Novels by chiemelajosiah5

Zara stepped out into the garden, her legs still stiff from the sparring test. The night air was sharp, biting at the cuts along her arms and the bruises along her ribs, but she didn’t stop. She moved through the winding paths with purpose, listening to the distant howl of wolves beyond the fortress walls. Each step brought her closer to Ma Erene’s small clearing at the edge of the training yard. The old woman was already there, kneeling beside a circle of stones, her hands busy tying herbs into small bundles that smelled of smoke and something wild Zara couldn’t name.“You’re late,” Ma Erene said without looking up, her voice rough like dry leaves rubbing together. Zara knelt on the cold stone beside her, brushing at the dirt on her knees. “I am not late,” she muttered, and the older woman’s gray eyes finally met hers. They were sharp, unreadable, and full of expectation. “You think that matters,” Ma Erene said, tapping the edge of a bundle with her gnarled staff. “What matters i

It was another bad day, as Zara knew that the only way to be out of that caged quarter was to become a member of the pack. But that isn't easy to be, because she's just a property.And if she isn't a member, it won't be possible to like that quarter which makes her training with ma Erena impossible.So she did the unthinkable. She went to the training master and told him that she was ready to become a member…. Which indirectly means a servant and not a property, a gift from a rival.And that was how they ended up in the sparring ring that was already soaked with blood by the time they dragged her to it. The earth was dark with sweat and bruises, grooved with claw marks and footprints of those who had come before her, strong, fast, and trained. Zara was none of those things. Her bare feet sank into the dirt as she was shoved forward, her arms stiff from yesterday’s scrubbing, her back aching from the stone she slept on. Above her, the morning sun bled through a gray sky, casting long

The days bled into one another like ink on soaked parchment, colorless, murky, indistinct. Zara has been given her daily task, and after her second day, she started with the job.So just like today, she scrubbed until her fingers turned stiff, and her knees ached from crawling on the stone floor. Her body had learned to move very fast within these few days. The training pit was the worst of all places, the scent of sweat, and blood soaked into the walls and floor. From morning until late noon, the warriors howled and slammed into each other like beasts in heat, growling dominance, marking territory, living violence. But Zara was not permitted inside the pit. Her place was around it, always barefoot, and she stayed quiet, brushing dirt from the floor as if her effort would wipe away the blood stains. No one looked at him because they already known what she was. A forgotten offering, a shameful gift from a lesser pack. A symbol of surrender, and not a soul.The sun burned harshly tha

The great hall was alive with warmth and sound, everything that Zara’s insides were not. Fire roared the twin hearths that flanked the long wooden room, casting firelight on the walls, but it did nothing to thaw the cold pit lodged in her stomach. Laughter echoed across vaulted beams, tankards clinked, and meat sizzled on platters carried by servants too exhausted to meet anyone’s gaze. The scent of roasted venison and spiced mead hung thick in the air, making her stomach twist not with hunger, but with dread. She stood at the edge of the room like a statue draped in shadow, her hands pressed to her sides, and her head bowed just enough to appear respectful without seeming broken. She didn’t look for him but she could feel Hunter’s presence like a storm cloud overhead, brimming with power, unmoved by his surroundings, and watching like a lion targeting a zebra.When the Alpha finally stepped into the hall, silence followed like a curtain falling. Every eye turned. Hunter didn’t bask

The morning after her arrival was colder than the night before not in temperature, but in treatment. The thin cot they'd tossed her onto in the servants’ quarters offered no warmth, only a sliver of moldy hay and a damp wool blanket that barely reached her knees. She hadn’t slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the look in Hunter’s golden gaze, that soulless void that had stripped her bare in front of a pack of strangers. By dawn, the sharp sound of boots on stone signaled her summons. A female servant, mute and hollow-eyed jerked her upright and dressed her without a word, shoving Zara’s arms into a rough brown dress with seams that scratched her skin. Her hair was barely combed. Her face was left unwashed. They wanted her seen like this, they wanted her exposed.They led her through winding halls of gray stone and bitter silence until the corridor widened into a vast, open arena packed with wolves, some in human form, some only half-shifted, their eyes gleaming and claws

The wind was bitter that morning, laced with frost and silence, it was the kind of silence that clung to Zara Quinn’s skin like a second layer of shame. She stood at the edge of the Gema Pack’s northern courtyard, watching her sisters train beneath the cold light of the rising moon. Swords clashed, bodies moved in practiced rhythm, and battle cries rang out like songs of inheritance. She didn’t belong among them. She never had. Not with her wolfless blood, not with her father’s contempt strangling her name at every turn. The others wore their heritage like armor, they were the children of Alpha Lucas Quinn, golden warriors of strength and transformation. Zara wore hers like a curse; a quiet reminder of what weakness looked like in a world ruled by dominance.She pulled her shawl tighter around her thin frame and turned away, boots crunching across the brittle frost. Her breath misted in the air, trailing behind her like a ghost. She didn’t need to see the looks they threw when they t