Chapter One – Fiona

 

The whispers followed Fiona Moonstone everywhere she went.

They slithered through the pack house corridors like smoke, curled around corners in

the training grounds, and settled heavy as stones in the communal dining hall. Wolfless.

The word had become her shadow, her second name, the brand that marked her as

broken in a world where shifting meant everything.

Fiona kept her chin high as she walked through the heart of the Moon River Pack

territory, her canvas bag slung over one shoulder, paint-stained fingers clutching the

strap.

The afternoon sun caught the deep red of her hair—a shade like autumn leaves

or dying embers, inherited from her mother's line. Once, that hair had been a mark of

beauty, of distinction. Now it felt like a beacon advertising her failure. Look at the Alpha's

daughter, the stares seemed to say. All that fire in her hair, but no wolf in her soul.

She'd learned months ago that looking down only invited more pity, more pointed stares.

Better to meet their eyes—the mothers who pulled their children closer, the warriors who

looked through her as if she were already a ghost, the girls her age who'd shifted at

eighteen and now ran with the pack under full moons while Fiona stayed behind, alone.

But I'm not wolfless, she thought fiercely, as she did a hundred times a day. I'm not.

The wolf was there. She felt it in her mind like a second heartbeat, a presence that

paced and prowled in the cage of her consciousness. Sometimes, in the space between

sleeping and waking, she could almost see it—silver fur gleaming like moonlight on

water, eyes that burned with ancient knowing.

But when she reached for it, when she tried to call it forth, there was only silence.

Only the terrible, yawning gap between what she was and what she should be.

The September sun hung low over the pack lands, painting everything in shades of

amber and gold. Fiona's boots crunched on the gravel path that led away from the main

settlement, toward the forest and the river beyond. She walked faster, her red hair

streaming behind her like a banner, desperate to put distance between herself and the

suffocating weight of their judgment.

"Fiona! Wait up!"

She closed her eyes briefly, then turned. Ennis jogged toward her, his easy smile firmly

in place. Her brother had always been golden in temperament if not in coloring—the

same striking red hair as hers caught the light as he ran, but where her hair seemed to

advertise her failure, his only enhanced his success.

 At twenty-two, he was already one of the pack's best warriors, destined for a position

of honor at their father's side. His wolf was strong and sure, a russet-brown beast that

had emerged on his eighteenth birthday without hesitation, without question.

 “Where are you headed?" he asked, falling into step beside her.

"The river." She didn't elaborate. She never had to, not with Ennis.

His smile dimmed slightly. "Dad's looking for you. There's a pack meeting tonight."

Fiona's jaw tightened at the mention of Kieran. Their father—Alpha Kieran Moonstone,

leader of one of the strongest packs in the region—had been distant since her

eighteenth birthday. Not cruel, never cruel, but there was something in his eyes now

when he looked at her. Something that might have been disappointment. Or fear. Or

guilt. She couldn't tell which was worse.

"I know," she said. "I'll be back before dark."

Another meeting where she'd stand at the back, neither fully part of the pack nor

separate from it. Another evening of carefully neutral expressions while they discussed

patrols and territory and all the things that required a wolf to participate in.

Ennis caught her arm gently. When she met his eyes—the same green as hers, the

same as their mother's had been—she saw the concern there, the frustration he tried to

hide. "F*e, you can't keep running away every time—"

"I'm not running away." The words came out sharper than she intended. "I'm going to

paint. There's a difference."

"Is there?" He studied her face, and she wondered what he saw. The sister he'd grown

up with, who used to race him through the woods and always, always lost? Or the

stranger she'd become after her eighteenth birthday, when the shift that should have

come never did?

Fiona pulled her arm free, but softened her voice. "I just need some space, Ennis.

Please."

He sighed, running a hand through his red hair—a gesture so like their father. "Fine.

But be careful, okay? There have been reports of rogues near the eastern border."

"The river's nowhere near the eastern border."

"Just... be careful." He squeezed her shoulder once, then headed back toward the pack

house, his stride confident and sure.

Fiona watched him go, then turned and plunged into the forest.

The trees welcomed her like old friends. Here, beneath the canopy of oak and pine, the

whispers couldn't follow. Here, she could breathe.

Her feet found the familiar path without conscious thought, winding between

moss-covered roots and over fallen logs, deeper into the green shadows where sunlight

filtered through in golden shafts.

The wolf in her mind stirred, pressing against the invisible barrier that kept her caged.

Fiona felt her longing like her own—the desire to run on four legs instead of two, to feel

the earth beneath paws instead of boots, to be whole in a way she hadn't been since the

night of her eighteenth birthday.