Kaia
The last two weeks on my father's island were a blur of sweat and raw meat. I stopped making excuses. I stopped slacking. Every morning, I pushed my body into the shift, my bones snapping and reforming until I was running on four paws alongside Cain and Selene. They were so lost in each other it was nauseating. I was the third wheel in a high-speed furry romance, trailing behind while they shared silent glances I couldn't understand.
Afternoons were a slow torture of history. Selene's voice would drone on, a steady hum that made my forehead itch to meet the table. But the evenings were different. Cain was a monster in the gym. He broke me down, over and over, drilling human defense into my muscle memory until my limbs turned to lead. Then came the range. I fired until the smell of gunpowder lived in my skin and my arms shook too hard to load another clip.
And then there was the hunger.
I turned into a predator. Red meat was the only thing that stopped the growl in my gut. I didn't just eat; I fueled a fire. Selah was worse. She tore through the local deer population like she was trying to wipe them out.
When sleep finally took me, it was total. No more haunting dreams of white fur and blood. Just twelve hours of heavy, black void. It was the reset I needed.
Selah and I were finally clicking. The silence between us started to fill with a strange, steady heat. I didn't feel the old ache of loneliness anymore. I didn't care about a mate. I had her.
'We are not friends,' Selah snapped, her mental voice sharp and dry.
'Whatever you say. You're stuck with me either way.'
My father was a ghost. He'd drift in every few days to get reports from his shadows, Cain and Selene. He didn't bark at me as much, which was its own kind of unsettling. It reminded me that even if they were kind to me, they were his soldiers first.
The day before we were set to leave, I finally felt the shift in my own power.
A heavy crack echoed through the gym as Cain's back hit the mat. I didn't give him a second to breathe. I lunged, pinning his shoulders down with everything I had. We stayed there for a heartbeat, chests heaving, sweat dripping from my nose onto his forehead. His breath smelled like protein shakes and effort. I rolled him over, shoving his face into the rubber mat and locking his wrists behind him.
"Get off, Princess," Cain grunted. His voice was muffled by the floor. He sounded small, annoyed.
"Admit it," I said, leaning my knee into the small of his back. I let a smug grin spread across my face. "I got you."
"Selene was distracting me," he lied.
I let him go and slumped onto the floor beside him, wiping the wet hair from my eyes. He sat up, rubbing his wrists, his gaze drifting toward the door where Selene usually waited. Those two were a unit. Even when they weren't touching, they were bound by an invisible cord. It was too much. Seeing them made me want to swear off men forever. I'd stick to the stories in my head; they were less messy.
Then came the news that felt like a slap. At my father's word, Rook canceled my pack ceremony. The whispers started immediately, crawling through the pack like a fever.
'Maybe I'm not enough,' I thought, my stomach churning. 'Maybe he sees I'm failing.'
'No. He is just an asshole,' Selah cut in.
She was right. She usually was.
The summons to his office came an hour later. I should have felt it coming. The necklace he gave me was a heavy weight against my collarbone, a constant reminder of an exit.
"Tomorrow?" I asked. The word felt like it was made of glass.
"Tomorrow. Pack your things," he said. He didn't look up. His eyes stayed on the platinum chain around my neck, cold and distant.
"Do I get a vote in this?" My voice was thin, a soft sound that caught us both off guard.
He stood up, walking around the desk until he was looming over me. He placed his hands on my shoulders. The weight of him felt like it was trying to crush me into the floorboards.
"Kaia," he said, his voice low and hard. "You are the end of our line. The legacy stops or starts with you. If you won't pick a path, I will pave one for you."
I felt a bitter chill in my chest. I wasn't a daughter to him. I was a broodmare. A way to keep a bloodline moving. I stared at his chest, silent and nodding, because fighting him felt like fighting a mountain.
He pulled his hands away. The heat went with them.
"Goodbye, Kaia."
...
"I can't believe this," I snapped, tossing a stack of books onto my bed. I looked at the pile of my life. A laptop, a phone, and a few notebooks. That was it. Everything else belonged to my father's house, not to me.
The realization felt like a punch to the gut. I owned nothing.
"What do you want to wear?" Selene called out. She was deep in my closet, the sound of hangers sliding against metal clicking like a countdown. "You have plenty of choices."
"Am I even coming back here?" I asked. I gripped the edge of my suitcase, my knuckles turning white.
"No," she said. Her voice was muffled by the rows of silk and wool. "But don't worry. I'll make sure your bags move with us to each pack house."
I didn't care about the logistics. The thought of never seeing this room again made the air feel thin. "We aren't even stopping here between Anatolikos and Dytikos?"
Selene emerged from the closet with an armful of clothes. "Not according to the plan Cain and I have. But plans change. Now, pick something. You need to look like someone worth knowing when we arrive."
"Pack houses," I muttered. My shoulders dropped. The idea of performing for strangers made my skin itch. "Just pick whatever. You know what they like better than I do."
"Watch the tone, Kaia. What do you think this place is?" She waved her hand at the room, then at the window where the sprawling estate lay.
I stared at her. A slow, cold realization started to crawl up my spine. "Wait. You mean everyone here? On the island?"
"Almost everyone," Selene said. She leaned against the doorframe, watching me. "Astra is the doctor. She keeps the White Moon healthy. The guards are our warriors. Even in the library, we aren't just reading. We're recording the bloodlines. Your father is the Alpha of the Alphas. And Thorne? Rook? They're the teeth of this pack."
My head spun. I had lived my whole life in a house of predators and never noticed the scent of the hunt. My father hadn't just raised me in a house; he'd raised me in a fortress.
"How many?" I sat on the edge of the bed, my fingers trembling as I zipped my laptop case. "How many are under his thumb?"
"Around fourteen hundred," Selene said. She spoke as if she were giving me the weather report.
I choked on my own breath. "Fourteen hundred?"
She nodded. "Three hundred here in Kentrikos. Voreios is the smallest, maybe a hundred and fifty. Anatolikos has two-fifty. Dytikos has three hundred. And Notios has four hundred."
"Four hundred in the south," I repeated. My heart hammered against my ribs. "That's enough to-"
"Enough to challenge him, yes," she finished for me. She began folding a shirt with practiced ease. "But your father's men are the elite. You've felt Cain's training. Most of our pack are soldiers, not just wolves."
I swallowed a dry lump in my throat. My choice to visit the south last felt less like a strategy and more like a death wish. "So my father... he wants a match with Notios."
"The Notios Alphas are powerful," Selene said. Her voice dropped an octave. "And attractive, from what I hear. They have to be. They're built to lead."
I squinted at her. She was usually an open book, but something in her eyes had shifted. She was my friend, or as close as I had, but she was still on the payroll.
"Selene," I said, my voice sharp. "What is your actual job?"
She froze. Her hands stayed buried in the fabric of my dresses. "Right now? My job is to help you. To teach you where you came from."
A low growl started in the base of my throat. It was a raw, rattling sound I didn't know I could make. "And?"
She lowered her head. Her voice was a tiny, fragile thing. "And to record history."
"What history?" I pressed.
She looked over her shoulder, her face flushed red. "Yours."
"Mine?" I let out a harsh, hollow laugh. I thought about the family book. One word next to my name: Surviving. "I'm a nobody. I've done nothing but take up space."
Selah shifted in my mind, a heavy, restless weight. She didn't argue. She knew I felt like a ghost in my own life.
"Not yet, Kaia," Selene whispered.
I shook my head and forced a smirk. "So you're a historian."
"I'm also here to make sure you find a mate," she added, trying to lighten the air. "Which means we need the right clothes. First impressions are everything."
"Great. So you're a librarian and a matchmaker," I teased.
She laughed, the tension finally breaking. "Something like that."
"Each territory has a welcome event during your stay," Selene said. She was back to her brisk, organizing self. "Voreios is holding a competition. Dytikos has an outdoor festival. Anatolikos has a reaping ceremony. And Notios..."
She stopped, her hands hovering over a stack of silk.
"And?" I asked. I picked at a loose thread on the quilt, my nerves jumping.
"Notios is throwing a ball," she said. She wouldn't look at me.
My stomach did a slow, sick roll. A ball meant dancing. I could barely stay on my feet in a fight; how was I supposed to glide across a floor? "Perfect," I muttered.
"Since it's your last stop, the timing is deliberate," Selene added. "It's a celebration. The night you announce your mate."
I crossed my arms, feeling the defensive wall go up. "Why do I even get to choose? Did you pick Cain, or did the universe just hand him to you?"
"The Moon Goddess chooses," Selene explained. She smoothed out a sweater with a slow, careful touch. "She finds the strongest bond. That's the pull Selah will feel. That's the one she'll want."
"Then why the parade? Why dragging me through four territories if the choice is already made?"
Selah's voice was dry in my head. 'Because humans love a show.'
"You're... different," Selene said. She set the clothes down and wiped her palms on her jeans. She walked over to the dresser and pulled out a heavy, leather-bound book I'd never noticed before. She flipped through the thin pages until she found what she was looking for.
She tapped a paragraph. "Read this."
The ink was old, faded into the paper. 'The white wolf is the rarest of all. She is the ultimate Luna. She can speak to the Goddess and hold sway over Alphas. Most importantly, she can choose her own mate. For balance to hold, the white wolf must seek the black wolf.'
'Keep going,' Selah urged. Her voice was uncharacteristically heavy.
I followed Selene's finger to the next section. 'The white wolf is the only female with the power to mark her partner. Her touch brings a surge of power, making her mate stronger and faster. But if she marks a male who is unfaithful, the mark is a death sentence.'
My pulse spiked. I felt a cold chill wash over me. 'Fatal?' I asked Selah.
'For them,' she replied. I could feel her dark, sharp grin in my mind. 'Not for us.'
"I can actually choose?" I looked up at Selene. The weight of it was staggering. This was the first piece of real power I'd been handed since I found out I was a monster.
"You have the right to reject the Goddess," Selene said softly. "No one knows if a second bond is as strong as the first, but your mother did it."
The air left my lungs. "My mother?"
"Yes." Selene's eyes softened. "Your father was not her natural mate. She chose him anyway."
I sat back on the bed, my mind racing. My mother had looked at my father, a man who seemed to be made of stone and ice, and she had chosen him. Had he ever been different? Had her choice been the thing that broke him when she died? I touched the platinum necklace at my throat. It felt heavier now.
"You have that same choice," Selene whispered.
I closed my eyes. I wanted her here. I wanted her to tell me how to know the difference between a bond and a mistake. Every decision I'd made so far had been guided by Selene.
"Everyone knows this, don't they?" I asked, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "The future Alphas. Their families."
"Yes," Selene said. She went back to the closet, her voice trailing behind her. "They'll be very persuasive, Kaia. They know what a white wolf brings to a pack."
"Lovely," I whispered. I felt like a piece of meat being tossed into a den of lions. My father's insistence on my training finally made sense. He wasn't just preparing me to lead; he was preparing me to survive the hunt.
"That's why Cain and I are coming," Selene said. Her voice was firm now, lacking the usual academic distance. "To have your back."
A small, genuine smile touched my lips. For the first time, I didn't feel like a project or a pawn. I felt like I had a friend.
I stood up and walked over to her. I didn't think about it; I just wrapped my arms around her. She went stiff for a second, surprised by the contact, but then she relaxed. She held me back, her grip steady and warm.
"Thank you, Selene," I whispered.
