CHAPTER TWO

She rushed toward me, wide-eyed and bundled in a frail patched-up shawl. Not bulky like mine, wolves didn’t need all that. Full wolves ran hotter, healed quicker. Even in the cold, Mira moved light and silent, like she belonged in the wild. She has always been the calmer friend but right now, her chest rose and fell with panic.

She collapsed beside me in relief. “I found you! Thank the Moon Goddess. What were you thinking? Arnou and Derek are going to kill you!”

I grinned, still breathless. "Only if they catch me." She didn’t smile and I rolled my eyes. She has always had a questionable sense of humour.

Mira and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. She's also an Omega so we practically spend all our time together, well except when I get in trouble—just like now. We're both nineteen.

She ran a hand through her hair, trying to catch her breath. Her brown hair, usually tucked behind her ears, had started to frizz at the ends from the snow. Big brown eyes flicked around the trees behind us, still anxious. She always looked a little lanky from years of poor meals and worse sleep. She was so quiet that people often forgot she was even there, and some treated her like dirt.

I once watched an older Omega shove past her in the kitchens, nearly knocking the stew pot from her hands. Mira just whispered an apology for being in the way. She's a little too gentle for this kind of place even though she was a full werewolf. She's taller than me by a few inches, a disadvantage of me being half human.

“I mean it, Ren,” she said, turning to me again. “You can’t keep going after Arnou like this. He’s the Beta’s son.”

“Magnus,” I muttered under my breath.

Mira’s head snapped toward me, eyes wide. “Beta Magnus.”

I smirked. “Right. Can’t forget the title.”

She gave a long-suffering sigh. “One of these days, they won’t just chase you. And I won’t be fast enough to find you.”

I didn’t answer. Not because I didn’t care but because I wasn’t in the mood for lectures wrapped in concern. Her concern sometimes felt like a warm blanket I didn’t ask for. Smothering and heavy.

Instead, I picked a snow-damp leaf from her hair and flicked it. “You worry too much.”

“And you don’t worry at all.” She wasn’t wrong.

“Come on,” she said finally, rising and brushing the snow off her skirt. “Before they double back.”

I took the hand she offered. Warm fingers, cold palms. Always reaching for someone she had no business saving.

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The pack houses were dark by the time I slipped inside the Omega quarters. Omegas don’t get much, but at least, we've got our own houses. If you could call them that.

Mira had left for her house muttering something about morning duty and Elder Mette checking beds before sunrise. It had been a tiring day for every Omega as we're practically the work force of the pack.

Our little home, mum's and mine, was one of the smallest on the stretch. One room, a cracked hearth that hadn't worked in months, and a wooden cot that mum insisted I take even though she was the one with aching bones. The walls were patched with old cloth where wood had warped, a narrow shelf held a few bowls and a framed sketch of my father. I'd never met him. Mum said he died before I was even born.

I pushed our door open and it creaked, of course it did. I winced, easing it shut behind me. Inside, the fire was low. My boots thudded softly against the worn wooden floorboards. My mother, Freya, sat on the stool, a shawl slipping from her shoulders with sleepy eyes.

A faded metal tray sat beside her, piled with leftovers. Mostly bones, a bit of stew, two pieces of tough bread.

“You didn’t have to wait up,” I said.

“I always do.”

I ignored the tray, pulled off my boots instead. “We work all day, yet get scraps. How generous.”

“Ren,” she said quietly.

I collapsed onto the cot and stretched out, arms flung wide, legs still burning from the run. The ceiling above me had a crack that split across the wood like a lightning scar. I’d stared at it so often I could trace it from memory.

“I’m starving,” I muttered, eyeing the bread. She nudged the tray towards me with her fingers but I pushed it back. She needed the bread more.

“It’s fine. I’ll just gnaw on a bone. Pretend I’m a real wolf.” She said nothing. Just pressed the tray a little closer and I pushed it back again.

“You know, I keep wondering why you even took the Omega mark,” I said after a while. “You weren’t born into it. And you weren’t mated, either. So what happened? You just wake up one day and decide servitude sounded fun?”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. The question hung there, unanswered. Again.

“I’m not doing this with you tonight,” she said finally, rising to her feet.

“That’s your answer for everything, huh?” I muttered. “Don’t ask. Don’t speak. Just bow and keep quiet.”

She turned slightly. Her face was tired, drawn with lines of worry I knew I put there. But she didn’t snap back, didn’t raise her voice.

“You wouldn't understand, Ren.”

I hated that line so much. What wouldn't I understand? And how would you know when you haven't even given me a chance yet.

She came over instead. Bent a little, brushed my hair back with one hand, then kissed my forehead like I was still five years old and the world hadn’t already grown claws. Her touch was warm. Her love always was, even when everything else felt cold and broken.

“Sleep well, little fire,” she whispered.

Then she shuffled to the other side of the room, pulled the shawl tight around her shoulders, and lay down on the mat by the hearth.

I stared at the tray a long moment before dragging it into my lap and tearing into the bread like it owed me something.