Chapter Two

Rashi's POV

Three days. It had been three days since the monitor flatlined, three days since the cremation, and three days since I walked back into our cramped two-bedroom apartment and locked the door against the world. The apartment felt like a cave. My mother Vinitra Khanna’s existence was packed into cardboard boxes stacked against the peeling wallpaper.

I had gone to the small patch of dirt behind our building to get some air. Mom called it a garden, though it was mostly weeds. The heavy monsoon rains had washed away the topsoil near the old banyan tree and exposed a corner of rot-resistant wood.

I dug it out with my bare hands, it was a small black chest. It was heavy and locked, but the key was taped to the bottom.

“What could be in here?” I whispered to myself.

When I opened it, I found photographs. They were pictures of my mother beside a man. He was devastatingly handsome with a sharp jawline, he had eyes that burned with an intensity that pierced through the glossy photo paper, and a posture that screamed authority.

And then I found a letter. It looked like a breakup letter. It had not been mailed. It was written by her and likely never sent.

“You chose the pack over me, Karan. You chose your pride over our child. I hope you find happiness because I will keep our daughter far away where your shadows cannot reach. But know this. You have made an enemy of the woman who would have died for you.” Those were the exact words on the letter.

I gripped the paper until it crinkled. It was true. The whole car accident story was the lie. The monster was real.

Suddenly the amulet glowed with a very bright light that could make one go blind instantly.

“What the...” I whispered. I backed away until my spine hit the refrigerator.

The light expanded. It shot upward to swirl and coalesce into a vertical ring in the middle of my kitchen. It looked like a whirlpool of sapphire water suspended in the air. It smelled of pine needles, wet earth, and ozone. It looked like a door, something I could walk into and end up in another world.

I felt a tug in my chest. It was a physical hook behind my navel dragging me toward that swirling blue light. It was warm, inviting, and terrifying. This was impossible. It was insanity. But the pull was undeniable.

In fear, I dropped the amulet into one of the drawers of the small vanity. I had to do some research.

I spent the next twenty-four hours scouring the internet. I dove into the deep web and looked for anything on "Varg" or "Wolfsbane." I read about werewolves and humans and about living as a human in a werewolf world. It was mostly conspiracy theories and role-playing forums, but I found one recurring thread about scent masking. Sage to cleanse, wolfsbane to numb the nose, and peppermint to confuse.

I ground them into a paste and kept it aside. This was it. I had to fulfill my promise to my mother.

I grabbed my backpack, I had packed in a daze. I had clothes, a flashlight, a knife I used for chopping vegetables, and the pouch of herbs.

I smeared the green sludge over my neck, my wrists, and the hem of my jeans. I smelled like a walking apothecary, but if Mom was right and I was half-human, my scent would be a beacon.

I picked the photo I had seen the day before from the black chest and held it in my hand.

“Mum, this is for you,” I screamed as I gripped the amulet tightly. The portal rose again and blinded me.

“Okay,” I breathed as I stared at the swirling portal. “Okay, Mom,  I'm going.”

I stepped into the blue, and just like that, the world dissolved.

There was no transition and no travel time. One second I was in my kitchen, and the next, the air was sucked from my lungs by a freezing wind. I stumbled and fell to my knees on hard jagged rock.

I gasped as I realized I was high up a mountain. The whole place felt so cold and different from the city I had known all my life. The mountain was in the middle of a dark thick forest. I looked at the amulet and hoped it was going to give any light or any directions.

“Come on, come on... say something,” I said as I tapped it, but it didn't even blink. My body began to shiver. Where was I now? Had I made a grievous mistake? Was I lost?

Suddenly I heard a howl rip through the silence. It was distant, mournful, and primal. It sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

“That's it. Get up, Rashi,” I hissed to myself. “Move.”

I adjusted my backpack and started walking to follow the sound of the growling wolf. The amulet in my pocket pulsed with a rhythmic heat and acted as a compass. Whenever I veered left, it cooled. When I corrected my path straight into the dense forest, it warmed.

Hours passed, and my legs burned. My mind was a battlefield. I had no plan of claiming the throne, and I had no training on becoming an alpha heir, but I knew this was something I had to do for my mother. This was her dying wish.

After hours of walking, I was already exhausted, but then the being my eyes saw shocked me. Emerging from the mist like a phantom was a wolf. It was massive and easily the size of a small pony. Its fur was a matted grey that blended perfectly with the fog. But its eyes were a startling intelligent amber.

My body began to shake, this was no human, it was an animal.

“Mum, how could you get pregnant by an animal?” I whispered to myself. “Think, Rashi. Think.” My hand drifted to the kitchen knife in my belt. It was a pathetic defense against such a beast.

The wolf didn't crouch. It didn't snarl. It simply watched me. It sniffed the air. The pungent herb paste on my skin must have been confusing it as it masked the human scent and the half-breed scent.

The wolf tilted its massive head. Then, with a huff that sounded almost dismissive, it turned and walked towards me. I tried to be brave. I tried to think I could walk into it and play the part of a wolf.

But as it walked forward, others appeared. Some were more fierce than the first, and they began to come from behind it. I tried to stop my legs, but the amulet pulled me closer. What was happening? I told myself I should turn back, but just when I turned my body, my bones began to crack. My skin began to change its color. The amulet surged me closer and closer to the group of wolves.

A sharp pressure bloomed in my chest, unfamiliar and terrifying. I had never felt this before, never even suspected my body could betray me like this. Whatever this was, it wasn’t something I was choosing. It was something that had been waiting.

I tried to fight it. I tried to regain control of my body, but it was as if something desperately wanted to come home. Something felt it's kind and needed to be around them. I shifted into a massive wolf that controlled every part of me.

As I walked closest to the crowd, my mind couldn't hold it anymore. My eyes began to turn, and I felt dizzy. I forced the words out of my mouth.

“Mother... died... pack...”

The next thing I saw was darkness.