Banished to freeze, she woke up trapped under a pile of massive wolves. They weren’t eating her; they were warming her
«Please,» she whispered. «I have nothing. I’m just an Omega.»
The black wolf tilted its head, a strangely human gesture. It seemed to consider her words. Then, it did the single most terrifying thing she had ever witnessed.
It changed. It wasn’t the fast, brutal snap-crackle of a pack shift. It was a fluid, silent, impossible transformation.
Bones didn’t break; they flowed. Fur didn’t recede; it dissolved. Where the largest wolf in the world had stood, a man now knelt.
He was as impressive in his human form as he had been in his wolf. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a wild mane of black hair and the same intense, scarred eye. He was bare-chested despite the cold, his skin covered in faint, swirling scars that looked more like tattoos.
He wore simple leather breeches, nothing like the gear her pack wore. He knelt in the hay, putting himself lower than her.
«We know who you are, Amanda,» he said. His voice was a deep rumble, like gravel and thunder. It was the same sound she had heard in her dream.
Amanda stared, her mind refusing to process what she was seeing. «How? How do you know my name?»
«We’ve been watching you,» he said, his gaze never leaving hers. The other nine wolves remained in their beast forms, a silent, unmoving jury of giants.
«Watching me?» she stammered. «Why? I’m… I’m nothing.»
The man actually smiled. It was a small, sad, dangerous expression. «You’re nothing,» he mused.
He reached out not to touch her, but to gesture at the circle of wolves. «My name is Caleb. This is my guard. We are the Unchained, and we have crossed half the continent, hunted by Alphas and scorned by packs, following a prophecy that is thousands of years old.»
He leaned in, his voice dropping. «And it led us in the middle of the worst blizzard in a century to this broken-down barn.»
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. «It didn’t lead us to a pack. It didn’t lead us to an Alpha. It led us… to you.»
Amanda stared at him, at the ten guardian wolves, at the snow piling up outside. Her rejection, her death—it was all a lie.
«I don’t understand,» she whispered.
«I know,» Caleb said, his voice softening. «But you will. Marcus made a mistake. He didn’t just banish an Omega.»
He looked at the nine wolves who watched her with a reverence that terrified her. «He banished a Queen.»
The first light of dawn broke through the slats of the barn, painting the scene in strokes of grey and watery gold. Amanda sat frozen, the hay pricking her skin, the warmth of the wolves an unsettling comfort.
A Queen. The word was so absurd she almost laughed, but the man, Caleb, was watching her with an unnerving sincerity. The nine massive wolves, his guard, had not moved. They were a living, breathing wall around her.
«You’re wrong,» Amanda finally said, her voice hoarse. «You’re mistaken. I’m… my wolf is silent. I’m an Omega. The weakest of the weak.»
Caleb shook his head, a dark lock of hair falling over his scarred eye. «You’ve been told you’re weak. You’ve been made to believe you are weak. There’s a difference.»
He gestured to the white wolf, the one with the piercing blue eyes. «This is Elias. My second.»
The white wolf huffed, then, in that same fluid, impossible motion, he shifted. The man who knelt beside Caleb was leaner, his hair the color of pale flax, his blue eyes just as intense in his human form.
«An honor, my lady,» Elias said, his voice smooth and formal. He bowed his head.
«My lady?» Amanda recoiled. «Stop calling me that.»
Caleb held up a hand. «Amanda, what did they tell you about your birth?»
«What? I… I was born during the red moon. My mother, Sarah, almost died. My father, Thomas… He said it was a bad omen. That I was born without… without the gift.»
«Without the gift!» Caleb repeated, a bitter anger coloring his words. «A lie. You weren’t born without the gift, Amanda. You were born with all of it.»
He rose to his feet, pacing the small clear space in the center of the wolf nest. «The prophecy is ancient. When the blood of the Alpha and the soul of the Omega unite in one body, the Lunar Matriarch will be born. She will be a wolf of white, a healer of the broken, a binder of packs, and she will come in the time of greatest need when the blood moon rises to devour the world.»
Amanda stared at him. «That’s… that’s a pup’s fairy tale. A nursery rhyme.»
«It’s the truth,» Caleb said, his voice ringing with conviction. «Your pack, your parents, they knew. They saw your power. A true Matriarch, an Omega who is also an Alpha, can bind other wolves to her command. Control them. It terrified them.»
«They saw a threat to their precious Alpha Marcus. So what did they do?» He continued, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. «They sought out a Hedgewitch, a binder, and they… muted you.»
Amanda’s hand went to her throat. «Muted?»
«They bound your wolf,» Elias said, his voice tight with fury. «They built a cage around your power deep inside you. They forced you into the role of an Omega, hoping the world would forget what you were. Hoping you would forget.»
It all crashed into her. The whispers. The way her parents could never look at her. The reason she always felt… empty, like a piece of her was missing.
It wasn’t missing. It was stolen.
«But… why now?» Amanda asked, tears welling again. But this time they were tears of rage, not sorrow. «Why are you here?»
«The binding was tied to your pack bond,» Caleb explained. «It held as long as you were claimed by Stone River, even as an Omega. But last night, Marcus didn’t just banish you. In his arrogance, he performed a full public rejection.»
He knelt before her again. «He severed the one thing that held your cage together. When he cast you out, your true scent, the scent we’ve been hunting, exploded across the continent like a beacon. The scent of moon silver and winter. The scent of the Matriarch.»
«We are the Unchained,» Caleb said, «sometimes called the Shadow Guard. We are not a pack. We are a brotherhood sworn to the Matriarch. We have no Alpha. We serve only you.»
The other eight wolves, as if on a silent command, shifted. One by one, they became men.
There was Ronan, a red-haired, freckled man who looked more like a roguish tracker than a guardian. Finn, young and eager with a shock of blonde hair. The twins, Jasper and Owen, dark and identical.
Liam, broad and quiet. Gabriel, with kind eyes and a healer’s hands. Simon, the scholar, his face intense. And finally Nathaniel, a mountain of a man who looked like he could wrestle a bear and win.
Ten men. Ten of the most powerful wolves she had ever seen. And they were all looking at her, waiting.
«What? What do you want from me?» she asked, her voice small.
Caleb smiled, and this time it reached his scarred eye. «We want nothing. We are here to give. We are here to protect you. To train you and to help you unlock what your parents tried to bury.»
«Unlock your wolf, Amanda,» Caleb said, his voice dropping. «It’s time for you to finally meet her.»
He offered her his hand. It was calloused, warm, and strong. Amanda looked at that hand. She looked at the ten devoted faces.
She thought of the cold haul, of Marcus’s sneer, of Beth’s triumphant smile, of her parents’ averted eyes. She had been a victim her entire life. She had been weak. She had been silent.
Not anymore.
She put her small, chapped hand into Caleb’s. His fingers closed around hers, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t feel cold. A jolt like lightning shot up her arm.
«Okay,» she said, her voice trembling but gaining strength. «Okay, show me.»
The days that followed were a blur of agony and revelation. The old barn became their fortress, the Unchained’s stronghold. The Shadow Guard, as Caleb called them, were perfect protectors.
Ronan and Finn hunted, bringing back deer and rabbit, which they shared with Amanda without a second thought. The others fortified the barn, patching the holes, creating a space that was not just sheltered, but defensible.
But Amanda’s training was the priority.
«The binding is broken,» Caleb explained on the first morning, «but the lock is still rusted shut. Your wolf has been in a cage for twenty years. She’s weak, she’s angry, and she’s scared.»
He was right. Amanda’s first attempts to call her wolf were failures. Where she expected a wellspring of power, there was only the familiar silent void.
«Stop trying to pull,» Elias, the white-haired second, advised. He was the strategist, it seemed. «You’re trying to command it like an Alpha. You’re not just an Alpha; you are a Matriarch. You must welcome it, invite it.»
«He’s right,» added Gabriel, the healer. «This isn’t a battle; it’s a reunion.»
So she tried. She sat in the hay, the ten men sitting in a circle around her, a new nest, one of human support. And she meditated.
She thought back to her rejection. She let herself feel the full, unadulterated pain of it. The betrayal. The cold.
And then she felt something else. A flicker. A tiny, furious spark deep inside her. It was her own rage, but it wasn’t just her rage. It was… other.
«They heard us,» a voice whispered in her mind. It was raspy, unused.
Amanda gasped, her eyes flying open. The guard tensed.
«What is it?» Caleb asked.
«I… I heard her,» Amanda whispered, tears in her eyes. «She’s… she’s so angry.»
«Good,» Caleb said, a fierce grin spreading across his face. «Use it. Welcome that anger. It kept her alive when you were trying to survive.»
Amanda closed her eyes again. She focused on the spark.
I’m here, she thought. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.
They lied to us, the spark grew, a kernel of heat. Lied, stole.
Amanda agreed, her own anger rising to meet it. They stole our life. They stole our warmth. They left us to die.
Never again.
The voice was no longer a whisper. It was a roar.
A white, hot pain tore through Amanda’s body. It was nothing like the agony of the cold. This was a pain of creation, of expansion. It felt like her bones were both breaking and mending, her muscles tearing and re-knitting.
She screamed.
«Stay with her!» Caleb roared. «Hold the space!»
The ten men moved, forming a tight circle, their hands on her shoulders, her back, their energy pouring into her. It wasn’t just a symbolic gesture. She could feel their strength, a steady, grounding force against the storm inside her.
«Let me out! Yes!» Amanda screamed, throwing her head back.
The shift was explosive. The men were thrown back as a shockwave of pure silvery energy erupted from Amanda’s small form. The old barn groaned, and dust rained from the rafters.
Where Amanda had been, a new creature stood. The guards scrambled to their feet, their jaws slack.
She was huge. She was larger than Caleb’s black wolf, larger than any of them. Her fur was not the dull white of a winter hare. It was the vibrant, shining, pearlescent white of the moon itself.
It seemed to glow from within a soft, ethereal light. Her eyes were not blue or gold. They were a deep, luminous silver.
She was beautiful. She was terrifying. She was the Lunar Wolf.
We… we are… the wolf noted, panting in her mind.
We are free, Amanda replied.
The wolf threw back its head and howled. It was not the howl of an Omega or even an Alpha. It was a sound of ancient power, of sorrow and joy, and magnificent, earth-shattering rage. It echoed across the frozen valley, a challenge and a promise.
Caleb was the first to move. He shifted, his massive black wolf emerging. He approached her not with dominance, but with head-bowed reverence.
He nuzzled her shoulder, and Amanda’s new wolf self leaned into the touch, a rumble of contentment in her chest. One by one, the others shifted. Ten massive wolves, a rainbow of black, white, grey, and brown, surrounding their Matriarch.
They had found her. And now she had found herself.
They spent the day in their wolf forms, running. It was the first time Amanda had ever run. She was fast, faster than any of them, her paws barely seeming to touch the snow.
She felt the wind, the trees, the earth. She was connected to everything. As dusk fell, they returned to the barn. Amanda, still in her wolf form, lay down, and without thinking, the ten wolves settled around her just as they had that first night.
