Wrenna Voss's POV
"Hold still, or you will tear the stitches."
A sharp sting flared at the base of my skull. I flinched, my hands flying up to block whoever was touching me. My fingers met a thick layer of crushed herbs and rough linen. I twisted my hips, trying to roll off the hard surface beneath me. My muscles screamed in protest.
"I said hold still." A woman with silver-streaked hair pressed her forearms against my shoulders, pinning me to the wooden cot. "You lost a massive amount of blood. If you fight me, you bleed out right here on this table."
I stopped struggling. My chest heaved. I stared at the wooden ceiling, then at the woman leaning over me.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice cracking.
"Sela. Pack healer for Silvermoon." She tugged the linen bandage tighter around my throat, tying a harsh knot. "Do you know your name?"
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I dug into my mind, searching for a face, a place, a single letter of my name. A vast, empty white void stared back at me. I tried to picture a house, a family, anything. Nothing. Just a blank slate and a pounding headache.
"I do not know," I whispered, my throat raw.
"Do not force it," a deep voice rumbled from the corner of the cabin.
A man stepped into the dim light of the oil lamp. Broad shoulders, sharp jawline, and eyes like cold steel. He wore a heavy dark coat, the collar turned up against the draft. He did not carry himself like a guard. He carried himself like he owned the ground he walked on.
"I am Cassian Vale," he said, stopping at the foot of the cot. "Alpha of Silvermoon. Sela and I pulled you out of the river gorge."
"The gorge," I repeated. The words felt entirely foreign.
Sela leaned in close. She lowered her voice to a harsh murmur, making sure Cassian could hear every word.
"The bite on your neck did not come from a wild animal," Sela said, wiping her blood-stained hands on a towel. "It was a trained rogue. I served in the border wars for ten years. I know a mercenary strike when I see one. Someone wanted you dead, and they paid good money to ensure it happened."
My stomach twisted. Someone wanted me dead. Why? I didn't even know who I was. But a raw, undeniable instinct flared in my blood, cutting through the confusion. Survive. Find out. Destroy them.
"Are you going to ask me where I came from?" I asked Cassian.
I swung my legs over the edge of the cot. The room spun violently, but I gripped the mattress and forced myself to sit upright.
"You do not know where you came from," Cassian replied flatly. "Interrogating a blank wall wastes my time."
He turned and dragged a heavy wooden table to the center of the room. A thick layer of fine, packed sand covered the top, dotted with small wooden blocks and carved flags. A tactical map.
A tall man with a scarred cheek followed Cassian into the light, eyeing me with open suspicion.
"This is my Beta, Jaxon," Cassian said. He gestured to the sand table. "While you were unconscious, you kept moving your fingers against the sheets. Tracing lines. Shifting positions. You were arranging troops."
I frowned, looking down at my bare hands. "I was?"
"You are not a normal patient," Cassian stated. He picked up a wooden block and tapped it against the edge of the table. "Jaxon and I have been trying to break a simulated siege on our western ridge for three hours. Show me what your hands were doing."
"Alpha, she has a traumatic brain injury," Jaxon protested, stepping between me and the table. "She can barely sit up. This is ridiculous."
"Let her look," Cassian commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument.
I pushed myself off the cot. My knees wobbled. Pain shot down my spine, but I locked my joints and limped toward the table. I stared down at the wooden blocks. The red flags represented enemy forces, clustered heavily at the base of a carved sand ridge. The blue flags, Silvermoon defenders, were spread thin across the top.
Jaxon crossed his arms, glaring at me. "They have us pinned," Jaxon said. "Look at the elevation. If we push forward, they flank us in the trees. If we hold the ridge, they starve us out. There is no viable counter-offensive without heavy casualties."
I stared at the board. The shapes of the flags, the curves of the sand—it all made perfect sense, like a language I spoke fluently but couldn't remember learning.
I reached out. My hand moved on its own.
I grabbed three blue blocks from the center line and shoved them far to the left, burying them slightly in the sand to simulate a hidden trench.
"What are you doing?" Jaxon snapped, stepping forward to block my hand. "You just weakened the main gate. They will slaughter the center."
I shoved his hand away. "Watch the board, Beta."
"Quiet," Cassian ordered, his steel eyes locked on my hands.
I ignored Jaxon completely. I swept my palm across the right flank, flattening a small sand hill, and moved the remaining blue flags into a tight, crescent formation. I took a single red block—the enemy vanguard—and pushed it into the gap I had just created at the center.
"You let them in," Jaxon scoffed, his tone heavy with disdain. "Congratulations, you just lost the war."
"I trapped them," I corrected. My voice rang out steady and sharp, carrying an authority I did not know I possessed.
I tapped the blue blocks hidden in the trench. "You are thinking like a guard, trying to protect a static line. Think like a hunter. The enemy pushes the weak center, believing they broke your defense. They flood the gap. The moment their vanguard crosses this line—" I drew a sharp line in the sand with my thumbnail "—your hidden left flank swings out, cutting off their retreat."
I moved the pieces quickly, simulating the crush. "The crescent on the right collapses inward, forcing them into a bottleneck against the steep elevation of your own ridge. You do not hold the ridge to survive. You give up the ridge to turn the valley into a kill box."
Silence filled the cabin.
Jaxon stared at the sand table, his jaw slacking. He looked from the wooden blocks to my face, the suspicion in his eyes replaced by stark disbelief. He reached out, tracing the lines I had drawn in the sand.
"A triple-point encirclement," Jaxon muttered. "We spent hours staring at this. She solved it in ten seconds."
Cassian did not look at the table. He looked directly at me. A dangerous, calculating gleam sparked in his eyes.
"Who taught you how to command?" Cassian asked, stepping closer.
"I told you," I said, wiping the sand from my fingertips onto my pants. "I do not know."
"You have muscle memory for warfare," Cassian noted. "You do not panic when told assassins are hunting you. You belong on a battlefield."
I met his gaze, refusing to back down despite the throbbing pain in my neck. "Then give me a reason to fight for you, Alpha. Because right now, I need a safe place to heal, and you need someone who can actually read a map."
Cassian's mouth twitched into the ghost of a smirk. "Deal."
Sela walked over, carrying a woven basket filled with bloody rags and crushed herbs. She refused to look at me. She kept her eyes fixed entirely on Cassian.
"I need to boil more bandages," Sela said, her voice tight and urgent. "Alpha, a word outside."
Cassian nodded and followed the healer toward the heavy cabin door. Jaxon lingered by the sand table, still rearranging the wooden blocks, muttering under his breath about the kill box.
I sat back down on the cot, my energy draining rapidly. The adrenaline faded, leaving behind a fierce ache in my neck. I pressed my hand against the thick linen, feeling the heat radiating from the wound.
Through the thin wooden walls of the cabin, the wind howled, but it was not loud enough to drown out the voices on the porch.
"She is dangerous, Cassian," Sela whispered sharply.
"She is a brilliant tactician," Cassian replied, his boots shifting on the wooden planks. "We can use her."
"You do not understand," Sela hissed.
The sound of her heavy medicine basket hitting the floorboards echoed through the wall.
"When I cleaned the rotting tissue, I saw the scar tissue underneath," Sela said. "The old mark on her neck is an Alpha-level bite. This woman was a pack's Luna."
