Chapter 3

The White Wolf

POV: ELARA VANCE

​The pain was a living thing. It wasn't the dull ache of a bruise or the sharp sting of a cut; it was a total restructuring of my atomic existence. Bones snapped and lengthened with the sound of gunshots. Muscles tore and re-knit in milliseconds. My skin felt like it was being flayed open to make room for something... bigger.

​I should have been dead. The shock alone should have stopped my heart. But the fire inside me wouldn't let me die. It demanded to be let out.

​Yield, the ancient voice commanded in my head. Let me take the reins.

​I stopped fighting. I surrendered to the agony.

​And then, the pain vanished, replaced by a surge of power so intoxicating it felt like I had swallowed a star.

​My vision shifted. The pitch-black forest was suddenly illuminated in sharp, high-definition clarity. But the colors were wrong. The snow wasn't just white; it hummed with a pale blue energy. The trees had auroras of life pulsing within them. And the Shadow Wolves... they looked like jagged tears in the fabric of the world, radiating heat and malice.

​I stood up.

​Wait. I didn't just stand. I towered.

​The ground felt miles away. I looked down at my paws. They were massive, easily the size of dinner plates, covered in fur that was so white it seemed to glow. My claws were curved obsidian scythes, sinking deep into the frozen earth with barely a flex.

​I wasn't a wolf. I was a monster.

​A low rumble started in my chest. It wasn't a growl; it was the sound of tectonic plates shifting.

​The Shadow Wolf leader-the brute with the missing ear-had stopped his advance. He was staring up at me, his crimson eyes wide with a very un-predatory emotion: Terror.

​He was big for a wolf, easily four feet at the shoulder. But I was looking down on him. I was double his size.

​He snarled, a desperate, defensive sound, and lunged.

​Too slow, my wolf mocked.

​Time seemed to slow down. I saw his muscles bunch before he leaped. I saw the trajectory of his jaw aiming for my throat. I didn't panic. I didn't flinch. Instinct-honed by centuries of ancestors I didn't know I had-took over.

​I simply swiped my paw.

​It was a casual motion, like swatting a fly.

​CRACK.

​My claws connected with the Shadow Wolf’s ribcage. The force of the impact sent him flying through the air. He smashed into a pine tree twenty feet away with a sickening wet thud, collapsing into a heap of whimpering fur. He didn't get back up.

​The clearing went dead silent.

​The other four Shadow Wolves froze. They looked from their broken leader to me, their tails instantly tucked between their legs.

​Subordinate, my wolf thought. Make them kneel.

​I stepped forward. The snow crunched loudly under my weight. I lowered my massive head, staring directly into the eyes of the nearest wolf, and opened my mouth.

​I didn't bark. I released a sound that vibrated the needles off the pine trees. It was the Alpha Command-amplified.

​"DOWN."

​It wasn't spoken; it was projected. A telepathic hammer blow.

​The four wolves collapsed instantly, pressing their bellies into the snow, exposing their throats. They whined, the high-pitched sound of absolute submission. They weren't just surrendering; they were begging for mercy.

​The adrenaline began to fade, and with it, the euphoria. The reality of what I had just done crashed into me.

​I had shifted. Me. The Runt. The Wolfless.

​I looked at my reflection in a patch of ice near the treeline. A stranger stared back. A beast of myth and nightmare. White fur, sharp ears, and eyes…

​My eyes were glowing a brilliant, electric violet.

​Lycan, a deep, unfamiliar voice spoke from the shadows.

​I spun around, a growl ripping from my throat, ready to kill again.

​A man stepped out from behind a thick cluster of oaks. He wasn't shifting. He was in human form, wearing dark tactical gear and a heavy fur-lined cloak. He was tall, with skin the color of polished bronze and hair as white as my new fur, tied back in a warrior’s knot.

​But it was his scent that hit me-rain, ozone, and old blood. Powerful. Ancient.

​He didn't look afraid. He looked... reverent.

​He walked past the whimpering Shadow Wolves as if they were harmless puppies, his silver eyes locked on mine. He stopped ten feet away and slowly, deliberately, lowered himself to one knee in the snow.

​"I thought your bloodline was extinct," he said, his voice rough and deep. "The White Lycans haven't walked this earth for five hundred years."

​My wolf growled, confused. Enemy? Friend?

​"Shift, child," the man said softly. "You are safe here. I am Alaric. And you have just awakened a power that will burn this world to the ground if you do not learn to control it."

​Shift? I didn't know how. I had never done this before. Panic flared in my chest. What if I were stuck like this? What if I were a monster forever?

​"Breathe," Alaric instructed, sensing my rising panic. "Picture your human skin. Picture the lock on the cage. Pull the power back in."

​I closed my violet eyes. I thought of my hands. My small, scarred, human hands. I thought of the cold. I thought of the girl who just wanted to be invisible.

​The pain returned, sharper this time, as bones snapped back into place. I collapsed onto the snow, gasping, shivering, naked and vulnerable in the freezing air.

​Alaric was there in an instant. He didn't touch me inappropriately; he simply unclasped his heavy cloak and threw it over my shaking form, wrapping me in warmth and his scent.

​"Who are you?" he asked, crouching beside me.

​My teeth chattered so hard I could barely speak. I looked at this stranger, this dangerous man who commanded Shadow Wolves, and I realized I had two choices. I could be Elara Vance, the rejected Omega. Or I could be the girl who just swatted a monster like a fly.

​I looked him in the eye.

​"I am the one," I whispered, my voice breaking, "who is going to make them pay."

​Alaric’s lips curved into a dark, terrifying smile.

​"Good," he said. "Then let’s get to work.”