Chapter 2: One way or another

I went back to my room.

I didn't run. Walked like I always did, back straight, steady pace. My mother drilled that into me at twelve, after Dara Greycliff mocked my training form in front of the junior pack. Walk like you know where you’re going, especially when you don’t, she said. That’s the whole point.

So I walked that way now, through the grounds, up the stairs, into my room. Closed the door, leaned against it.

Just stood a moment.

Pulled out my grandmother’s bone clasps. One by one. Set them on the dresser. Tiny clicks against wood. Outside, faint noises from the ceremony lingered, celebration, pack voices stretching into night.

I sat on the bed.

Selene.

I turned her name over, prodding at it like a bruise. Had I really missed it? Wolves are supposed to sense shifts, airs changing, moods, smells. I lived beside them for years and felt nothing.

Or maybe I did, and just didn’t call it out. Naming it would make it real.

I pressed my hands to my knees, stared at the wall.

We don’t get to choose the when or how, only if she’s here when it happens.

What prophecy? What awakening? I had no special blood gifts. I was competent, quick, disciplined. But nothing exceptional enough to make a roomful of elders whisper and ruin my life.

Unless there was, and nobody told me.

That thought was cold and strange.

Footsteps outside. Two quick knocks, soft. Mira.

“Kaelis.”

I didn’t reply.

“I know you’re in there.” Pause. “I won’t force you to talk. Just… I’m outside.”

I crossed and opened the door.

Mira looked at me like she was reading a language only she knew. Her eyes quick, checking for cracks. She stepped in, no invite, shut the door.

She took the chair by the window. I reclaimed the bed.

Neither of us spoke for a while.

“Did you know?” I finally asked.

“No,” she said, immediate. “Swear.”

I believed her. Mira couldn’t lie worth a damn. Never tried either; she had nothing to hide. One of the things I loved and sometimes just couldn’t deal with.

“He looked afraid,” she said quietly. “When he picked her. I watched his face.”

“Afraid of what?”

She shook her head. “Don’t know. It wasn’t someone doing what he wants. It was someone obeying.”

I thought about what Coran had said in the dark. He wasn’t cooperative. He was afraid.

“Mira, what do you know about a prophecy tied to the Vane bloodline?”

She went still.

“Nothing,” she said. Then softer: “Nothing I was supposed to know.”

She left after an hour. Knew I needed to think, she always knew, and closed the door gently, didn’t ask me to join the party or eat or anything else people say when they’re helpless.

I sat with what she told me.

It’s old. Older than our pack, older than the Elders. From a time before clan borders, before bloodlines were tracked, when wolves ran wild, mixing and crossing. A mark that showed up every few generations, a crescent on the right shoulder, visible only when the wolf’s power spiked. Old texts called it the Bloodmoon Mark. Elders called it a problem.

Because this wolf didn’t just carry power; she changed things.

Mira didn’t say it straight. She said shift the order and alter dominance, careful, repeating bits she wasn’t meant to know. But I knew what it meant. A wolf who could change Alpha dominance was a target, every pack would want to control or kill her.

I touched my right shoulder.

Nothing but smooth skin under the fabric. No heat, no mark.

Of course. Just a story. Elders are scared old men with too many stories and not enough facts. It didn’t mean anything. Wasn’t real.

I told myself that, and almost believed it.

Blew out my candle. Lay in the dark, listening to the pack’s celebration for Selene. Thought about Coran’s one way or another and couldn’t sleep.