Elara POV
The thick, gray fog of the Shadow Forest swallowed me whole.
The warm yellow glow of the castle's gaslamps disappeared behind me, leaving me in total darkness.
My legs gave out only when the burning in my lungs became unbearable. The wet earth met my cheek, and the damp soil soaked into the ruin of my dress. The agony in my chest was a constant, gnawing thing, but it was a mere prelude to what followed.
*I crawled through the dead leaves, my fingers clawing at the frozen ground. Every inch forward was a war—my body screaming for rest, my soul screaming for death. But some stubborn, dying ember of defiance kept me moving. If I was going to die, I would die far from the castle. Far from him. Far from the eyes that had watched me bleed on their marble floor and done nothing. *
The midnight moon broke through the thick canopy of ancient trees.
My eighteenth birthday had arrived.
The Shift began.
A horrific cracking sound echoed in the stillness—the sound of my own spine. Mud and dead leaves filled my mouth, stifling the scream before it could fully form. The sound of my own bones breaking and re-forming beneath my skin was a grotesque percussion in the silent woods.
Without the anchor of a completed mate bond, its threads now violently severed, the process multiplied its torment a hundredfold, turning my blood to liquid fire.
My skin tore, and coarse fur began to push through.
The heavy scent of my fresh blood drifted into the woods.
I heard the snapping of twigs.
Low, wet growls surrounded me.
Through my blurry vision, I saw three massive wolves stepping out of the fog.
They had patchy fur, wild expressions, and glowing red eyes.
They were Rogues.
They drooled, smelling my weakness and my fresh blood.
I tried to crawl away, but my shifting body refused to obey me.
One of the Rogues lunged at me, its jaws snapping toward my throat.
At that exact second, the dark clouds in the sky parted completely.
The pure, brilliant light of the Moon Goddess struck my twisting body.
The searing fire in my veins suddenly vanished.
It was replaced by a rush of ancient, sacred energy.
*A voice—not sound, but pure light—echoed in the depths of my soul. "Awaken, daughter of the frost. You are not what they told you. You never were." *
I did not shift into a small, weak Omega wolf.
I kept growing, my muscles expanding with terrifying strength.
My fur was not brown or gray.
It was a blinding, flawless silver-white.
I stood up on four massive paws, towering over the feral beasts.
I was a White Wolf.
The dark forest was illuminated by the holy glow of my fur.
I released a heavy, crushing presence that carried the weight of a deity.
The three Rogues slammed into the dirt, whimpering and shaking in absolute terror.
They could not even lift their heads.
I let out an empty, echoing howl that shook the leaves from the trees.
I moved like a flicker of white lightning, a silent apparition of lethal grace.
My jaws clamped down on the first Rogue's neck, snapping it instantly.
I spun around, my massive claws tearing through the other two before they could even blink.
Silence returned to the forest, broken only by the sound of the stream.
I walked to the edge of the water and looked at my reflection.
The creature staring back from the water's surface was no scullery maid. The shadow it cast was as vast as a hillock, its coarse, silver-white pelt refracting the moonlight with the cold, hard glint of fractured ice.
I was not a servant. I was never meant to scrub floors.
I shook the blood from my white coat.
I raised my head to the moon and made a silent vow.
I would never let anyone trample on my dignity again.
I turned away from the direction of the Blood Moon Pack and vanished into the deep, unknown woods, answering an ancient call that resonated in my new blood. I would seek out the sacred places of the Goddess, train until this divine gift was an extension of my will, and wait for the day my homeland would need its true guardian.
*The forest closed behind me, and the castle I had bled for faded into the mist. Three years would pass before I saw those black flagstones again. And when I returned, the girl who scrubbed them would be dead. In her place would walk a queen. *
