C1

Nyla Ravensalt POV

"Open the door right now!" I shout. My hand hits the thick wood of the room inside the Moonfang Fortress.

"Hold on, I am coming!" a boy yells from inside.

My heart hits my chest fast. I hold the small box of runic herbs tightly. I am just an Omega Courier. I need this pay to buy meat for my small cabin in Moonhaven Ridge Territory. I do not look up when the wood swings open.

"That will be one hundred and forty-three silver tokens," I say, keeping my voice flat. "Do you have the tokens ready?"

The boy does not move. He does not take the box.

"Nyla?" he whispers.

I look up fast. My eyes go wide. My mind stops. The boy standing there with wet hair and a loose sheet around his shoulders is Ronan Ashclaw. He is the boy from the Ashclaw Pack. I love him for six whole years. He is supposed to be far away across the pack lands.

"Ronan, who is at the gate of the room?" a girl calls out from the fur bed inside. "Is that our special pack oil?"

"Nobody!" Ronan yells back fast. His face goes white like snow. He looks super scared. "It is just a low delivery wolf!"

He grabs the box from my fingers. He throws a bunch of paper money tokens into my hand.

Bang!

The heavy wood slams shut in my face. My fingers shake. I stand in the dark hall of the fortress. I want to cry, but I feel hot anger inside my body instead. Six years of waiting for him, and he is sharing a fur bed with another wolf girl.

I pull out my pocket talker fast.

"Hello, Guard Alphas of Moonhaven Ridge?" I say into the talker. My voice shakes, but I make it loud. "There are rogues breaking pack laws in room 2202 at the Moonfang Fortress. They are using bad silver dust herbs. Come fast."

Ten minutes later, the big iron wolf wagons slide to a stop outside the grand stone gate.

Pack reporters with bright light boxes run out from the bushes. The guard alphas drag Ronan and the girl out into the bright light.

"Alpha Successor Ronan, did you break the pack laws tonight?" a reporter yells, pushing a light box in his face.

"Is that girl a low-rank rogue?" another one screams.

"Get away from me!" Ronan roars. His wolf teeth show. He looks super mad.

He looks through the crowd of wolves and sees me standing by the stone pillar. His eyes look mean and full of hate.

"Did you do this to me, Nyla?" he snarls.

"You do not get to play with my heart and get away with it," I say.

I walk right up to his face. The reporters stop talking. The guards look at me.

Slap!

My hand hits his cheek super hard. His head flies to the side.

"Hey, you cannot hit a high pack member!" a guard shouts.

"Oops, my hand just slid," I say with a cold smile.

I look right into Ronan’s bad eyes.

"You are just trash to me now," I tell him. "Like a dead leaf in the mud. I will come to get the rest of my pack from your house in three days."

"What things?" he asks, looking super scared again.

"You know what things," I say.

The guards push him into the iron wagon and drive away. The reporters run after them. The big stone entrance becomes quiet and empty. I stand there trying to breathe normally.

I turn around to walk to the dirt path.

"Hey," a deep voice says.

I stop. A super tall boy stands by a big black horse wagon. He has short dark hair and eyes like the deep dark sea. He wears a fine dark fur coat. He looks like a king, not like the bad wolves around here.

My heart goes super fast again. I feel like I know him from somewhere a long time ago.

But I see his Beta commander standing behind him. I see the gold markings on his wagon. He is too big for an Omega like me to know. I turn my head and walk fast into the dark woods.

"Who is that girl?" Magnus of Saltwood Pack asks, watching the small form run into the trees.

"Supreme Alpha Lord, that was just the boy from the Ashclaw Pack who got taken away," Garrick Wolfhart says quickly.

"Not him," Magnus says, his eyes getting small. "The girl."

"Oh, I do not know, Alpha," Garrick says. "I can go find out her name right now."

"No need," Magnus says.

Magnus looks at the dark path where I disappeared. A big smile comes to his face. He remembers the old moon mark.

"It is her," Magnus whispers to the night. "My future Luna."