The Girl Without a Wolf

The entire Nightreach Pack had gathered under the full moon to watch Draven choose his Luna.

And for one stupid, hopeful hour, I let myself believe it would be me.

Lanterns hung between the pines behind the packhouse, throwing gold light over the clearing. Someone’s playlist had been thumping from a speaker by the drinks table until an elder glared it into silence. Half the pack had their phones out. The other half pretended they didn’t.

Tradition said the future Alpha named his chosen mate on the full moon after his twenty-first birthday. Tradition said the whole pack bore witness.

Tradition didn’t care that I was the only one here without a wolf.

I stood at the back, where I always stood. Close enough to belong. Far enough that no one had to look at me.

“Stay back there,” my mother had said on the walk over, adjusting her pearls. “And for once, Flora, don’t make this about you.”

As if I ever got the chance.

I smoothed the front of my dress. Blue. Draven’s favorite color. I’d told myself that was a coincidence.

It wasn’t.

Three nights ago, he’d found me at the lake. I went there when the pack ran, when everyone else shifted and disappeared into the trees and I was left standing in a pile of nothing. He’d sat beside me on the dock. Bumped my shoulder with his.

“Wolf or not, Flora,” he’d said. “You’re the only one who actually sees me.”

Then he’d kissed me.

I’d replayed it so many times it should have worn out.

“You look like you’re about to throw up.”

My brother slid in next to me with two cups of punch and handed me one. Orion was two years older, a head taller, and the only person in this pack who looked at me like I was a person instead of a problem.

“I’m fine.”

“Liar.” He nudged me. “You’re doing the thing with your hands.”

I stopped doing the thing with my hands.

Orion’s eyes moved across the clearing to where Draven stood beside his father, broad-shouldered in a dark suit, golden in the lantern light. My brother’s jaw tightened.

“Flora,” he said quietly. “Don’t hope for anything tonight.”

“I’m not.”

He didn’t say liar again. He didn’t have to.

At the front of the clearing, Alpha Hale raised a hand. The murmuring died.

“Nightreach,” he called, his voice carrying the weight of command. Even without a wolf, I felt it press against my ribs. “Tonight, my son claims his place. Tonight, he names the woman who will stand beside him as your Luna.”

Applause. Whistles. Somebody howled, and laughter rippled through the crowd.

Draven stepped forward.

He scanned the faces in front of him, slow and deliberate, the way he did everything. My heart slammed against my chest.

Then his eyes found mine.

For one second, the whole clearing disappeared. It was the lake again. His shoulder against mine. You’re the only one who sees me.

Then he looked away.

“Nyssa Volkov.”

The pack erupted.

Nyssa stepped out of the crowd in silver silk, her dark hair falling down her back in perfect waves. The Beta’s daughter. Top of every run, every training session, every list. Her wolf had come at sixteen, two full years early, and people still talked about it like it was a miracle.

She took Draven’s hand. He pulled her to his side.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Every part of me had gone very cold and very still.

Don’t hope for anything tonight.

Too late.

“Breathe,” Orion murmured.

I tried. It caught halfway.

Then Nyssa’s gaze drifted over the crowd and landed on me. On my blue dress. And she smiled.

“Oh,” she said, sweetly, loudly, in that clear voice that carried everywhere. “Flora. Did you think he was going to pick you?”

Heads turned.

One by one, then all at once, the entire pack looked back at me.

Heat crawled up my throat. I wanted to disappear. I’d spent my whole life practicing it, and somehow I’d never gotten good enough.

Draven laughed.

That was the worst part. Not Nyssa. Not the stares. Him. The easy, careless sound of it.

“Come on, Flora,” he said. “Did you really think I’d take a Luna without a wolf?”

The laughter started small. A snort here. A giggle there. Then it spread, rolling across the clearing like it had been waiting for permission.

“She can’t even hear a mind-link,” someone said.

“She can’t shift.”

“What would she do, lead the pack on foot?”

More laughter.

I looked for my parents.

My father stood near the front with the other ranked wolves. He’d turned his face away, like I was something unpleasant he’d stepped in.

My mother was looking right at me, and her face said everything.

Not my poor girl. Not come here.

How could you embarrass us like this?

“Say it again.”

Orion’s voice cut through the laughter like a blade.

He’d stepped in front of me. I hadn’t even seen him move.

“Orion,” I whispered. “Don’t.”

He ignored me. His eyes were locked on Draven. “Go on. Say it again, future Alpha. Say it to me.”

The clearing went quiet. Draven’s smile thinned.

“Stand down, Orion.”

“You took her to the lake three nights ago,” Orion said. “You think nobody noticed?”

Gasps. Nyssa’s grip tightened on Draven’s arm.

Something flickered across Draven’s face. Then it hardened. “I felt sorry for her,” he said. “Somebody had to.”

It shouldn’t have hurt more than the laughter.

It did.

“Enough.” Alpha Hale’s command rolled through the clearing, and every wolf in it flinched. Orion’s shoulders jerked, his head forced down by the power in that voice. His fists shook at his sides.

He didn’t bow. Not all the way.

“Your sister has caused enough of a scene,” Alpha Hale said. “Take her home.”

“She caused a scene?”

“Orion.” My father’s voice. Low. Final.

My brother’s jaw worked. For a second, I thought he’d defy them all.

I touched his arm. “Please,” I whispered. “Let’s just go.”

Because I knew what happened to wolves who defied their Alpha. And Orion was all I had.

He looked at me. Something broke in his eyes.

Then he nodded.

I turned to leave, my face burning, the pack’s laughter starting again behind me, and Nyssa’s voice floated after me: “Don’t forget your punch, Flora.”

I kept walking.

I made it three steps.

Then a howl split the night.

Not from the clearing. From the boundary. Deep, long, and so powerful it seemed to shake the lanterns on their strings.

Every wolf in Nightreach went silent.

Every single one.

I watched it happen. The laughter cut off mid-breath. Phones lowered. Even Alpha Hale had gone rigid, his head turned toward the dark line of trees.

Then I smelled it, even with my useless human nose. Cold air. Pine. Something wild and dangerous underneath.

“That’s not one of ours,” someone whispered.

A second howl answered the first. Then a third.

An elder near the front had gone pale as paper. “Aurexian,” she breathed.

The name moved through the crowd like a shiver.

Three figures stepped out of the trees.

Tall. Dressed in black. Moving like they owned the ground they walked on, and the moon above it, and every wolf beneath it.

The pack parted for them without being told.

The one in front stopped at the edge of the lantern light. Cold gray eyes swept the clearing, and Alpha Hale, our Alpha, actually took a step back.

“Nightreach,” the stranger said, his voice as cold as his eyes. “We’re here to collect what you owe us.”

And for some reason I couldn’t explain, something deep in my chest that had been silent my entire life turned over and woke.