. Not pale blue. True, unmistakable silver, like moonlight on fresh snow, like the wolves in her dreams—
She cut that thought off before it could finish.
The Alpha—Kael, she'd heard Lyra call him—looked at her.
And felt... nothing.
Elara saw it happen. Saw his gaze travel over her, take in her too-thin frame, her too-pale skin, her too-quiet demeanor. Saw him wait for something. Saw nothing come.
His nostrils flared slightly. Once. Twice.
Nothing.
He can't smell me, she realized. They keep talking about scent, about how wolves identify each other, and he can't smell anything.
A muscle twitched in his jaw.
"A human girl." His voice matched his eyes—cold, distant, utterly indifferent. "Explain."
Cassian—the sandy-haired Beta who'd escorted her in—stepped forward. "Rogues attacked her three miles from our southern border. Our patrol found her unconscious, bleeding out. Healer Thorne says she would have died without intervention."
"Then we should have let her die."
The words hit like a physical blow. Elara had expected hostility. She'd prepared for suspicion, for coldness, for the kind of contempt she'd faced her entire life. But this... this was different.
This was an Alpha who looked at her and saw nothing.
Not an enemy worth fighting. Not a threat worth watching. Not even a nuisance worth bothering with.
Just empty space.
Something in Elara's chest cracked. Just a little. Just enough to feel.
"My pack comes first." Kael's silver eyes finally focused on her, and she understood why wolves feared him. There was nothing human in that gaze. Nothing soft. Nothing kind. "You'll stay in the omega quarters until you're healed. Then you'll leave. We don't keep pets."
Laughter rippled through the hall.
Elara's chin came up. Just an inch. Just enough to show she'd heard, she understood, and she would survive this too.
"I didn't ask to come here," she said quietly.
Silence fell.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "What did you say?"
"I said I didn't ask to come here." Her voice didn't shake. Eighteen years of practice. "I didn't ask to be attacked. I didn't ask to be saved. I'm grateful for your healer's care, and I'll leave as soon as I'm able. But I'm not a pet. I'm not anything to you."
The hall held its breath.
For a long, terrible moment, Kael simply stared at her. She stared back. It was stupid. It was suicidal. It was the most herself she'd felt in years.
Then something shifted in his expression. Not warmth—never warmth. But a flicker of... something. Curiosity, maybe. Or the acknowledgment that this particular piece of nothing had teeth.
"You're in my territory," he said softly. "You breathe because I allow it. You eat because I allow it. You exist because I haven't decided to make you stop. Remember that, human."
Elara remembered.
She remembered everything.
---
The omega quarters were exactly what she expected—a cramped building at the edge of the compound, shared by pack members too weak, too old, or too low-ranked to earn better. Elara was given a corner cot and exactly one blanket. The others avoided her like she carried a disease.
Maybe she did. Maybe being human was contagious.
That night, alone in the darkness, Elara pressed her hand to her chest and felt it.
The spot where the Alpha's gaze had passed over her like she was made of air.
It burned.
Not painfully. Not like injury. But there was something there, buried deep, that had reacted to his indifference. That had wanted—desperately, foolishly, pathetically—for him to see her.
Stop it, she told herself. You don't need anyone to see you. You've survived this long by being invisible. Don't start wanting things now.
But when she finally slept, she dreamed.
Silver wolves running through moonlight. A crown made of stars. A voice whispering words she couldn't quite hear.
And a pair of silver eyes, watching her from the shadows.
Watching her like she mattered.
---
When Elara woke the next morning, her skin itched.
She scratched absently at her forearm—and froze.
Pale, silvery lines curled across her skin just below the sleeve of her borrowed tunic. Delicate. Almost beautiful. Like someone had painted moonlight on her flesh.
She rubbed at them. They didn't smudge.
She scratched harder. They didn't fade.
What—
"Breakfast." An omega woman shoved a bowl through the gap in the curtain around Elara's cot. "Eat fast. You have work duties in an hour."
Elara pulled her sleeve down. Hid the marks. Took the bowl.
And told herself it was nothing.
Just a rash. Just irritation from the strange environment. Just her body reacting to stress.
Just nothing.
Because that's all she was, after all.
Nothing.
---
End of Chapter 1🐺