登入Disputed.I stared at the word until the letters blurred.Not blessed.Not recognised.Not properly registered.Disputed.My name sat on the page like a mistake someone had tried to trap in ink.Aurora Vale.Mother: Liora Vale.Father: blank.Then that word.My fingers trembled as I touched the paper.The ink had faded, but the mark was still angry. Whoever had written it had pressed the pen so hard the page had scarred.Disputed.I tried to breathe, but the archive felt too small. Too cold. Too full of dead voices whispering from the shelves.“No,” I whispered.My wolf stirred.Not frightened.Focused.I turned the page too quickly.Nothing.The next records moved on to another family. A birth. A death. A bond ceremony between two wolves I did not know.As if my existence had taken only three lines.As if that was all I was worth.I went back.Read it again.Aurora Vale.Liora Vale.Disputed.My stomach twisted.Victor was my father.He had to be.He had raised me.He had punished me
Victor called my name a third time.This time, I moved.The key felt heavy in my palm, heavier than old brass had any right to be. I curled my fingers around it and walked back toward the training field with Luna Maren’s warning still ringing through my bones.Your life was not the first lie Black Moon Ridge buried.I did not know what that meant.I only knew I believed her.Victor stood at the edge of the field, his expression carved from ice.“Where did Luna Maren take you?”I stopped in front of him and lowered my gaze just enough to look obedient.Not enough to feel it.“She wanted to make sure I was calm.”Victor studied me.Too closely.My fingers tightened around the key. I forced my hand to stay at my side, hidden in the folds of my training shirt.“And are you?”“Calm?”“Do not make me repeat myself.”My wolf stirred.I breathed through it.“Yes, Father.”His eyes narrowed, as if the words sounded wrong to him too.Behind him, the training field had returned to movement. Wolv
“They will bury you.”Luna Maren said it so calmly that, for one awful second, I wondered if I had imagined the words.Then the wind shifted through the trees, cold and sharp, and I knew I had heard her exactly right.My mouth went dry. “Who?”Maren looked back toward the training field.The others were too far away to hear us, but not too far to watch. Wolves had sharp ears, sharper eyes, and a terrible love for secrets that did not belong to them.“Not here,” she said.“That is not an answer.”“No,” she agreed. “It is a warning.”My wolf pressed against my ribs.Restless.Listening.I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how thin my training shirt felt against the morning cold.“You can’t say something like that and expect me not to ask questions.”Maren’s silver eyes returned to mine.“I expect you to ask many questions, Aurora. I am asking you to be careful who hears them.”A laugh slipped from me.It was small and bitter and nothing like amusement.“I have been home f
The growl rolled across the training field.Low.Raw.Mine.For one frozen heartbeat, no one moved.Not Mara.Not Vivian.Not Bianca.Not even Victor.I stood in the centre of the training mat with my knees shaking and my breath caught in my throat, trying to understand how a sound like that had come from me.My wolf pressed against my skin.Close.Too close.Every instinct screamed at me to run.Another instinct, older and stranger, told me to stand my ground.Victor’s face had gone pale.Only slightly.Only enough that I knew I had not imagined it.“Interesting,” Bianca whispered.Vivian said nothing.That scared me more.Ezra stepped onto the field.His movement broke whatever spell had held the pack silent.Whispers erupted.“She growled at the Beta.”“She hasn’t even shifted.”“Did you feel that?”“That wasn’t normal.”Normal.I almost laughed.Nothing about me had ever been normal enough for Black Moon Ridge.Victor turned his head slowly toward Ezra. “This does not concern you.
Training.The word sat in my stomach like a stone.I had not trained with Black Moon Ridge since I was thirteen. Back then, I had been small, quiet, and painfully aware that everyone else could already do things I could not.Run faster.Heal quicker.Shift.I had spent most training sessions trying not to cry.Apparently, some traditions liked to come back and bite.Vivian left my room first, Bianca following close behind her like a pretty shadow with teeth. I waited until their footsteps faded before I moved.My hands were shaking.I hated that.I dressed in the training clothes someone had left folded at the end of my bed. Black leggings. Soft grey shirt. Boots that fit too well to be accidental.Vivian again, probably.Always choosing what I wore.Always deciding how I should appear.Not too pretty.Not too strong.Not enough.I pulled my hair into a loose braid and looked at myself in the mirror.I did not look dangerous.I looked like a girl about to walk into a room full of peop
I did not sleep.How could I?Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Victor’s face.Not the cold mask he wore for the pack. Not the disappointment he had dressed me in since childhood.Fear.One flash of it.One crack in the stone.And somehow that frightened me more than his anger ever had.Victor Vale was afraid of me.The thought should have been impossible. I was the daughter he barely tolerated. The late bloomer. The unshifted girl. The family disappointment wrapped in Vivian’s hand-me-down kindness.But he had looked at me like I was dangerous.I lay in my narrow bed with the moonlight spilling across my old room and listened to Black Moon Ridge breathe around me.The house creaked softly.Wolves moved somewhere below.Wind dragged tree branches against the window like fingernails.And under all of it, my wolf paced.Not sleeping.Not hiding.Awake.I pressed a hand to my ribs.What are you?No answer came.Of course it didn’t.My wolf had waited almost eighteen years to wake. Appar







