The Violet Moon

Chapter 1

Ariana

“Get up.”

The command slices through the haze of pain. Mud, cold and wet, seeps through the thin fabric of my tunic, clinging to my skin. I try to push myself up. My arms tremble, giving way almost immediately. I fall back onto my stomach with a choked gasp, my cheek slapping against the damp earth. Laughter ripples through the circle of bodies surrounding me.

“I said, get up, omega.” Joric’s voice is a low snarl, laced with the arrogant pleasure he always takes in this. His boot connects with my ribs. A sharp, cracking sensation sends a wave of white hot agony through me. I bite my lip to keep from screaming, tasting the coppery tang of my own blood.

“She’s not listening, Joric,” another voice calls out, thick with amusement. “Maybe you’re not being clear enough.”

“Oh, I think she gets the message,” Joric says. He grabs a handful of my hair, yanking my head back. My neck screams in protest. I’m forced to look up at him. His face, usually considered handsome by the pack’s females, is twisted into a mask of cruel satisfaction. His eyes, the same cold gray as his father’s, bore into me. “You spilled the water. You interrupted the Alpha’s council. What do you have to say for yourself?”

My throat is tight, raw. “It was an accident,” I rasp, the words barely a whisper.

“An accident?” He scoffs, his grip tightening. Tears blur my vision. “Everything with you is an accident. Your birth was an accident. A wolf born without a wolf. A drain on our resources. A blight on the Blackwood name.”

Each word is a blow, as sharp and painful as his fist. He shoves my head back down, my face grinding into the grit and pebbles of the clearing. I can see his father, Alpha Valerius, standing at the edge of the circle. He watches, his arms crossed over his massive chest, his expression unreadable stone. He does nothing. He never does.

This is the law of the pack. The strong rule. The weak serve. And I am the weakest of all. An omega with no inner wolf to call upon, no strength to fight back with. Just a hollow space where a fierce, proud beast should be.

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” Joric commands. I struggle again, managing to get onto my elbows this time. My body is a symphony of pain. My ribs feel shattered, my head throbs with a dizzying rhythm, and a deep ache has settled into my bones.

“You are a lesson, Ariana,” Joric continues, circling me like a predator. His boots squelch in the mud. “A lesson in obedience. A lesson in knowing your place. Every time you forget, I will be here to remind you.”

He stops in front of me. I keep my eyes on his feet, not wanting to see the look on his face. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of my fear.

“You embarrassed me,” he says, his voice dropping to a dangerously quiet tone. “You embarrassed my father. You made our pack look weak, having such a clumsy, useless thing serving us.”

I risk a glance up. His jaw is tight. This is what it’s really about. Not the spilled water. It’s never about the mistake itself. It’s about his pride. His fragile, easily wounded pride.

“I am sorry,” I whisper, because it’s what he wants to hear. It’s the only thing that might make this end sooner.

“Sorry isn’t good enough.” He draws back his foot. I brace myself, closing my eyes. The impact is brutal, a solid, sickening thud against my stomach that forces all the air from my lungs. I curl into a tight ball, gagging, fighting for breath that will not come. Black spots dance in my vision, multiplying, swallowing the gray light of the overcast sky.

The circle of onlookers is silent now. The show is nearing its end. I can feel their eyes on me, a heavy, suffocating weight of pity from some, contempt from most.

“Leave her,” Alpha Valerius’s voice booms across the clearing. It’s the first time he’s spoken. The sound is final, a gavel striking down. “She has learned her lesson for today. Take her to the healer.”

Joric grunts, a sound of disappointment. He spits on the ground near my head. “Next time, I won’t stop until you can’t even crawl.”

He walks away. The circle breaks. The pack members disperse, their voices a low murmur as they return to their duties, the morning’s entertainment concluded. The pain in my body is a roaring fire, but the humiliation is a block of ice in my chest, freezing me from the inside out.

Two of the warriors approach. They are not gentle. They haul me to my feet, my arms hooked over their shoulders. My legs refuse to hold my weight, dragging uselessly through the mud. Every jostle, every step, sends fresh waves of agony through me. The world tilts and blurs, the edges of my vision going dark. The last thing I hear before the blackness claims me completely is the sound of my own ragged, broken breathing.

I wake to the scent of dried herbs and antiseptic balm. The sharp, clean smells of the healer’s wing. I’m lying on a cot, a rough but clean blanket pulled up to my chin. For a moment, I don’t move, just taking inventory. A dull, throbbing pain has replaced the sharp agony. My body feels heavy, bruised, but whole.

“You’re awake.”

The voice is soft, familiar. I turn my head slowly, wincing at the pull in my neck. Lyra sits on a stool beside the cot, grinding something in a small stone bowl. Her face is a roadmap of wrinkles, her silver hair pulled back in a neat braid. Her hands, though gnarled with age, are steady and sure. She is one of the few pack members who has ever shown me kindness.

“Lyra,” I breathe. My voice is a dry crackle.

“Hush now. Don’t try to talk.” She puts the bowl aside and picks up a cup from a small table. “Here. Drink this. It will help with the pain.”

She helps me sit up, her arm a surprising source of strength around my shoulders. I lean against her, taking small sips of the warm, bitter tea. It flows down my throat, a soothing warmth spreading through my chest. I drink it all, my thirst a desperate thing.

“Thank you,” I say when I’m done, my voice a little stronger.

She takes the cup and sets it down, her eyes full of a sorrow that makes my own throat tighten. “There is nothing to thank me for, child. I only wish I could do more.”

I look down at my hands, resting on the blanket. They are clean. Someone has washed the mud from my skin. “How bad is it?”

“Two cracked ribs. Nothing broken, by the Goddess’s grace,” she says, her tone clipped. “And more bruises than stars in the sky. Joric is a brute. He has his father’s temper but none of his control.”

I flinch at his name. “The Alpha… he was there.”

“He is always there,” Lyra says, her voice low. “He watches. He allows it. He thinks it forges strength in the pack. The fool. It only forges fear and resentment.” She smooths the blanket over my legs, a simple, maternal gesture that makes my eyes well up with tears. I fight them back. Crying is a weakness Joric has not yet beaten out of me, but I refuse to let it show.

“How long was I out?”

“Most of the day. It is nearly dusk now.” She gestures to the single window, where the light is fading from gray to a deep orange.

We sit in silence for a while. It’s a comfortable quiet. With Lyra, I never feel the need to fill the space with pointless words. She understands. She has been in this pack longer than anyone, has seen more Alphas rise and fall than I can imagine. She has seen cruelty and kindness in equal measure and knows the value of both.

“You are stronger than they know, Ariana,” she says suddenly, her gaze fixed on me. “Your wolf may be silent, but your spirit is not. Do not let them break it.”

“It feels broken,” I confess, the admission a painful weight lifted from my chest.

“Feeling broken and being broken are two different things.” She stands, her joints cracking softly. “Rest. The healing takes time. I will bring you some broth later.”

She leaves me alone with my thoughts and the deepening shadows. I lie back down, staring at the wooden ceiling. Her words echo in my mind. *Your spirit is not broken*. Is that true? It feels like a lie. Every day is a battle just to survive, to remain invisible, to not give Joric a reason. And every day, I fail. There is always a reason. A misplaced tool. A slow response. A glance held too long. Or, like today, a simple, clumsy accident.

A strange sensation begins in my right eye. A faint itch, a feeling of warmth spreading behind the eyelid. I rub it, but the feeling persists, growing into a low, pulsing thrum. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s deeply unsettling. I sit up, my bruised muscles protesting loudly. The room is nearly dark now, lit only by a single candle Lyra left burning on the table.

I need to see it. I don’t know why, but a sudden, urgent need to see my own reflection washes over me. There are no mirrors in the healer’s wing. Vanity is a luxury the Blackwood pack does not afford its members, least of all its omegas.

My eyes scan the room, desperate. They land on a small, metal tray on a shelf, used for holding instruments. It’s not a mirror, but it’s polished. It might be enough.

I swing my legs over the side of the cot, my feet hitting the cold stone floor. My head spins for a moment, and I grab the edge of the cot to steady myself. Each movement is a careful, painful negotiation with my body. I push myself to my feet, my legs shaking, and shuffle slowly towards the shelf.

My breath comes in short, sharp bursts. I reach the shelf and pick up the tray. My hands are trembling so hard it’s difficult to hold it steady. I turn it over, angling the polished surface towards the candlelight.

A distorted, wavering reflection of my face stares back at me. It’s me. Pale skin, a cut on my lip, a darkening bruise high on my cheekbone. My hair, a tangled mess of plain brown, falls around my face. And my eyes… my plain, brown eyes.

I lean closer, my heart starting to pound against my cracked ribs. The thrumming in my right eye intensifies. I blink. And then I see it.

In the warped reflection, one eye is still the familiar, muddy brown I’ve known my whole life. The other, the right one, is no longer brown.

It is violet.

Not a pale lilac, but a deep, vibrant, impossible violet that seems to glow from within, catching the candlelight and shining it back with an intensity that steals my breath. It is startling. It is alien. It is beautiful.

My hand flies to my mouth to stifle the sound that escapes my throat. A gasp. A sound of pure, unadulterated shock. I stare, mesmerized and terrified, at the stranger in the reflection. One brown eye, the eye of a worthless omega. And one luminous violet eye, the eye of… something else entirely.

Chapter 2

Ariana

I stumble back from the metal tray, my hand clamped over my mouth. The polished surface falls from my other hand, clattering against the stone floor with a sound that seems impossibly loud in the silent infirmary.

It can’t be. It’s a trick of the light. A smudge on the metal. A hallucination brought on by the beating.

I drop to my knees, my body screaming in protest, and snatch the tray from the floor. I hold it up again, my knuckles white. The reflection is shaky, distorted, but the truth it shows is undeniable.

One brown eye. One violet eye.

The violet is electric, a storm cloud lit from within by lightning. It doesn’t look like it belongs in my face, in this room, in this world.

A cold terror, sharper and deeper than anything Joric can inspire, grips me. This is wrong. This is a sickness. A madness. They will see it. They will say I am cursed. They will cast me out. Or worse.

My breath comes in ragged, panicked sobs. I have to hide it. I have to cover it.

*It is a gift, little one. Not a curse.*

The voice is not a sound that comes through my ears. It resonates inside my skull, as clear as a spoken word but intimate, like my own thought. Except it isn’t my thought. The voice is female, calm, ancient, and deeply, deeply amused.

I scramble backward, away from the tray, away from the voice, until my back hits the hard wooden frame of the cot. My heart hammers a frantic rhythm against my cracked ribs. I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing the heels of my hands into them.

“Who’s there?” I whisper into the empty room, my voice trembling.

*I am here. Where I have always been. You are just now learning to listen.*

I’m losing my mind. The beating, it must have broken something in my head. That’s the only explanation. The eye. The voice. It’s a nightmare.

“You’re not real,” I choke out, pulling my knees to my chest.

There’s a soft chuckle that seems to vibrate through my very bones. *Oh, I am very real. More real than the pain in your ribs or the fear in your heart.*

“What do you want?” I ask, my voice cracking.

*To see you become who you were meant to be. But all in good time. Patience, child. For now, just breathe.*

I try to follow the command, to draw a breath, but my lungs feel tight and small. Panic is a wild animal clawing at the inside of my throat. My world has tilted on its axis. Nothing makes sense.

The heavy wooden door to the infirmary creaks open. Light from the corridor spills into the room, silhouetting a large, familiar frame. My blood runs cold.

Joric.

He steps inside, a smirk already twisting his lips. He lets the door swing shut behind him, plunging the room back into the dim candlelight. Lyra must have left for the kitchens.

“I heard our broken little toy was awake,” he says, his voice a low drawl. He saunters further into the room, his eyes scanning me. I keep my head down, my hair falling forward like a curtain, hoping he won’t see. Hoping he won’t notice the impossible color of my eye.

“What, no greeting for me? After I took such special care of you this morning?” He stops a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest in the same arrogant posture his father favors.

I remain silent. Saying nothing is always the safest option. Saying nothing means there is nothing he can twist, nothing he can use as a new excuse.

*He expects you to cower. Are you going to give him what he expects?*

The voice is back. Calm. Questioning. It’s a strange anchor in the swirling sea of my fear.

Joric scoffs at my silence. “Still defiant. I thought I beat that out of you. Seems I’ll have to try harder next time. My father is too soft. He thinks a few cracked ribs are enough. But you omegas, you’re like rats. You need to be stamped out completely.”

He takes another step closer. I can smell the scent of pine and sweat on him, the scent of a predator.

“Look at me,” he commands.

I don’t move. I keep my gaze fixed on a crack in the stone floor. If I look up, he will see my eye. The thought sends another jolt of terror through me.

“I said, look at me!” he roars, his voice bouncing off the stone walls. He reaches down, his hand closing on my chin in a bruising grip. He forces my head up.

His cold gray eyes bore into mine. I try to keep my right eye mostly closed, praying the shadows and the flickering candlelight will hide it.

“There now. Is that so hard?” He studies my face, his thumb rubbing harshly against my cheekbone. His eyes narrow. “You look different.”

My heart stops.

“Still the same pathetic, worthless omega,” he continues, his gaze sweeping over me dismissively, “but there’s… something. Did the old crone give you one of her potions? Put a bit of fire in your belly?”

I just stare at him, my mind a blank wall of panic.

*He is a boy playing at being a monster. Show him how unimpressed you are.*

Where are these thoughts coming from? That’s not me. I’ve never been unimpressed. I’ve only ever been terrified.

Joric’s smirk returns. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing can change what you are. You were born weak, and you will die weak. A stain on my pack’s honor.” He releases my chin with a shove.

His words are the same ones he always uses. The same tired insults meant to grind me into dust. They have always worked. They have always left me feeling hollow and worthless.

But today, something is different.

The voice in my head is a quiet hum of power. And the words that leave my mouth feel like they belong to someone else entirely. Someone stronger. Someone unafraid.

“Is that all you have?”

The question is quiet, almost conversational. It hangs in the air between us. Joric blinks, his head tilting as if he’s misheard me.

I look up, fully meeting his gaze, forgetting for a moment to hide my eye. “I asked if that is all you have. The same insults, day after day. It’s… boring.”

The last word comes out with a sharpness that shocks even me. My hand flies to my mouth, but it’s too late. The words are out.

Joric’s face, which had been a mask of arrogant contempt, goes slack with disbelief. His jaw literally hangs open for a second before snapping shut. A slow, dark flush creeps up his neck.

“What did you say to me?” he hisses, his voice dangerously low. He takes a step forward, looming over me.

My body trembles, a primal fear screaming at me to apologize, to beg, to take it back. But the calm presence in my mind holds me steady.

I don’t answer. I just hold his gaze. The flickering candlelight must be dancing in my right eye, because his own eyes widen almost imperceptibly. He squints, leaning closer.

“Your eye…” he begins, a confused frown replacing his anger.

Before he can get a better look, the door opens again. This time it’s Lyra, carrying a steaming bowl of broth. She stops dead in the doorway, her eyes darting between me on the floor and Joric standing over me.

“Joric,” she says, her voice tight with disapproval. “What are you doing here? This is a place of healing. Your presence is not required.”

Joric tears his gaze from me and glares at her. He is the Alpha’s son. No one speaks to him like that. But Lyra has been the pack healer for fifty years. She has a status that even he cannot easily challenge.

“I was just checking on the pack’s property,” he snarls.

“She is not property. She is a pack member under my care,” Lyra counters, her voice like flint. “And she needs rest, not your torment. Now get out.”

For a long moment, it feels like the world is holding its breath. Joric looks from Lyra’s stern, unyielding face back to me. His eyes are full of a new, venomous promise. He is no longer just toying with me. I have defied him. I have embarrassed him. I have crossed a line.

He turns without another word, his shoulders rigid with fury. He strides out of the infirmary, slamming the heavy door behind him with a boom that echoes in my bones.

I collapse back against the cot, my entire body shaking with the adrenaline and the terror of what I have just done. I risked everything for a single moment of… what? Defiance? Pride?

Lyra rushes to my side, setting the bowl down. “Child, what did you do? What did you say to him?” she asks, her hands hovering over my shoulders, her face etched with worry.

I can’t answer her. I can only stare at the door he disappeared through. I should be consumed by fear of his retribution. And I am. A part of me is screaming in terror.

But another part of me, a part I have never met before today, is alight with a strange, thrilling warmth. A flicker of fire in the cold, empty space where my wolf should be.

*You see?*

The voice is back, and it sounds pleased. It sounds like a proud mother.

*That was only the beginning.*

Chapter 3

Ariana

Lyra presses a cool, damp cloth to my forehead. Her touch is gentle, but I still flinch away from the memory of Joric’s bruising grip.

“Child, you are trembling like a leaf in a storm,” she murmurs, her brow furrowed with worry. “What did you say to him? He looked ready to kill.”

I shake my head, unable to form the words. I said he was boring. To the Alpha’s son. The words sound insane even in my own head.

“I… I don’t know,” I lie, my voice barely a whisper. It feels like someone else spoke through my mouth.

*Someone did.* The voice in my mind is back, calm and resonant. *I did.*

I squeeze my eyes shut. This can’t be happening.

Lyra sighs, a heavy, weary sound. “Whatever it was, you have painted a target on your back, Ariana. Joric’s pride is a fragile, vicious thing. He will not let this go.”

“I know,” I manage to say.

“Eat.” She pushes the bowl of broth into my hands. “You need your strength. The next few days will not be easy.”

She watches me take a few spoonfuls, her expression grim. When she seems satisfied that I won’t ignore the food, she picks up her basket of herbs.

“I must go and replenish my stock of willow bark. Rest. And Ariana,” she says, pausing at the door, “try not to find any more trouble.”

She leaves, and the heavy door thuds shut, sealing me in the quiet dimness with the voice.

I set the bowl aside, my appetite gone. “Who are you?” I whisper to the empty room.

*I am Selene. And before you ask, yes, the Moon Goddess. It is a rather dramatic title, I have always thought.* The voice has a thread of dry humor that is deeply unsettling.

I hug my knees to my chest. “I am going mad. That’s it. He hit me too hard and I have lost my mind.”

*Your mind is perfectly sound. More sound than it has ever been. You are simply waking up from a long, long sleep.*

“Waking up?” My voice is tight with hysteria. “I have a purple eye and a goddess in my head. This isn’t waking up. This is breaking.”

*Language is so limiting,* Selene muses. *What you call breaking, I call becoming. You are my daughter, Ariana.*

The statement is so absurd, so impossible, that a choked laugh escapes me.

“Your daughter. Right. And I suppose Alpha Valerius is a kind and gentle soul.”

*He is a gnat, buzzing around a power he cannot comprehend. But you… you are different. You are part me, part mortal. A demigod, in the old tongue.*

I shake my head, pressing my fingers into my temples. “No. No, I am an omega. A wolf without a wolf. My parents were pack members. They were nobodies.”

*Your mortal parents were chosen to raise you, to keep you safe. Your spirit was placed within this body as a test. To see if your heart could endure. To see if your spirit would shine even when smothered by darkness. You have endured, little one. And now, your power awakens alongside your wolf.*

It’s too much. The words are a flood, drowning me in their impossibility. I am Ariana. A clumsy, worthless omega. Nothing more.

“I don’t believe you,” I say, the denial a desperate anchor.

*Of course you do not. Words are wind. You need proof.*

The warmth in my violet eye begins to pulse again, a low, steady thrum. The edges of the infirmary begin to blur, the candlelight stretching into long, distorted streaks.

“What are you doing?” I gasp, my heart starting to pound.

*I am doing nothing. This is you. Your gifts are stirring. Let go. Just for a moment. See what you are capable of.*

I want to fight it. I want to hold on to the solid reality of the stone floor and the scratchy blanket. But a strange current is pulling me under. The world dissolves.

I am no longer in the infirmary.

I am standing in a forest of impossibly tall, ancient trees. Snow is falling, not in a blizzard, but in a slow, silent dance of perfect flakes. The air is so cold it feels like a blade against my skin, yet I am not cold. I smell pine, sharp and clean, and the electric scent of a coming winter storm.

And I am not alone.

A man stands before me. He is an Alpha. I know it in my bones, in the very marrow of my soul. The power rolling off him is a physical force, a pressure against my chest. He is tall, broader than even Valerius, with hair as black as a moonless night. He wears dark leathers, simple and practical. But it is his eyes that hold me captive.

They are silver. Not gray. Not pale blue. They are the color of molten silver, fierce and intelligent and blazing with an intensity that seems to peel back every layer of my being.

He stares at me. There is no surprise in his expression, only a raw, profound recognition. A fierce, terrifying possessiveness. It is not the cruel ownership of Joric or the cold dominance of Valerius. It is something deeper, more absolute. Like a mountain claiming its peak. Like the sky claiming its stars.

He does not speak. He does not have to.

His soul reaches for mine, a primal roar that echoes in the silent space where my own wolf should be. A single word imprints itself on my heart, a brand of burning silver.

*Mine.*

The vision shatters. I am back on the cot, gasping for air as if I have just surfaced from a deep dive. My body is drenched in a cold sweat. My hands are shaking uncontrollably.

“What was that?” I cry out, my voice raw with terror. “Who was that?”

*That was a time-glimpse,* Selene’s voice explains, softer now, tinged with something that might be sympathy. *A whisper of what is to come. A look at your other half.*

“My other half?”

*Your mate.*

The word hits me like a physical blow. A mate. For me? The Fates would not be so cruel. No Alpha, especially not one with that much power, would ever accept a worthless omega. He would reject me. He would kill me.

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head violently. “No. I don’t want that. I don’t want him.”

*You fear him because you have only known power used as a weapon to harm you. You will learn, Ariana. You will learn.*

Before I can argue, before I can scream, the heavy door of the infirmary is thrown open. It is not Lyra. It is one of the Alpha’s guards, a hulking brute named Fenris.

His eyes, small and dull, sweep over me. “The Alpha summons you,” he grunts. His gaze lingers on my face for a moment too long, and a flicker of confusion crosses his features before he straightens up.

Ice floods my veins. A summons from Valerius himself. Not Joric. Valerius. This is not about a minor punishment. This is something else.

Joric must have told him what I said. About my eye. He knows something is wrong with me.

*He knows nothing,* Selene states, her voice firm, a steel rod against my spine. *He feels a shift in the currents of his pack, and it frightens him. Stand up, child.*

My legs feel like water, but I obey the command in my head. I push myself off the cot, my bare feet cold against the stone.

*Walk.*

I follow Fenris out of the healer’s wing. The main hall is mostly empty, the evening meal having concluded. Every step echoes, a countdown to my own doom. The guard says nothing, just leads me towards the Alpha’s den at the heart of the compound.

The terror is still there, a cold, familiar companion. But underneath it, something new resides. The memory of the silver-eyed Alpha. The feel of his power. The quiet certainty of Selene’s voice in my head.

Fenris stops before the heavy, iron-banded door of the Alpha’s den and knocks once. A deep voice from within calls, “Enter.”

The guard opens the door and shoves me inside before pulling it closed, leaving me alone with my Alpha.

The room is large, dominated by a massive oak desk and the scent of old leather and woodsmoke from a low fire in the hearth. Furs are thrown over the floor and chairs. Maps of pack territories cover one wall.

Alpha Valerius sits behind the desk. He is not looking at me. He is sharpening a long, wicked looking hunting knife with a whetstone. The rhythmic scrape of stone on steel is the only sound in the room.

I stand before him, my hands clenched into fists at my sides, my heart a trapped bird beating against my ribs.

*Breathe,* Selene whispers. *Do not look at the floor. Look at him. Let him see you are not afraid.*

I am afraid. I am terrified. But I lift my chin and meet his gaze as he finally looks up. His eyes are chips of gray ice, cold and merciless.

“Joric tells me you have found your tongue,” he says, his voice a low rumble. He sets the knife down, the sound unnervingly loud.

I remain silent.

“He also tells me you have recovered… remarkably quickly from your lesson this morning.” He leans forward, his massive forearms resting on the desk. He steeples his fingers. “Lyra’s skills are good, but they are not miraculous. So tell me, omega. What magic is this?”

“There is no magic, Alpha,” I say. My voice is steady. It does not tremble. I do not know where this steadiness comes from.

He smiles, but it is a predator’s smile. It holds no warmth, only threat. “No? Then perhaps it is defiance. A sickness of the spirit that needs to be burned out.”

He stands up. The full force of his Alpha presence crashes down on me, an invisible weight designed to make me bend, to make me grovel. It has always worked before. It has always dropped me to my knees.

But tonight, it is different.

It is like standing in a gale, but I am no longer a leaf to be torn from the branch. I am a stone. Anchored. Unmoving. Selene’s presence within me is a shield I did not know I had.

Valerius walks around the desk, his steps slow and deliberate. He circles me, just as Joric did, his eyes missing nothing. “You think you are strong now? Because you mouthed off to my son? Because you healed a day sooner than expected? You are nothing. A speck of dust. I can crush you and no one in this pack would shed a single tear.”

He stops directly in front of me, so close I can feel the heat radiating from his body. He is trying to intimidate me with his size, his power.

“You have forgotten your place,” he snarls, his face inches from mine. “You have forgotten what pain feels like. I think it is time for a reminder.”

He raises a hand, large enough to encircle my entire throat.

*Do not flinch,* Selene commands. *Do not look away.*

I hold his gaze. My heart hammers against my ribs, but my body does not move. I do not cower. I do not plead. I simply stand there, and I meet the eyes of my tormentor without fear.

I watch as his eyes, the cold gray eyes of a tyrant, widen just a fraction. His nostrils flare. His head tilts, a subtle, confused gesture.

And then he does something I have never seen him do. Something I did not think was possible.

Alpha Valerius, the brutal ruler of the Blackwood pack, unconsciously takes a small, almost imperceptible step back.