Family Emotions Werewolf Short Stories & Novels

The day Alpha Kyle Locke came to deliver the marking token, he brought two, just like always, and let my sister Serafina Voss choose first. One was a custom-made moonstone collar, a specialty piece from Frost. The other was a wolf fang pendant, the kind sold in every shop in town. Neither of us said anything. Everyone just waited for Serafina to reach out first. Never mind that this token had been chosen for my marking ceremony with Kyle, not hers. But this time, I moved first. My fingers landed on the moonstone. I spoke before anyone else could. "Can I be the one to choose, this time?" Kyle frowned. "Ella, Serafina's health is delicate. The moonstone will help settle her wolf. Yours is already steady. The pendant is more than enough for you." I didn't pull my hand back. I looked at the two tokens in front of me, and it finally hit me. Every choice in my life had been made exactly like this. Serafina's blood ran nobler, so she always got to choose first. I was the one who gave ground, every single time, right up until Kyle came along. Everyone had expected Kyle to pick Serafina as his Luna. In the end, he chose me instead. I thought, for once, I was the one who'd been chosen, not the one left with the scraps. It took me a long time to understand that the position of Luna was mine, but the priority behind it always belonged to Serafina. Not this time. I wasn't going to be the one who came second, not anymore.

My mother, Margaret Harper, carries the blood of a Word Witch. Once every lunar cycle, she can speak one blessing that fate itself is forced to obey. But all my life, the only thing she ever gave me was half a sentence. When I was eighteen, I received early admission to the Northern Royal Healers' Academy. My mother looked at the letter and said, "If you go north..." Her instincts had never been wrong, so I thought she'd seen danger waiting for me there. I turned the academy down with my own hands. Months later, she used her recommendation and a binding blessing to send my younger sister, Chloe, to the best healing school near our pack, even though Chloe had nowhere near my talent. After that, I stopped asking about my future. I started at the bottom of Black Pine Pack's medical system and fought my way up until the Northern Royal Pack appointed me Chief Healer. One month before I was due to leave, my mother saw the appointment letter and still offered me nothing but another unfinished warning. "Climbing too high might..." That same night, I heard her give Chloe the only blessing she could use that month. "You'll pass the senior healer examination. Your wolf will remain calm, and every examiner will recognize your ability." So that's the truth. My mother wasn't unable to finish a sentence. She simply never thought I was worth one. If every blessing she had belonged to Chloe, then Margaret didn't need to know that in one month, I would leave her house and Black Pine Pack for good.