Chapter 1

Raven

I can’t stop staring at the clock in my room. Ten minutes until midnight. Ten minutes until my tenth birthday, and I finally get my wolf. I’ve been waiting for this day for as long as I can remember, and now that it’s here, it almost doesn’t feel real.

My eyelids feel heavier by the minute, but I’m determined to stay awake. I’ve only got two minutes left now. I push myself off my bed and head into the bathroom next to my room, closing the door as quietly as I can before turning the light on.

The brightness makes me squint at first, but I step over to the sink anyway, letting the cold water run for a moment before splashing it onto my face. The chill helps, pulling me back into focus just enough to get through the last few minutes.

As I pat my face dry, I hear a small creak outside the door, and my feet move on their own as I step closer to listen. I pause there, waiting for another sound, but nothing follows. There are no footsteps, no voices, just silence. After a moment, I turn back and hang the towel up, trying to ignore the way my stomach has started to tighten.

What if I don’t get my wolf?

The thought comes out of nowhere, and I don’t like how easily it settles in. What if the Moon Goddess doesn’t think I’m worthy?

I look at myself in the mirror, studying my reflection like I might find an answer there, but everything looks the same. My eyes are still the same light blue, my white hair slightly messy from trying to stay awake. Nothing about me looks different.

Then my eyes shift.

It’s subtle, just enough that I almost think I imagined it, but the color deepens slightly, turning into something darker, more earthy, like there’s something behind them that wasn’t there before.

‘You, my human, are more than worthy.’

“Ahh!” I scream before I can stop myself.

The bathroom door bursts open almost immediately. My father rushes in first, his eyes scanning the room like he expects something else to be there. My mother is right behind him, but she isn’t looking anywhere else.

She’s staring directly at me.

“Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Dad. I had to use the bathroom and thought I heard something. I guess I’m a little jumpy.”

My father’s attention finally lands on me, and the moment he really looks at my face, his expression changes. My mother’s doesn’t, but something about the way she’s watching me makes my stomach twist even tighter.

They are surprised. I can feel their happiness that I have awakened, but they are nervous.

“Why are they nervous?”

I don’t realize I’ve said it out loud until my father steps forward and pulls me into a hug, his arms wrapping around me tighter than usual.

“Raven,” he says quietly, “your mother and I are very happy your wolf has awakened, but I need to know if she understands what you are.”

What I am? That doesn’t make any sense.

‘We are special, Raven. We are hunters. No hunter has been blessed with their gift before they became of age to join a hunting party. That is why they are nervous, but we are as we are meant to be.’

I pull back slightly and look up at him. “Yes. She said we’re hunters. She said we’re special.”

My father glances at my mother, who is still standing just outside the bathroom, still staring at me like she’s trying to process something she doesn’t understand. When I look back at him, his eyes shift slightly, unfocused in the way that means he’s mind linking someone.

It takes a couple minutes before his focus returns. He gives me a small smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“What is her name, Raven?”

“I don’t know,” I say, then immediately feel awful. “Oh my goddess, I’m so rude. I didn’t even ask you your name.”

A soft laugh brushes through my thoughts.

‘You do not need to speak aloud. Just think it, and I will hear you.’

‘Like this?’

‘Yes.’

There’s a brief pause before she answers.

‘My name is Calliope.’

Calliope. The name feels right the second I hear it, like it’s always been there and I’m only just now noticing it.

Before I can say anything else, a knock echoes through the house.

All of us go still.

It’s the middle of the night. No one should be here.

My mother moves first, stepping into the hallway and heading downstairs toward the front door, muttering something under her breath that I can’t quite make out. It sounds like she says something about God, which doesn’t make any sense.

My father guides me downstairs with him, keeping a light hand on my shoulder as we move. When we reach the front room, my mother has already opened the door, and I stop when I see Alpha Avery standing there.

He steps inside without hesitation, his presence filling the room immediately, and I straighten without thinking. You don’t question an alpha, even if you want to.

He isn’t alone. Another man follows him inside, someone I’ve never seen before. He looks older than my parents, but not as old as the elders, and there’s something about him that makes me pause. I can’t explain it. He just feels… different.

“Alpha,” my father says, his tone respectful but tense, “what brings you here at this late hour?”

“Harold, I felt her awaken. If I had been asleep I might have missed it, but I highly doubt that. It was quite a surge of power. It was nearly double what I felt from the last hunter awakening and they were of age. I could not risk waiting until morning. We need to take precautions and we need to put them in place immediately.”

I know Calliope said we were special but right now I feel the exact opposite of special. I’m starting to worry.

“Raven?”

The other man’s voice pulls my attention back to him, and I frown slightly, not sure how he knows my name.

My father leads me into the living room and sits me down on the couch between him and my mother. Alpha Avery and the other man take the chairs on either side of us, and the room suddenly feels smaller than it did before.

“Raven,” Alpha Avery says, his voice calmer now, more controlled, “First, I want to wish you a happy birthday and offer my congratulations on getting your wolf. It’s a very special day for every ten year old.”

I nod, even though nothing about this feels the way I thought it would.

“Now I need to ask, does your wolf need to shift tonight, or can she wait a little while?”

‘I can wait.’

“She says she can wait,” I tell him, then add, “but I don’t understand why everyone is acting like this.”

Alpha Avery glances briefly at my parents before looking back at me, like he’s deciding how to explain something in a way I’ll understand.

“You have done nothing wrong, and there is nothing to be concerned about,” he says. “Your awakening was simply a little different than what we usually see. Not in a bad way, just earlier and stronger than expected.”

I frown slightly, trying to make sense of that. “That doesn’t sound like something to worry about.”

“It isn’t,” my father says, his tone steadier now. “It’s just something we want to be mindful of.”

“Mindful of how?”

My mom finally speaks, as though she’s come out of whatever trance she was in earlier. Her voice is softer but more grounded. “People tend to react to things they don’t understand, especially when they notice something different. We don’t want anyone making assumptions about you or treating you differently before you’ve had time to grow into what this means.”

I think that makes more sense, even if it doesn’t answer everything.

“So you just don’t want people to know yet?”

“Not right away,” my father says. “There’s no reason to draw attention to it. You’ll still train, and you’ll still learn everything you’re supposed to. We just want to give you time first.”

I nod slowly, even though I’m not entirely sure what that time is supposed to be for. It feels like there’s something else behind what they’re saying, something they’re not quite putting into words, but no one looks as tense as they did before. They just look careful.

‘Raven, you are not alone. You will have guidance, even when you do not yet understand it.’

I go still when the voice touches my mind. Since I don’t have the pack link yet, I shouldn’t be able to hear anyone except my parents. But they wouldn’t speak in my mind. Since it was a man’s voice, I know it wasn’t Calliope.

I don’t know what that means, and no one else reacts to it, which makes it even harder to tell if they heard the voice or not.

I glance between the adults, waiting for someone to explain, but they all seem focused on something else now, something I’m not part of, and I don’t like that feeling.

“I still don’t understand what’s so different,” I say.

“You don’t need to understand everything tonight,” Alpha Avery replies. “What matters is that you are safe, you are exactly as you are meant to be, and nothing about this changes who you are within this pack.”

I let his words sit for a moment, trying to decide how much of it I actually believe. It helps more than I expected it to, even if it doesn’t answer the questions still sitting in the back of my mind.

“Okay,” I say finally.

My father gives my shoulder a small squeeze, and this time his smile feels more real.

“We’ll figure everything else out as we go,” he says.

I nod again, even though I know there’s more they’re not telling me. I can feel it in the way they keep looking at each other instead of at me, in the way their words stop just short of explaining anything clearly.

But for now, no one looks worried anymore. And somehow, that makes me feel a little better.