Survival and schemes

Survival was not something I learned.

It was something my body remembered.

The days blurred together after that first night in the cave. Hunger became a constant ache, thirst a sharp reminder of my weakness, yet somehow… I did not die. Each morning, I woke with sore muscles, dirt under my nails, and a strange determination pulsing quietly beneath my fear.

I didn’t know what I was doing.

I only knew I had to keep moving.

I followed instincts I never remembered learning, how to listen to the forest, how to step without snapping branches, how to read the wind. When I crouched to drink from a stream, my reflection startled me. My eyes looked sharper. More aware. Less broken.

I practiced running first.

At dawn, when the mist still clung to the ground, I ran until my lungs burned and my legs screamed. I tripped. I fell. I bled. But each time, I pushed myself up again, driven by something deeper than will.

Why am I doing this?

I didn’t know.

I just knew I couldn’t stop.

Some nights, my wolf surged forward unexpectedly, forcing me to move faster, jump higher, dodge things I couldn’t consciously see. Other times, I stood still, palms pressed together, breathing slowly, feeling that strange warmth stir inside my chest again.

It answered when I listened.

When fear threatened to paralyze me, the warmth steadied me. When exhaustion weighed me down, it whispered strength. I wasn’t controlling it, not really.

It was guiding me.

I practiced without understanding, mimicking movements that came to me in flashes, raising my arms, grounding my feet, focusing my breath. Sometimes the air shimmered faintly, like heat rising from stone. Other times, nothing happened at all.

Still, I trusted my instincts.

Because instinct was all I had left.

At night, curled near the fire I struggled to keep alive, the memories crept in. Kael’s voice. Lyra’s smile. The laughter of the pack as I was cast out like refuse.

And while I fought to survive...

Lyra thrived.

I felt it in fragments, like echoes carried on the wind. Words whispered through the broken bond, rumors seeping into my awareness like poison.

“She was never worthy.”

“A useless omega.”

“She tried to trap the Alpha.”

“Good riddance.”

Lyra was careful. She never spoke openly against me in Kael’s presence, not at first. Instead, she smiled sweetly, feigned concern, and let others do the work for her.

“She’s probably dead already,” someone said one night.

“If she survives, she’ll become a rogue,” another added.

“And rogues deserve what they get.”

Each lie twisted deeper into the pack’s perception of me, reshaping my exile into justification.

Lyra knew exactly what she was doing.

She stood beside Kael during council meetings, her hand always resting possessively on his arm, her voice calm and reasonable. “The pack’s reputation matters,” she would say. “We can’t allow weakness to linger.”

And Kael…

Kael said nothing.

That hurt more than the lies.

Back in the forest, a sharp pain sliced across my palm as I misjudged a rock edge. Blood welled instantly. I hissed, instinctively clenching my hand.

The warmth surged.

Silver light flickered? just for a heartbeat, and the wound sealed before my eyes.

I froze.

My breath caught painfully in my throat.

“No…” I whispered, staring at my unbroken skin. My hands shook as I flexed my fingers. No scar. No pain. Just warmth fading slowly back into my chest.

I sank onto the ground, heart pounding.

That wasn’t normal.

That wasn’t omega anything.

Fear and awe tangled inside me as realization settled heavier than hunger ever had. Whatever was awakening inside me… Lyra didn’t know.

Kael didn’t know.

And maybe that was the only thing keeping me safe.

I trained harder after that.

Not because I understood my power, but because I respected it.

I learned when to push and when to listen. When the warmth grew too strong, I rested. When it pulsed urgently, I moved. Sometimes I practiced with stones, trying to lift them without touching. Sometimes I focused on my senses, closing my eyes and tracking animals by sound and scent alone.

Each success was small.

But together, they were changing me.

Meanwhile, Lyra’s lies grew bolder.

“Elara was always unstable,” she told the pack one evening, her voice laced with false sympathy. “She imagined things. Claimed bonds that didn’t exist.”

A sharp, unfamiliar sensation flared through my chest at those words.

Anger.

Cold. Focused. Dangerous.

I wasn’t unstable.

I wasn’t delusional.

I was rejected.

And Lyra was afraid.

Because deep down, she knew.

You don’t smear someone you don’t see as a threat.

That night, as I stared into the fire, the warmth coiled tighter, responding to my fury. The flames flickered higher, brighter, responding to my emotions rather than the dry wood beneath them.

I steadied my breathing quickly.

Control.

Instinct whispered again, not yet.

I exhaled slowly, forcing the fire to calm, the warmth to settle.

Lyra was winning the pack.

But I was winning myself.

Far away, I felt Kael’s presence flicker again, brief, disoriented, restless. His sleep was troubled now. His wolf unsettled. The bond tugged at him when he least expected it, dragging thoughts of me into moments meant for Lyra’s laughter.

I didn’t reach back.

Let him feel it alone.

Because while Lyra sharpened her lies and polished her image as Luna, I was doing something far more dangerous.

I was surviving.

I was adapting.

I was becoming something no one had prepared for.

And soon, very soon, the pack would learn that the omega they called worthless had been forged into something far stronger in exile than she ever could have been under their rule.

Lyra could keep her lies.

Kael could keep his pride.

I was done being weak.