The night after the ceremony didn’t feel real. Everything was still—too still, like the world was just waiting to shatter.
Silver moonlight washed over the pack lands, touching the trees, the buildings, even the edges of the forest. The wind slipped between the branches, carrying the sharp scent of pine and something distant, almost like rain.
But inside the tiny guest room by the edge of the compound, Lyra couldn’t sleep at all.
She sat hunched on the edge of her narrow bed, hands clenched together so tight her knuckles ached.
Her chest hurt. Not like a wound—something deeper. A hollow ache that pulled at her with every breath.
The ceremony felt like another lifetime already. But the memory kept flooding back. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it: Alpha Kael, standing tall in f
