Pilot

The pack called me nothing, I called myself stubborn.

They shouted my name like it was an insult. “Ivy! Ivy! Come polish the banquet hall!” The voice belonged to Maris, daughter of the Beta and anointed future Luna in every cruel private prayer she carried,when I slipped into the hall my arms still smelled of coal and the sun still was drying the sweat on my skin. The long table had already been set in shimmering silver; tonight’s guests would not tolerate imperfections

“You’re late,” Maris said like an insult, not a greeting,her smile was a poison. Around her, the other omegas watched with the small, delighted cruelty of predators who knew there would always be easier prey to prey on

“I’m sorry,” I sighed lowering my voice, already lowering myself to the stone floor with the rag in my hand. My palms remembered work, the kind that made your bones hurt and your gaze small and obedient. I scrubbed until my eyes were dim and shouldn't felt my palms

A shadow moved across the floor and a strong male voice, amused and flat at once, said, “Stop flattering the stone, Ivy, It’s only doing its job.”

My throat tightened.

Kellan Ashborne — Alpha heir and a man who walked like thunder. He stood there by the doorway, watching me like someone who could inventory pain and still call it beauty. His hair was the color of iron under sun, his eyes were golden. He walked up and crouched without fanfare.

“You’ll break your fingers trying to make the floors spotless.”

I blinked “I—thank you, Alpha.” I s stuttered

He did not smile, instead, one large hand steadied my elbow as if I were a thing that might break at any moment. His touch was calm,terrifying and precise. “Stay out of the rafters tomorrow,” he said softly. “And don’t make me instruct the Beta’s daughter in mercy.”

Mercy. The word felt foreign in my mouth, like food I had never tasted.

The grevious laughter from Maris came instantly and swift. “Careful, Kellan. You’ll turn the urchin into a pet yet.”

“Pet,” I echoed

The word hung around my shoulders like a damp shawl. Nights ago I had been dragged from the border; forsaken, wolfless, and whisper-marked with the pack’s shame, the mark had made me a servant; the whisper made me invisible to everywhere but under feet.

That night, after I scrubbed and polished until my knees felt heavy like stone, I went away to the border with a bundle of stale bread. The tress whispered in the dark of the night and the moon showed half of it's light to the dark world, I had almost reached my shelter when the scent hit me: copper and fear and something raw, as if a man had been torn and was still bleeding till now

He was crumpled in a hollow beneath the old yew, coat shredded, breath was shallow. For a moment I did not think, I moved like an eager adventurer; quick and precise. I ripped my shawl and bound the wound; I fumbled with herbs I had long kept for chickens and bruised leaves between my teeth to call up a bitter, healing saliva.

“Please,” he rasped when I finally looked into his face, his eyes were a strange, startling blue color like carved glass. “Hide me, If they find me-”

“We’ll be found,” I said, because I knew the laws etched in everyone’s bones. Harboring a rogue meant death by winter or exile to the north wastes. But he bled like any other soul, and muscles remembered the kindness that had been given to me once, long before the pack taught me to swallow it.

I dragged him to my hut, propping him on the hay and whispering nonsense to steady him. I brought coins from the hems of my threadbare apron, enough for a loaf, and fed him when he woke with fever, sweat and nightmares. He coughed at first then, shockingly, smiled.

At dawn, he was gone.

Not a sound to mark his leaving. A wake of blood on the pillow where he’d lain, a scrap of blue cloth snagged on the threshold — and the proof of my guilt, if anyone looked.

I cleaned the blood with trembling hands and told myself to forget. The pack had rules: keep your head down, never help the hunted, obey. But my palms remembered his weight and the warmth of his breath, and my heart,traitorous and slow would not let the memory fade.

That afternoon, as I hauled water, Kellan stepped from the shade like a sentence. His eyes slid over me and then held, like a trap settling closed.

“You were careless,” he said.

“I—” I looked away. “No, Alpha. I—”

He reached for my chin and tilted my face up so his gaze could measure me. “Hiding rogues would get you killed, Ivy, they would burn the border if they found out, even mercy must bow to the pack.”

“Was he—?” My voice broke on the question.

Kellan’s jaw tightened. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” I whispered, because everything that had ever mattered to me in any way now flickered on his answer

He lifted his hand like he might strike, but instead his fingers brushed the faint, faint scar along my wrist — the brand that marked me as forsaken

The touch was nothing and everything. “You should not tempt fate,” he said. “Not everyone is as kind as you.”

There was something in his voice, something that didn't belong to the public face of the Alpha heir; a rotten, private curiosity, he stepped back and then, without warning, his composure cracked as someone from within the house shouted. “Father! The envoy has arrived!”

Kellan’s entire face changed. He moved away shocked but said. “Keep your head down,” he instructed, voice flat as stone. “And if you’re late tomorrow, I will not be there to catch you.”

I watched him go, chest tight as if someone had clasped a fist around my ribs.

That night, I dreamed of blue glass eyes and of being lifted by hands that smelled of iron and rain. I dreamed of someone calling me by name without spitting it like a curse.

And beneath the dream, a new, fierce feeling; I had helped a stranger, and somewhere, that favor would be returned — or reckoned.

When I woke, there was a small, folded scrap of blue cloth at the foot of my pallet, the same color as the man’s coat, the same color as a wound I could no longer ignore