THE GATHERING

Arwens pov

The pack house smells like wet dog and expensive cologne, which is basically what happens when you mix supernatural creatures trying to look civilized with a bunch of visiting alphas who've driven for hours to inspect potential mates. I can feel the testosterone in the air before I even walk through the door.

Margaret squeezes my hand as we step inside, which means she's nervous about something. Margaret doesn't get nervous. She handles pack drama with the same calm she uses to make breakfast, so whatever's about to happen today must be significant enough to rattle her.

"Stay close," she whispers.

The gathering room is packed. I recognize most of the faces from our territory, but there are about twenty people I've never seen before. The visiting alphas stand in a loose group near the fireplace, watching everyone with the kind of intensity that makes me want to disappear. They're evaluating. That's what these things are really about, even though everyone pretends it's just a social event.

I try to make myself small near the refreshment table, which is pretty easy since I've spent eighteen years perfecting the art of being invisible. Margaret moves off to talk to some of the older women, and I'm alone with a plate of food I don't really want to eat.

"You're Margaret's daughter, right?"

I look up to find one of the visiting alphas standing in front of me. He's massive, the kind of guy who looks like he was born in wolf form and just remembers how to be human on occasion. His eyes are a pale grey that reminds me of winter.

"Yes," I say, because it's the safest answer.

"You don't smell right."

I blink at him. "I'm sorry?"

"Your scent. It's wrong." He steps closer, and I can smell him now too. Pine and earth and something wild underneath. "When an Alpha speaks to you directly, you show respect. Where's your submission?"

My heart starts racing. I know what I'm supposed to do. I've seen enough pack interactions to understand the hierarchy. I should lower my eyes. I should bare my neck. I should make myself smaller and less threatening. All the things they taught me to do so I wouldn't upset anyone.

But something inside me snaps.

Maybe it's because I'm eighteen now. Maybe it's because I'm tired of being treated like I'm defective. Maybe it's just that I'm angry, and for once I don't want to hide it.

"I'm not a wolf," I tell him. "So maybe your rules don't apply to me."

His face goes red. He reaches out and grabs my arm, and that's when everything stops working the way it's supposed to work.

Power explodes out of my chest like something that's been waiting for years to break free. It doesn't feel like anger anymore. It feels like lightning, like starlight, like something ancient waking up inside me for the first time. Silver light pours from my hands, so bright that people start screaming.

The plants around the room respond first. Every flower on every table blooms at once, flowers that weren't even fully opened suddenly bursting into color. The ferns in the corners shoot up several feet in seconds. Vines that I didn't even know were planted there start growing across the walls.

Then the electricity starts going haywire. The lights flicker and pop, glass shattering everywhere. Someone's phone explodes in their pocket. A lamp catches fire briefly before the power surge fries it completely.

But the worst part is the frost.

Silver-white frost spreads across the floor in patterns that look like they mean something, like they're trying to tell a story in a language nobody here speaks. Everyone is screaming now. The visiting alpha who grabbed me is on his knees, blood coming from his nose. Other people are clutching their heads like their skulls are about to split open.

"Stop it!" Margaret is running toward me, pushing through the panicked crowd. "Arwen, stop!"

I don't know how to stop it. I don't even know what it is that I'm doing. The power is just flowing out of me like water from a broken dam, and I can't turn it off.

"That bloodline," Elder Morrison says. He's standing against the far wall, his face completely white. "That bloodline can't be here. It can't exist. What have you done, Margaret?"

"We need to leave," Margaret says, grabbing my arm. People are still screaming. Someone dropped a glass that shatters on the frosted floor. The visiting alpha is backing away from me like I'm going to hurt him again, which is probably fair since I just made his nose bleed without touching him.

"Now, Arwen. We're leaving right now."

She drags me through the panicked crowd, and I see people staring at me like I'm something dangerous. Like I'm something that shouldn't exist. The silver light is still flickering around my hands even though I'm not doing anything to make it happen, and I can feel every eye in the room on my back as we push through the front door.

The drive home is completely silent. Margaret doesn't try to explain what just happened. She just holds the steering wheel like her life depends on it, her knuckles white, her eyes fixed on the road. I sit in the passenger seat and watch my hands shake, watching the silver light fade slowly, like my body is learning how to be normal again.

"Margaret, what was I?" I finally ask.

She doesn't answer.

"There was frost. And the plants. And I didn't do any of that on purpose. Margaret, what's happening to me?"

"We're going home," she says quietly. "And then we're going to pack your things."

"Pack? Why would we pack anything?"

"Because some people are going to come looking for you, and we can't let them find you here."

I want to ask more questions. I want her to explain what she meant about my bloodline, what Elder Morrison was so terrified of, why my power responded the way it did to being disrespected. But Margaret's expression tells me that she's reached her limit for answers today.

So I sit in silence and watch the trees pass by, and I try not to think about the way that visiting alpha looked at me. Like I was something that shouldn't exist. Like I was a threat.

Like I was something that needed to be stopped before I hurt someone.

And the worst part is, I'm starting to wonder if he was right.