Chapter 5: Mate

The full moon was already rising, high above the trees that surrounded Silverclaw territory. Its silver light bathed the forest in an ethereal glow, filtering through my window in long, ghostly beams.

This was the moment I’d dreaded my entire life—and now it's finally happening.

A wave of panic crashed into me, sharp and cold, mixing with the heat that already burned through my body. I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t know how to do this. No one had ever shown me, no one had ever prepared me. I had no idea how to control it, how to survive it. All I had ever heard were stories—terrifying stories—about first shifts. Stories about pain so unbearable that it broke them. About how dangerous it was if you lost yourself in it.

And I had no one. I was completely, utterly alone.

The pain was everywhere. It filled my chest, my head, my arms. It was so deep and so sharp that for a second I thought I might really break apart before I even shifted.

I dug my nails into the wooden floorboards, my fingers clawing at the grain, trying to find something solid to hold onto. Splinters caught under my nails. My breaths came out in hard gasps. My body shook in small, jerky movements as my muscles seized and then released again, over and over. It felt like something inside me was pushing out, clawing its way free.

And then I heard a voice.

It wasn’t from the hallway. It wasn’t from outside the attic. It wasn’t even from somewhere in the room. It was from inside me.

“Breathe, Skye. I’m here.”

I froze. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, so loud it drowned out everything else.

“W-Who—?” The word stumbled out of me, half-choked.

But before I could finish, I knew. I knew without anyone telling me.

It was my wolf.

“I’ve always been here,” she said, her voice soft but strong. “Tonight, you finally let me out.”

“It hurts,” I whispered, my lips barely moving. I wasn’t even sure if I spoke out loud or only thought it.

“Only for now. Let go. Trust me.”

Her voice was calm, like a steady hand on my back.

A sound tore out of me—half cry, half growl—as my spine arched and my limbs twisted one last time. The pain peaked, rising so high I thought I would burst. And then, just like that, it broke. The pressure snapped inside me like a tight string cut loose, and I dropped forward onto the floor, panting.

I blinked. The world looked different. Everything was sharper, clearer. I could smell things I had never noticed before—the moss and wet earth outside, the burnt wood from the ceremony fires far below. I could hear the smallest creaks of the attic floor, but they didn’t sound like creaks under feet. They sounded like creaks under paws.

My paws.

I lowered my head and saw them. They are not my hands, but fur and claws. I stared at them for a long moment, my breath coming fast.

I wasn’t human anymore.

My reflection in the small attic window stared back at me, but it wasn’t my human face anymore. A white wolf looked out from the glass. Her fur was thick and bright, shining like fresh snow under the moonlight. Amber eyes, wide and sharp, blinked back at me.

“You did it,” she said softly. Her voice wasn’t outside. It came from somewhere deep within, steady and sure. “We’re whole now.”

I stepped back from the window, still breathing hard. My chest swelled again with that same new kind of breath. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel small. I didn’t feel like an omega cowering at the bottom of a pack that never wanted her.

I felt powerful.

How could that even be? Omegas weren’t supposed to feel like this after they transformed. At least, that’s what I had always been told.

“I am Lyra,” the voice said again. This time it was clearer, warmer. “Do you want to go for a run, Skye?” she asked. Her voice slid into my thoughts as if it had always been there, waiting.

I didn’t hesitate. My paws shifted against the wooden floor and before I even thought about it, we leapt through the small attic window and landed on the grass below. The cool blades bent under our weight but didn’t break. We ran straight for the tree line, the forest opening up ahead of us. The moonlight poured down like water, blessing our fur as we ran.

“I’ve watched you grow up, Skye,” Lyra said as we bounded between the trees, her voice still inside me, calm but strong. “You don’t have to be scared anymore. I will protect you now that I am here.”

Her words hit me harder than the wind. All my life, I had believed I was wolfless, that there was nothing waiting for me inside. But Lyra had been there the whole time, faint and quiet, drowned out by the voices of others who told me I was nothing.

And now she was here.

It touched something deep inside me to hear her speak like that. For the first time, I didn’t just run because I was trying to escape. I ran because I was free. Because with her, I could be bold enough to leave this place and start a new life. Nothing was going to stop me from reaching my dream of getting out of this hell.

We slowed after a while, paws digging into the earth as we stopped near a ridge that overlooked the packhouse. The building sat below us, still lit up for the ceremony, but it felt far away, small under the sky.

That’s when I felt it.

It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t even a sound. It was a pull, a sudden tug inside my chest, like a string had been pulled tight all at once.

Lyra stiffened inside me. “Do you feel that?”

I froze, my ears flicking toward the wind. It wasn’t just instinct. It wasn’t just curiosity. It was a scent, faint but clear, drifting in with the night air.

Earthy. Dominant. A little smoky. Masculine.

My breath caught, and in that instant I knew exactly what it meant.

A mate.

I had a mate, and he was here.

My heart pounded so hard in my chest that I could feel it echoing in my ears. He was among the guests or maybe even worse, he was one of the wolves from the Silverclaw Pack.

The thought made my stomach twist with nerves and my paws freeze for a moment.

Before I could tell Lyra that I didn’t want to go any closer, that I wasn’t ready to face whoever he was, she moved first. She didn’t wait. She took control and led me down the hill, following the pull of that scent that had wrapped itself around my senses.

We padded down the hill and circled the back of the packhouse quietly, keeping to the shadows until we reached a spot where we could see the bonfire through the trees.

And then I saw Damian who stood near the fire, tall and commanding. Around him was his circle of elite wolves, their energy filling the space like a shield. They looked as though they had just returned from a run.

He didn't notice me. Yet something about him reached out to me. It was like a magnet pulling at my heart, a gravity I couldn’t fight. My breath caught in my throat, and I felt my paws inch forward without meaning to.

“It’s him, Skye.” Lyra’s voice broke through my thoughts, soft but certain.

My heart skipped a beat. “What?” I whispered back inside my mind.

Lyra’s voice was steady, as if she had been waiting for this moment all along. “He’s ours."

"He's our mate."