The Storm Approaching II

The bucket of soapy water suddenly seemed too far away. The floor beneath my knees felt unsteady.

"That seems a bit excessive," the other nameless girl said, sounding more curious than horrified.

"Not really," Eleora said, rising up and brushing off invisible dirt from her dress. "She takes up the pack's resources. Food, water, space. All for a pitiful wolf who contributes nothing to the pack. From a purely logical standpoint, eliminating the waste makes a lot more sense."

They were discussing my death like it was a business decision. Like I wasn't kneeling right there, partially drenched in soapy water, listening to them casually talk about ending my life.

"I don't know about you, but personally," Eleora continued, turning to her friends with a sinister smile, "I hope she's exiled. I'd love to know what happens to her out there in the Rogue Lands. I bet she wouldn't last a week"

"A week?" That's too generous El, Celeste laughed. "I'd give her three days. Maybe two if she runs into the Razor Pack. They eat omegas for breakfast."

They all cackled, ear-piercing cruel sounds that echoed off the walls. They swept out of the room as quickly as they had arrived leaving me alone with their words that stabbed through my heart ringing loudly in my ears.

I stayed frozen on my hands and knees for a long while, staring straight at the soapy water without seeing it.

Exile. Death. Either option ended the same way.

If I were unable to shift at the ceremony..and I was almost certain I couldn't...Alpha Magnus would have decisions to make. Keep the defective omega? Or quickly eliminate the problem?

Three Good days.

I had three days to figure out what to do. Three days to mentally and physically prepare for the very real possibility that my life was coming to an end.

My hand found its way back into my pocket, closing around Maya's bracelet. The moonstone still held warmth.

Someone's rooting for me.

But would that be enough?

.........................................

At seven o'clock sharp, I knocked quietly on Margaret's door. Her room was on the second floor, small and not fancy by any means, but leagues better than my basement closet. It was a room befitting the head cook of the pack house, with an actual window, a real bed, and furniture that wasn't falling apart.

"Come in," she called out, and I pushed the door open.

It was warm and cozy, lit up by several lamps that cast an almost golden glow over everything. The bed was made with a hand-stitched quilt, and the dresser was lined with photographs, mostly of pack events that had occurred over the years, but I recognized one in a simple frame that tightened my chest.

It was a picture of me, around four or five years old, seated on the kitchen counter with flour in my hair and the widest smile I'd ever seen on my face. I looked happy. Genuinely happy.

I looked completely different. I couldn't recognize myself.

"I took that picture the day you helped me bake your first loaf of bread," Margaret said softly, coming to stand right beside me. "You were so proud when it came out of the oven. You insisted on eating half of it by yourself right then and there." She chuckled.

"I don't remember," I admitted.

"I know." Her voice was sad. "You've lost too much, child."

She was on the edge of her bed, then disappeared into her small closet. When she emerged, she was carrying a white dress, the one she'd left on my doorknob, and a tiny wooden box.

"First things first." Margaret held up the dress, and even in the lamplight, it was a beautiful dress. Simple, yes, but it was clean and new and made with care. "Try it on. I want to make sure it properly fits."

I pulled off my oversized hoodie and worn-out jeans, suddenly very self-conscious of my thin, skeletal frame and the fading bruises that still littered my ribs. Margaret's expression tightened when she saw them, but she didn't comment.

The dress slipped over my head, the fabric soft and light against my skin. It had thin straps and it fell just below my knees, the white cotton somehow made my dark hair and pale-looking skin much less washed out and more ethereal.

"Perfect," Margaret breathed, her eyes shining. "You are beautiful, child"

I looked down at myself, hardly recognizing the girl in the white dress. For a moment, I looked almost... normal. Like any normal teenage girl preparing for her coming of Age.

The illusion suddenly shattered when my eyes moved to a scar on my forearm from where Zane's claws had caught me last year. Or another one on my shoulder from a "training accident" that was in no way an accident.

"Margaret, I can't take this. It's too much.."

"Hush dear" She turned me toward the small mirror hanging on her closet door. "Look at yourself. Just look."

I forced myself to meet my own gaze in the mirror.

Deep brown eyes, tired but holding a spark of something that refused to give up. Dark hair that fell in waves past my bony shoulders. A face that was too thin and too pale, but still... mine. Still fighting.

"You're still here," she whispered softly, echoing my thoughts. "After all they've done to break you, you're still standing. That dress isn't too much. You deserve something beautiful. You deserve far more than this pack has ever given you."

My throat closed up, tight with emotion. I just nodded unable to speak.

"Good." Margaret smiled, then she picked up the wooden box. "Now, sit. I have something else to give you."

I carefully took off the dress and put my regular clothes back on before sitting on the edge of her bed. Margaret sat close to me with the box resting on her lap.

"This box," she said quietly, running her fingers over the worn wood, "contains everything I have from when you first arrived in this pack. When you were found at the pack border as a baby."

My heart stuttered. "What?"

"You were just six months old. Left at the pack border wrapped tightly in a blanket, you had only one possession." Margaret opened the box slowly. "This."

She took out a silver pendant on a delicate-looking chain. It was tarnished by time but still beautiful, a crescent moon with the wolf silhouette of a wolf howling at its center.

"This was around your neck when they found you," Margaret said, gently placing it in my hand. "Luna Helena, Alpha Magnus's first mate, may her soul rest in peace, insisted that you keep it. Said it looked important, likely from your birth family. She convinced Magnus to let me raise you instead of... well, instead of other options."

I stared at the pendant, suddenly feeling a sense of attachment to the silver cool against my palm. "I don't remember ever wearing something like this."

"The alpha made me take it off you when he moved you down to the basement. Said you didn't deserve to keep heirlooms from a family that abandoned you." Margaret's voice was bitter. "But I've kept it safe all these years, waiting for the right time to hand it back to you and I think now is the time."

"Why now?"

"Because in three days, you'll stand before this pack as an adult and you'll need something to remind you that you came from somewhere, even if you don't know where and you're not just the omega they've tried to make you." Margaret with careful hands fastened the chain around my neck, the pendant settling on my chest just above my heart. "You're Seraphina, you matter. Whoever left you here clearly loved you enough to leave you with this pendant."

I touched the pendant with shaky fingers. It was quite warm now, absorbing the heat from Margaret's hands.

"Thank you," I whispered, my voice thick with emotion.

Margaret pulled me into a tight warm hug, and I let myself sink into it. I let myself feel like I had a mother who loved me, just for a moment.

"It's going to be okay, little moon," she murmured into my hair. "Whatever happens in three days, whatever you face next, you're going to survive. You're stronger than you think. Much stronger than they know."

God, I wanted to believe her so badly.

But time would tell.

............................................

I sank into bed that night with my pendant still around my neck and Maya's bracelet fastened on my wrist. Two talismans. Two reminders that at least two people cared if I lived or died.

Sleep came to me quickly, but it was not restful.

I stood in a forest clearing bathed in the moon's light. A full moon hung up, impossibly large and bright, it was so close it felt like I could reach up and touch it.

The cool air brushed against my skin, and I realized I was in the white dress Margaret had gifted me. I looked angelic.

"You're late," a deep voice said from the shadows.

I spun around.

One massive wolf stood at the edge of the clearing. Not just large, enormous. Far bigger than any wolf I'd ever set my eyes on in real life, with fur as dark as night.

And its eyes...

Golden. Impossibly beautiful.

And somehow very familiar, though I couldn't place why.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.

The wolf tilted its massive head, studying me with an unnervingly human intelligence. "You know me."

"I don't.."

"Yes, you do." The wolf's voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Deep down, where your own wolf sleeps, you know exactly who I am."

My wolf, the wolf I'd never felt or ever heard,

"But I don't have a wolf," I said, and the admission hurt me even in a dream. "I'm just... A broken omega."

The golden-eyed wolf made a sound that sounded strangely like a laugh. "Everyone has a wolf, little omega. Even you. Especially you."

"Then where is it, my wolf? Why can't I feel her? Why can't I shift?"

"Caged." The wolf began to pace, powerful muscles rippling under its dark fur. "She's bound. Sleeping under a spell so ancient and so strong that even she can't remember the sound of her own howl."

"A spell?" I stepped toward the wolf. "What spell? Who would..."

"Questions for another time." The wolf suddenly stopped pacing and looked directly at me, golden eyes boring into mine with an intensity that made me step back. "The moon is growing fuller with each passing night, little omega. And when she's full, when her light is at its strongest, everything changes."

"Changes? How?"

"You'll see, you'll know." The wolf said, melting into shadows. "Three days until the moon is full, Seraphina.

"Wait!" I lunged forward, reaching for the disappearing wolf. "What am I? What does that mean? Please, I need to know...who I am."

But it was gone, dissolving into the darkness.

I stood alone in the clearing. But I could swear I felt something foreign stir deep in my chest. Something with teeth, claws, and a howl that had been locked away for far too long that it had almost forgotten how to speak.

"Please," I whispered into the empty forest. "Please let me have a wolf. Just this once, let me be enough."

Only the wind answered, and through the trees, the distant howl of a wolf that sounded devastatingly lonely.

I woke up with a gasp, my hand flying to my chest covering my racing heart.

The room was dark except for the very faint glow of moonlight through the tiny basement window. I tried to calm my breathing.

A dream. It was only a dream.

But it had felt so real. The wolf's golden eyes and massive frame.

The sensation that stirred deep inside me, caged and bound and desperate to break free.

I got out of my bed on shaky knees and legs and moved to the window. The moon was growing fuller each night, just like the wolf mentioned in the dream. In three days, it would be completely full.

I would either shift into my wolf and prove I deserved to be alive...

Or I would fail, and my life as I knew it would be in the palm of the Moonstone pack.

The window glass was cold against my fingertips as I touched it, and I stared up at the moon.

"If there's anything at all inside me," I whispered into the darkness, my breath fogging the glass. "Any wolf at all, any magic, anything... please wake up. I need you. I've always needed you. Please don't let me face them alone."

The moon didn't answer nor did the moon goddess.

They never did.

Somewhere in the pack house, three floors above me, a young Alpha heir stood, staring at that same moon, feeling a restlessness he couldn't understand and dreaming of eyes he couldn't recall seeing.

The storm was approaching.