My paws hit the forest floor with the force of falling boulders, yet I was silent. Weightless.
The world was no longer dark. To my new eyes, the night was a spectrum of silver, violet, and deep indigo. I could see the pulse of the sap in the ancient oaks; I could hear the panicked heartbeat of a field mouse three miles away.
But mostly, I felt the thrum.
It was the heartbeat of the earth itself, vibrating through my massive claws. I was no longer Aria, the discarded daughter. I was a force of nature. Every breath I drew felt like inhaling starlight, filling my lungs with a fire that made the rejection bond feel like a distant, pathetic sting.
« Go further, » the voice in my head purred my wolf, my soul, the Primal. « Leave the stench of the weaklings behind. »
I ran. I leaped over ravines that would have taken me hours to climb as a human. I was a blur of white lightning against the dark pines. But as the adrenaline began to ebb, the sheer toll of the transformation hit me. My massive form flickered. The silver light dimmed.
With a bone-deep groan, the world tilted. The trees rushed up to meet me.
The shift back was a symphony of agony. My bones shrank, grinding against one another; my skin burned as the fur retreated. I collapsed onto a bed of damp moss, naked and shivering, my human lungs gasping for the thin, cold air.
I was alone. The silence of the Forbidden Crags pressed in on me, heavy and suffocating. The "Alpha Crush" I had unleashed was gone, leaving me with nothing but the bruises on my knees and the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.
Did I dream it?
I looked at my hands. They were trembling, coated in mud and pine needles. But beneath the dirt, my skin glowed with a faint, pearlescent sheen.
"Not a dream," I whispered, my voice a jagged ruin.
Then, the wind shifted.
The forest went deathly silent. The crickets stopped their chirping. The owls ceased their flight. A scent hit me sharp, intoxicating, and terrifying. It smelled like cedarwood, mountain rain, and danger.
My skin prickled. Not with the warmth of a mate bond, but with the primal instinct of a prey animal sensing the apex.
"You should be dead," a voice drifted through the trees.
It wasn't a shout. It was a low, velvet rumble that seemed to vibrate directly in my marrow.
I scrambled backward, pressing my spine against the rough bark of a cedar tree, clutching my torn dress to my chest. "Who's there?"
A shadow detached itself from the darkness of a towering spruce.
He didn't walk; he prowled. He was tall impossibly so with shoulders that seemed to block out the moonlight. He wore black tactical gear, the leather straps straining against the sheer mass of his muscles. But it was his face that stopped my heart.
Jagged, handsome, and carved from ice. His eyes weren't amber, or violet, or red. They were a piercing, abyssal black that seemed to swallow the light.
"The Silver Moon exiles their failures," the stranger said, stopping ten feet away. His gaze traveled over me, not with lust, but with a clinical, predatory curiosity that made me feel like a specimen under a microscope. "But failures don't shatter the sky with a howl."
I tried to summon the silver fire again. I reached deep into my soul, screaming for the Primal to wake up, but she remained silent, exhausted by the Awakening. I was just a girl again. Vulnerable. Broken.
"Stay back," I hissed, my fingers clawing into the dirt.
The stranger tilted his head. A small, dark smile tugged at the corner of his mouth a flash of white teeth that looked far too sharp.
"Or what? You'll growl at me?" He took a step closer. The air around him felt heavy, pressurized. This was an Alpha aura, but it was unlike anything Logan or my father possessed. Theirs felt like a weight; his felt like a vacuum, pulling the very oxygen from my lungs.
"You're him," I breathed, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "The King of the Wastes. The Black Alpha."
The man everyone feared. The one the stories said had slaughtered his own Council to build a kingdom of outcasts.
"Names are for those who care about legacies," he said, now standing directly over me. He knelt, his massive frame casting a shadow that swallowed me whole. He reached out a hand, his fingers gloved in black leather.
I flinched, closing my eyes. I expected a blow. I expected him to claim me or kill me.
Instead, I felt the cool touch of his knuckles against my jaw, forcing me to look up at him.
"Your eyes," he murmured, his voice losing its edge, replaced by something dark and mesmerized. "They still have the silver ring."
He leaned in, his scent overwhelming my senses. For a second, the void in my chest the hole Logan had ripped open—flinched.
"The Silver Moon thinks they threw away a pebble," the Black Alpha whispered, his thumb brushing my lower lip. "They didn't realize they dropped a diamond into my lap."
He stood up abruptly, pulling off his heavy duster coat and tossing it over my shivering frame. It was warm, smelling deeply of him, and for the first time in eighteen years, I felt... safe.
"Why are you helping me?" I asked, clutching the coat.
He turned his back to me, looking toward the distant lights of the Silver Moon manor. His eyes glowed with a sudden, lethal hunger.
"Because, Aria of No-Pack," he said, "I've been waiting a long time for someone strong enough to help me burn this world to the ground. And you... you just gave me the match."
He turned back, extending a hand.
"Get up. We have work to do."