Se connecterThe warrior formation broke off from behind us as we continued our entry into the packhouse."You'll be shown to your guest chambers first. The Alpha and Luna are out on business at the moment, but will receive you shortly," Olivier explained in his usual clipped tone. "You are to want for nothing. The servants know to treat you with the respect due to any honored guest."Our procession stopped just before a set of large double doors; the familiar scent of jasmine hung in the air around it. In another life, I passed by these doors with trays of food and imagined what it would be like to stay as a guest of the Alpha and Luna. Pampered. Every whim catered to. Those fantasies curdled under the reality of what I faced.Olivier opened the door, and a decadent chamber sprawled out before me. More space than a single person would ever need. It surpassed even Evangeline's luxurious bedroom. I should have been impressed and flattered by the finery and promise of extreme comfort. But a bitter s
I'd expected to be dragged into Snow Pointe in chains: ridicule, scorn, hatred. Years of my life wasted in the lowest tier soured my expectations. But when I assented to Olivier's invitation, none of the warriors dared to harm me.There were no insults. No chains. No restraints or condemnation of any kind. Olivier matched my pace, but never strode ahead. The warriors walked behind me, heads lowered. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. Wolves in Snow Pointe knew to keep their heads lowered in the presence of more powerful wolves. That was the training that Leon and Gabe spent months breaking me of in Wayfinder. The thought of Leon's sorrowful eyes made my chest ache.I miss him. I miss them all. I lamented quietly.I know. But Olivier swore that you would come to no harm. You'll see them again. Arya's encouragement soothed the small, fearful part of my mind that refused to be silenced. With her words, I straightened up and squared my shoulders. I would enter Snow Pointe, face th
Of course.There would be no other reason to seek out the "useless omega" unless the precious Evangeline Snow was in peril. The idea that her safety would somehow motivate me to return to Snow Pointe was laughable. Why would I care about the spoiled, cruel, deceitful pack brat that made my life miserable? She was the reason I ended up in the isolation ward. The reason I couldn't go out and run during my seventeenth moonday. She kept me small and frightened.I smirked at the Gamma's grave expression as if his sorrowful eyes could motivate me to do anything."And that's my problem, how?" I asked, arms folded across my chest as I glared down at him. Unfazed by my aloofness, Olivier approached slowly."Lady Evangeline fell sick some time ago. Small spells that locked her away from the public eye for weeks at a time," he explained, gaze darkening with what I assumed was sadness. With his perpetually scowling face, it was hard to tell. "The spells wouldn't last long, but they were frequent.
The familiar scents of the Snow Fork Mountains surrounded me as I charged through the trees. Normally, a run like this would soothe my nerves and invigorate me all at once. They reminded me of my connection to the land and the strength of my own body.But this run did none of that.My mind was too loud to silence. Questions, fears, doubts, all building and compounding until they became a beast too powerful to fend off. What would I find when I reached those coordinates? What did Snow Pointe want with me? And how did they know I was still alive?It doesn't make sense, Arya. My breath came in sharp puffs. To Snow Pointe, I was a weak omega. Sickly. Frail. I shouldn't have survived. The night of your escape, half the territory saw me. They would have known you escaped from the cells after the melee. That... doctor shouted to the warriors that you were a traitor.And they would have no reason not to believe her. She made a good point. But after all the time I'd spent with Wayfinder, this
"And you're sure they're looking for me?" I asked, pacing inside the central command tent. Leon and Marcel explained their encounter with the Snow Pointe scout three times. How they were tracked for a few days before the scout approached. The scout seemed agitated and explained that Snow Pointe had been looking for a runaway omega for five years."That story sounds awful familiar to me," Gabe grunted. Taking his adoptive father duties very seriously, he'd insisted on being in the meeting when he overheard Leon mention I was being hunted. "Couldn't be anyone else, Rey. But why are they looking for you now? After five years?""It wasn't after five years. It's been for five years," Leon corrected. "They never stopped looking for her."It still didn't make sense."You deployed sent decoys after leaving the area, right?" I asked, still pacing. Still worried.Leon pulled me into a hug, not letting me squirm away. "We covered our tracks and didn't let them know anything about you. As far as t
Five years.Five years in Wayfinder found me well. Better than well. Thriving. We survived that first winter. Reginald and Mydia celebrated their wedding in the following spring, and I won the bet with Leon. Gabe and Jerica started a sweet romance. The former rogues integrated fully. Mattias had his seventeenth moonday and grew into a full, proper warrior. And I stepped into the role of Leon's second-in-command.Five years.The vision I once had of the strong woman, tall, powerful, and beautiful, became my reality. It took nearly two years for my body to fully recover from what Andromeda did in Snow Pointe. But once I finally grew to the correct size, it was more obvious that I was an alpha wolf. I wasn't as massive as Leon or even Gabe. But much of Wayfinder looked up to me, metaphorically and literally. Being the one who was strong enough to protect others, the one who led runs and training rotations, the one others came to for help... it was everything I'd ever dreamed. Little Aure
The training run with Leon healed something within me.We kept up with him, I mused later that evening. Arya laughed. I'd been thinking it for hours. While I was baking with Reginald. While I foraged. While I taught the littlest children a simple nursery rhyme. We kept up with him. No, Auri. You ke
When I first started having the dreams, I saw them as an inevitable part of my dawning alpha strength. Naively, I assumed I had no control over them. I was at their mercy, and thus, couldn't focus them on specific scenes or settings. Every night I woke in a sweat, vision blurred as my mind fought t
Gabe's words jolted through me like lightning.Seizing? Bad enough that he thought I was going to die? I'd had dreams before, since joining Wayfinder. Blips of memories and flashes of little moments to come. Simple things like when a child's ball would roll into my path, or when Reginald would bur
The moment ended as quickly as it began. Reassured of my safety, Leon focused on commanding the pack and securing Wayfinder. I was ordered to man my position in the medical tent with Gabe, while the warriors and patrols began their sweep and hourly rotations. When Gabe locked eyes with me, he wra







