What happens when the person everyone throws away becomes the one person they can’t live without? For Amanda being the Pax Omega meant a life of scraps, whispers, and enduring the icy contempt of Alpha Marcus. At the great moon ceremony, she wasn’t just overlooked.

 She was publicly rejected, cast out, and banished into a raging blizzard. She was nothing. She was no one. She found shelter in a ruined barn, expecting to die. But when she woke up, she wasn’t alone. She was surrounded by a nest of 10 massive wild wolves. And they weren’t sleeping. They were guarding her. The blizzard didn’t care about ceremony. It clawed at the walls of the great hall.

 Its howl a bitter mockery of the unity Alpha Marcus was preaching inside. Amanda stood in the back, as she always did, near the kitchens, where the warmth of the ovens couldn’t quite reach her, and the smell of roasting deer was tainted by the soap on her chapped hands. She was an omega, the lowest of the low in the stone river pack. Her wolf, if she even had one, was silent, a dormant, useless thing that had never answered her call.

 Tonight was the unity moon, the night the alpha would finally choose his mate, solidifying his rule. Hope was a dangerous, stupid thing for an Omega to possess. But Amanda’s heart hammered anyway. Not because she thought he would choose her, that was a child’s fantasy, but because she held a secret, flickering admiration for Alfa Marcus.

 He was strong, decisive, and handsome in a way that made the other she wolves, like Beth the Beta’s daughter, preen and posture. Amanda just hoped that once he chose his Luna, his gaze would soften, and perhaps the pack’s casual cruelty toward her would ease. And now Marcus’s voice boomed, silencing the hall.

 He stood on the raised platform, a veritable god of a man with dark hair and eyes like chips of obsidian. He scanned the crowd. His gaze passed over the hopeful, eager faces. It passed over Beth, who was practically vibrating with anticipation, and then his eyes landed on Amanda. The entire hall went silent. Amanda froze, a cold dread washing over her. He wasn’t looking at her with desire. He was looking at her with contempt.

 We are a pack of strength, Marcus began his voice, dangerously quiet. We honor the moon goddess by culling the weak by ensuring the pack remains pure and powerful. He took a step toward her. The crowd parted like the sea, leaving Amanda standing alone in a circle of suffocating silence. For years, he continued stalking toward her.

 We have carried a burden, a leech, a wolfless drain on our resources. Amanda’s blood turned to ice. Alpha, I I don’t You don’t What? Omega, he sneered. You don’t work. You don’t serve. You don’t eat our food while offering nothing. I do my chores, she whispered tears, stinging her eyes. I clean the kitchens.

 I mend the you are a void. He spat and the word hit her harder than a physical blow. He was just feet from her now. Your parents, Thomas and Sarah, lowered their heads in shame the day you failed to shift. Your presence here is a curse, a weakness I will no longer tolerate. He turned to the pack.

 Beth, daughter of my beta, will stand beside me as my chosen mate. A gasp went through the crowd, followed by a smattering of applause. Beth’s face lit up with venomous triumph, and she shot Amanda a look of pure, unadulterated hatred, and as my first act with my true mate beside me. Marcus roared, I cast out the taint, Amanda of no wolf, you are rejected, not just by me, but by this pack.

 You are banished. You will leave Stone River territory by moonrise. If you are seen again, you will be hunted as a rogue. He didn’t just reject her as a mate, a right he barely had as she was never a candidate. He rejected her existence. Marcus, no alpha, please, she cried, falling to her knees.

 It’s a blizzard I won’t survive. Where will I go? He looked down at her, his face carved from granite. That is not my concern. He turned his back on her. Guards escort her to the border. Give her nothing. Two of the Pax’s enforcers men she had known her whole life grabbed her arms. They didn’t bother with a coat.

 They dragged her from the hall past her parents, who refused to meet her eyes past the smirking face of Beth. They hauled her through the screaming wind for what felt like miles until they reached the icy creek that marked the edge of their land. You heard the alpha? One guard, Liam muttered, avoiding her gaze. He’d been kinder to her in the past. Go.

 Liam, please. She begged the snow already soaking through her thin tunic. My family. You have no family. The other guard, Owen, growled. You’re rogue now. He shoved her hard. Amanda stumbled, falling into the half- frozen creek. The shock of the water stole her breath.

 When she scrambled up the other side, they were already walking away, their backs rigid against the storm. She was alone, banished, rejected. Amanda ran. She didn’t know where, just away. The wind tore at her. The snow bit at her skin, and the tears froze on her cheeks. Her silent wolf offered no warmth, no strength, no comfort. She was just a girl and she was going to die. After an hour, or maybe it was a lifetime, her legs gave out. She collapsed against something solid wood.

Peeling paint. She looked up her vision, blurring, an old, dilapidated barn, long abandoned from the days when humans farmed this land. It was shelter, a pathetic, broken shelter. But it was something. With the last of her strength, Amanda pulled open the rotting door, the hinges screaming in protest.

 She stumbled inside the smell of old hay and dry rot filling her lungs. She found a pile of ancient dusty straw in a collapsed stall and burrowed into it, curling into a tight ball. The cold was too deep. Her body was already shutting down. “So this is it,” she whispered to the darkness. a barn, a pile of straw, an omega’s death.

She closed her eyes, the howls of the blizzard and the ghost of Marcus’ voice tangling in her head. She didn’t expect to ever open them again. Darkness. Cold. And then warmth. Amanda drifted in a feverish, shallow state of consciousness. She was aware of the cold, a deep bone grinding chill that had settled into her very marrow.

 But somewhere at the edge of her awareness, a new sensation was blooming, a radiating living heat. She dreamt of fur, of deep rhythmic breathing, of the scent of pine and rich earth, a smell so potent it chased away the rot of the old barn. A low growl rumbled through her dreams, not one of anger, but of contentment. Like a cat’s purr, but a thousand times deeper. Amanda’s eyes snapped open.

 She was no longer alone in the hay. Her heart lipped into her throat, choking her. She was surrounded, encased. The nest from her prompt wasn’t an exaggeration. It was literal. Massive furred bodies were pressed against her back, her sides, her legs. She was the center of a living, breathing circle of wolves. She didn’t scream.

She couldn’t. Fear had stolen her voice. These were not the wolves of her pack. The Stone River wolves were mostly grays and browns, large but lean. These these were monsters. The one pressed against her back was a deep midnight black, its fur, so thick it was almost blue in the faint moonlight filtering through the barn boards.

 The one whose head was resting near her feet, was a mottled silver and gray, bigger than any wolf she had ever seen. Another was the color of burnt umber, its eyes closed in sleep. She tried to count her mind, frantic. 1 2 3 5 8 10 10 giant wolves and she was in the middle of their cuddle puddle. Her first thought was that this was a rogue pack and they were keeping her.

 A toy or worse a meal they were saving, but the scene was too peaceful. They weren’t restraining her. They were shielding her. The warmth she felt was their combined body heat, a living furnace that had kept her from freezing to death. The wolf, to her immediate, left a massive creature of pure snowy white, an anomaly, a true winter wolf, opened its eyes.

 They were not the yellow or brown of a normal wolf. They were a piercing, intelligent human shade of blue. Amanda stopped breathing. The white wolf watched her, its gaze unblinking. It made no move, no aggressive gesture. It simply observed. Then it huffed a quiet breath, a plume of steam rising in the cold air, and nudged its nose gently against her shoulder. It was a gesture of reassurance. This was impossible.

Rogues were feral. They were broken. They didn’t show tenderness. Slowly, as if awakened by her fear, the other wolves began to stir. One by one, eyes opened. Golden green amber and that startling blue. 10 pairs of eyes all focused on her. This was not a pack. This was an army. The one she hadn’t seen yet. The one that had been pressed against her back. The midnight black wolf sat up. It dwarfed the others.

 This was the alpha. He was magnificent with a scar running over one eye, giving him a look of terrifying wisdom. He stepped over the other wolves with a grace that was almost liquid, and stood before her. Amanda pressed herself back into the hay, her body trembling so violently she could barely focus.

 “Please,” she whispered. “I have nothing. I’m 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, broadshouldered, with a wild man of black hair and the same intense scarred eye.

 He was barechested despite the cold, his skin covered in faint swirling scars that looked more like tattoos. He wore simple leather britches, 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 jewelry 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 word 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 10 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 gray and watery gold. Amanda sat frozen, the hay pricking her skin, the warmth of the wolves and 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. “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, them 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 hedge witch, 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, the 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 severed the one thing that held your cage together. He knelt before her again. 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. 10 men, 10 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 10 devoted faces. She thought of the cold hall 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. 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 20 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 10 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. Yander 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 renitting. she screamed. “Stay with her!” Caleb roared. “Hold the space.” The 10 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 hair. 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 note, her wolf panted 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 earthshattering 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 undampled 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.

 10 massive wolves, a rainbow of black, white, gray, 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 10 wolves settled around her just as they had that first night. A nest. Her nest. But the world was not going to leave them in peace. From the edge of the woods, 2 mi away, a scout from the Stone River Pack lowered his binoculars.

 He had been sent by Marcus to find the Omega’s frozen corpse. Instead, he had just seen an Omega, who wasn’t an Omega, running with a pack of 10 monstrous wolves led by a massive black alpha. and he had heard a howl that shook the ice from the trees. He turned and ran his heart, hammering with a terror far greater than any blizzard. He had to warn Alfa Marcus.

The reject was back, and she had brought an army. The Stone River Pack was restless. In the 3 days since Amanda’s banishment, a pole had settled over the territory. The Unity Moon should have brought joy, a new Luna, a stronger pack. Instead, it had brought nothing. The hunts were failing.

 Deer that should have been plentiful were scarce. The blizzard had passed, but a deeper cold remained. The pack members were irritable, snapping at each other. The atmosphere in the great hall was sour. Alfa Marcus sat on his carved throne, annoying, unfamiliar feeling, eating at his gut. Regret. He kept seeing her face, the shock, the disbelief.

 The moment all the light in her eyes had died just before the guards dragged her out. It had been a mistake. He knew it now. You’re brooding, my love. Beth’s voice cut through his thoughts. She was draped over the arm of his chair, her nails digging possessively into his shoulder. You’re the alpha. You did what was necessary. She was a weakness.

 She was a child we were sworn to protect. Marcus snapped, shrugging off her hand. He was surprised by his own venom. Beth’s eyes narrowed. She was a wolfless leech, and now she’s gone. We should be celebrating. Marcus looked at his chosen mate. He had chosen her for her strength, her bloodline, her confidence. But now all he could see was a chilling cruelty. He had thought her confidence was strength.

 He was beginning to see it was just arrogance. He had traded a quiet, harmless omega for a sharp tonged, power-hungry Luna, who was already grating on his nerves. She She was not a leech. Liam, one of the guards who had exiled her, spoke up from his table. His voice was quiet, but it carried in the tent’s hall. Marcus focused on him.

What did you say, Liam? Liam stood his chair scraping loudly. His partner Owen looked terrified, but Liam’s face was set in grim resolve. I said, “Alpha,” Liam repeated louder. “She wasn’t a leech. She mended my son’s boots when he tore them. She She would sing to the pups in the nursery when their mothers were on patrol. She always took the last smallest piece of meat.

She never She never hurt anyone. A murmur of agreement went through the hall. Others who had been too afraid to speak were nodding. She was weak. Beth shrieked her voice high and thin. She was The great hall doors burst open, slamming against the stone walls. The scout David stumbled in. He was covered in snow, his face pale with terror. Alpha, he gasped, collapsing.

 Alpha, I I saw. Speak, man. Marcus roared, leaping to his feet. It’s the Omega, David panted. Amanda, she she’s not dead. A wave of relief, so strong it buckled his knees, hit Marcus. He covered it quickly. She’s alive. We’re the border. No alpha, David said his eyes wide with a feverish light.

 The old human barn in the valley. She’s squatting in the valley, Beth sneered. Pathetic. Marcus sent the enforcers. End this. She’s not alone. David yelled, grabbing Marcus’ tunic. You don’t understand. She She’s with them. With who? Rogues. Worse. 10 of them. Massive. Bigger than Bigger than you. Alpha. One is solid black scarred. Another is pure white. Marcus froze. The nursery rhymes.

 The old legends. A white wolf. And alpha. She shifted. The hall went utterly silent. She’s her wolf. I’ve never seen anything like it. David whispered his voice cracking. It’s It’s white like the moon. It glows. And Alpha, I heard her howl. It It didn’t sound like a wolf. It sounded like a command. Marcus stumbled back.

 The implications crashing down on him. The failed hunts, the restless pack, the cold. The goddess was angry. He hadn’t just rejected an Omega. He had banished a deity. She’s a witch. Beth shrieked her face white with a different kind of terror. She’s bewitched those rogues. She’s a dark creature. She’s come to destroy us. You must kill her, Marcus. You must lead the pack.

 Kill the witch. Her voice was the only sound. Marcus looked at the faces of his pack. They were confused. But more than that, they were afraid, and fear was a weapon. He had a choice. He could admit his catastrophic mistake grovel and beg for forgiveness from a creature he had sentenced to death.

 Or he could fix his mistake. He could reclaim what was his. He was the alpha. She was his pack, his blood, his territory. She hasn’t bewitched them,” Marcus said, his voice a low growl. His pride, his arrogance, his power roared back to life. She has gathered an army of rogues to challenge us. A direct threat.

 He straightened his alpha presence flooding the room. She is a traitor. David Liam Owen, gather the war pack, 20 of our strongest. We go to the barn. We will break this army of hers and we will drag the Omega back. We will put her on trial for treason. But Alpha Liam started her wolf is a perversion. Marcus snarled. A trick. Get the warriors. We move in one hour.

 He had made his choice. He would not be the alpha who lost his pack to a cowering omega. He would be the alpha who crushed a rebellion. He would bring Amanda back whether she was breathing or not. The barn was no longer a refuge. It was a war room. Ronan the tracker had returned at a dead run. his red hair flying. They’re coming. 20 of them. Full warp pack. Marcus is leading.

 Amanda stood in the center of the barn, her new wolf thrumming just beneath her skin a comforting hotblooded presence. She was no longer wearing the thin tunic of her rejection. Gabriel had sacrificed one of his own cloaks, and she had fashioned it into a more practical, if rugged, garment.

 fear the cold familiar companion of her entire life tried to grip her. But the new hot anger was stronger. “Let them come,” she said, and was surprised by the cold steel in her own voice. “Amanda,” Caleb said, stepping to her side. His 10 men were already in a defensive perimeter, a silent, deadly circle. “This is not your fight. Not yet. We can get you out. We can be gone before they arrive.

 Amanda looked at him. She looked at the 10 men who had sacrificed everything to find her, who had warmed her when she was freezing, and who had given her back her very self. You’ve been running for me your whole lives, she said, her voice clear. You’ve been hunted, chased, and scorned. Because of me, because of a prophecy.

 She stepped forward, her silver eyes sweeping over their faces. The running stops. This is my territory. That is my old pack, and that is my mistake to face. It wasn’t your mistake, Finn, the youngest, said fiercely. It was his. He is my mistake to correct, Amanda said. She walked to the large barn doors, and with a strength she didn’t know she possessed, shoved them open. The snow had stopped.

 The valley was silent, bathed in the sharp blue light of dusk. And then they appeared, 22 wolves emerging from the treeine. They were in their shifted forms a clear sign of aggression. They fanned out surrounding the barn. At their head was a large gray brown wolf that Amanda knew well. Marcus.

 He stroed forward, his paws crunching in the snow and shifted. His human form was naked, but he seemed not to feel the cold. His face was a mask of thunderous rage. Omega, he boomed his voice echoing in the valley. You are charged with treason. You have consorted with rogues and built an army against your true alpha. Surrender now, and I may be lenient.

 From behind him, Beth, also in human form, stepped out, wrapped in a thick fur. He’s too kind, Amanda. We should just burn the barn with you and your freaks inside. Caleb stepped up to stand beside Amanda. He was in his human form, but his power rolled off him in palpable waves. “She is not an Omega,” Caleb said, his voice, a low counterpoint to Marcus’ roar. and you are not her alpha.

 Marcus’ eyes widened as he took in Caleb. The size, the scars, the sheer primal dominance of the man. This was an alpha, a true alpha. And then he saw Amanda. She was not the cowering sootstained girl he had banished. Her hair was clean and wild. Her eyes, which he’d always thought were a dull brown, were blazing with a silver light. She was not afraid.

 She looked magnificent. “Amanda,” he commanded, a note of desperation entering his voice. “This thing has bewitched you. Come home. I I revoke the banishment. I will find a place for you.” “A place?” Amanda asked, and her voice carried sharp and clear as snapping ice. “What place, Marcus? the kitchens.

 The mending shed the floor at your feet. You are mine, he roared, his control snapping. You are stone river. I am nothing of yours, Amanda said. She held up her hand. On her palm, where Caleb had first grasped it, a faint swirling silver mark had appeared. It looked like a cresant moon. Caleb held up his own hand.

 A matching mark glowed on his skin. The matriarch has chosen her mate, Caleb stated. It was not a boast. It was a fact. Marcus stared at the mark. The mating mark. The one he was supposed to have. The one that legend said only the goddess herself could bestow. Beth saw it too, and she snapped. Liar. She shrieked, her face, contorting. Which you stole him from me.

Before anyone could react, Beth shifted. With a snarl, she launched herself not at Caleb, but at Amanda. It was a fatal mistake. Caleb moved, but Amanda was faster. The world didn’t slow down. She sped up. She didn’t dodge. She met the attack.

 She caught Beth’s charging wolf form by the throat with one hand, her feet not even slipping in the snow. The sound of the massive wolf, hitting the immovable object of Amanda’s arm was a sickening thud. Beth gurgled her paws, scrabbling, choking. Amanda held her her arm, not even trembling, and leaned in her silver eyes, boring into Beth’s panicked yellow ones.

 “You took nothing from me,” Amanda whispered. And then a wave of pure cold white energy, the color of moonlight on snow, erupted from Amanda’s hand. It was not a physical push. It was a push of will, of power. Beth was thrown backward, 20 ft her body, slamming into a tree, and she did not get up.

 She shifted back into her human form, unconscious and broken. The valley was silent. The 22 Stone River wolves stared their growls dying in their throats. Marcus looked from Beth’s broken form to the woman standing in the snow, her hand still glowing faintly. This is your last chance, Marcus. Amanda, said her voice ringing with the power of the matriarch.

 Take your warriors, go home, and never ever threaten my family again. Family? Marcus choked out, pointing at the 10 men. They are rogues. You are one. I am 20. We will. He doesn’t learn, Ronan muttered, drawing a blade. No, Caleb said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t. And he has threatened our queen. Caleb turned to Marcus. You brought 20 wolves.

You should have brought a hundred. He looked back at his nine brothers. guard unchained. And in a single unified, terrifying moment, the 10 men shifted. But they did not become the massive wolves Marcus had seen. They became more. Bones snapped and reformed, but they kept growing. Their bodies expanded. Fur sprouting thick and shaggy.

 Fangs descended, not as long as a wolf’s, but thicker, designed to crush bone. Their forms were heavier, more powerful, their shoulders impossibly broad. They were not wolves. They were dire wolves. 10 of them. The mythical guardians of the first packs not seen in a thousand years. Each one was a full third larger than Marcus’ alpha form.

The 22 Stone River warriors whimpered. They backed away, their tails, tucking between their legs. This was not a battle. This was a massacre waiting to happen. Marcus in his human form fell to his knees in the snow. He looked at the 10 monsters. He looked at the broken Ber’s daughter. And he looked at the glowing, terrible, beautiful woman he had thrown away. His pride was gone.

 His arrogance was shattered. All that was left was the ice cold realization of his mistake. He bowed his head, his forehead touching the snow. “Alpha queen,” he whispered the words torn from his soul. “Mercy!” The silence in the valley was a heavy, suffocating blanket broken only by the whimpering of the Stone River warriors, and the ragged, terrified breathing of the man kneeling in the snow.

 Amanda stood before Marcus, the silver light in her eyes, a burning cold fire. The power that had erupted from her, the power that had effortlessly broken Beth was still singing in her veins. It was a potent, addictive song. It told her to finish this. It told her to strike him down, to take his title, to make him pay for every moment of cold, every pang of hunger, every whisper, every second of her 20 years of misery.

 She felt the 10 dire wolves behind her, a living wall of shadow and death waiting for her command. One word, one simple word, and the stone river pack would have a new and very permanent alpha. Caleb’s dire wolf form the massive black alpha of her new guard took a single ominous step forward. A low growl rumbled in his chest, a sound like a distant avalanche. He was watching her.

They were all watching her, waiting to see what kind of queen they had found. Would she be a healer, as the prophecy said, or would she be a destroyer forged in the fires of her own rejection? He has broken her wolf self, her matriarch self whispered in her mind. The voice was no longer angry, but calm and ancient.

 They are all broken, and we are the healer of the broken. Vengeance is a stone. Justice is a seed. Choose. Amanda let a long breath out. The white hot, vengeful light in her eyes softened, not disappearing, but banking like embers under a watchful eye. She took a step forward. Caleb’s shadow moved with her.

 She stopped in front of the kneeling alpha. Get up, Marcus. Her voice was not a shout. It was quiet, but it held an authority that was absolute, and it cut through the valley air. Marcus rose, but only from his knees to a deep crouch. He was trembling, his gaze fixed on the snow at her feet. He had seen it all, the dire wolves, the casual, terrifying dispatching of his chosen mate, the impossible glowing power in the woman he had deemed nothing.

 His entire world, his entire understanding of strength and power had been shattered in less than 5 minutes. “You have a choice,” Amanda said, her voice carrying to every warrior, to every watching terrified eye. “The old ways, the pride that fractures a pack, the cruelty that masquerades as strength, the casting out of the weak to make the strong feel superior.” It all ends tonight.

 She looked past him at the 20 warriors who had come to kill her. I am Amanda of the Lunar Matriarch line. This is my shadow guard, and this all of it is my territory. Her words were a claim, and the wind itself seemed to pause as if the goddess was listening. We are not here to rule you, she said, her gaze returning to Marcus. We are here to lead.

 She walked a slow circle around him, the 10 dire wolves fanning out behind her, a silver and shadow wave that herded the stone river pack into a tighter, more submissive cluster. Your actions, she said, stopping behind him, forcing him to twist uncomfortably to keep her in view, were not just cruel.

 They were a betrayal of the alpha’s first, only true law, protect the pack. You did not protect me. You used your strength to break the weakest. You banished a pack member to die of a pride. Marcus flinched as if she had struck him. It was I thought. You thought nothing, she said, her voice dropping, and for a moment the cold fire returned.

 You felt your power, and you used it, and you did not care about the consequences. By all rights, I should strip you of your title, your pack, and your life. It is what you would do. This was it, the moment. But Amanda continued, “I will not begin my new path by walking yours. I will not build my house with the stones of your broken pride.” She came to stand before him again.

 “You will remain Alpha of Stone River, for now.” Marcus looked up his eyes wide with disbelief, a seed of hope. “Do not mistake this for forgiveness,” Amanda said, her voice hardening. This is a leash. Your alpha title is now a duty, not a crown. You will answer not to your own whims, but to the laws of true protection.

 You will answer to me. You will care for your pack, all of your pack, from the strongest warrior to the newest pup. You will learn mercy. And you will begin to atone for what you did. How? How do I atone? he whispered. “You will start,” Amanda said, pointing a finger at the broken barn. “By rebuilding what you helped destroy.

 You and your 20 warriors will rebuild this barn, not as a ruin, but as a second great hall, a hall of allied packs. You will work with your own hands, and you will be the one to serve the first meal in it.” It was a brilliant judgment. Not death, but service. Not humiliation, but humility. And her. Liam the guard asked his voice rough.

 He pointed at Beth’s unconscious form, now being tended by Gabriel, who had shifted back to his human form. Amanda looked at the woman. She will not be killed. She will not be left for dead. When she wakes, she is banished. She will go to the human lands.

 She has shown she does not have the heart for a pack, so she will learn to live without one. That is my judgment. A collective sigh of relief went through the Stone River Pack. The judgment was just. It was final. Marcus, truly broken, and truly seeing a path forward for the first time, bowed his head until his forehead touched the snow. Alpha Queen,” he said, his voice thick with a new raw emotion. “I accept. I will serve.

 I will atone.” One by one, the 21 warriors shifted back to their human forms. And one by one, they knelt in the snow, bowing not just to her power, but to her mercy. From the back of the kneeling crowd, two figures stumbled forward, their faces etched with a desperate, agonizing hope. Thomas and Sarah, Amanda’s parents.

 They fell at her feet, their hands grasping for the hem of her cloak. Amanda, my daughter. Sarah wept her words, a broken torrent. We saw, oh goddess, we saw. We We did it to protect you. Please, you must believe us. Protect me. Amanda’s voice was a blade of ice. The mercy she had shown Marcus evaporated. This was not pack. This was blood. You left me to be spat on.

 You left me to be starved. You left me to be banished. How was that protection? The prophecy. Thomas choked out his face pale. The old Alpha Marcus’ father. He He was a tyrant when you were born. And you didn’t cry, but your eyes your eyes glowed silver. We knew. We knew what you were. We heard the whispers.

 The matriarch will be born. We knew he would see you as a threat. He would have he would have killed you. A stillborn pup lost in the night. So we found the hedge witch. Sarah confessed the words tearing from her. She bound you. She She built the cage. She said it would hide you. It would make you less.

 It would make you invisible. Safe. She clawed at Amanda’s cloak. We thought We thought it was better to have a living, weak daughter than a dead, powerful one. We chose to have you alive. Amanda stared down at them, the architects of her entire life’s misery. They hadn’t done it from malice. They had done it from cowardice.

“You didn’t keep me safe,” she said, her voice shaking with 20 years of suppressed rage. “You kept me small. You made me a target for the very cruelty you say you feared. You took away my claws, my voice, my wolf. And you left me defenseless in a den of predators. You didn’t save my life. You stole it. She ripped her cloak from their hands and stepped back. Her parents flinched as if she had struck them.

 But then the matriarch self, the healer, surfaced again. She saw two people terrified and broken who had made an impossible choice and had been living in their own prison ever since. “The hurt you caused, it is a mountain,” Amanda said, her voice softening just a fraction. I cannot cross it. Not today and maybe not ever.

 We We will do anything, Thomas whispered. Then you will start with the truth, Amanda commanded. You will stand before the entire pack and you will tell them what you just told me. You will tell them what you did, what Marcus’ father was. You will unberry the secrets that have poisoned this pack for a generation. Atonement is a long road.

Yours begins now. Go. They scrambled to their feet, their faces a mixture of shame and a terrible dawning relief. They had been seen and they had been spared. They bowed and retreated, rejoining the kneeling pack. Amanda turned to the valley to her old pack, now her new subjects. The night is over. A new dawn is coming. Go home. Rest. Heal. But know this.

 Caleb shifted back to his human form. Coming to stand at her side. He looked at the sky. The blood moon is coming. He said, his voice resorn running with the weight of the prophecy. The time when the veil thins and old forgotten evils return. The prophecy said the matriarch would rise to face it. Amanda nodded, accepting the new burden.

 We will be ready, she declared. Go. The Stone River Pack rose not as a defeated army, but as a humbled people. Marcus, with one last lingering look of awe, led them into the trees, his parents following their heads, bowed. Silence, true and peaceful, finally settled. Amanda turned her legs suddenly feeling weak.

 The 10 men her guard were still there. They had shifted back, their faces filled with pride. Before she could speak, Caleb, his black hair wild and his scarred eye blazing closed the distance. He didn’t bow. He didn’t speak. He simply pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair.

 his entire body trembling with the release of attention he’d held for a lifetime. “You You’re real,” he murmured against her skin, his voice thick. “We We found you,” Amanda melted against him, her own arms wrapping around his strong back. “She was home. This This was home.” He pulled back his hands, framing her face. Alpha Queener,” he said, a roguish grin, finally breaking through his stoic facade.

 “Shut up!” She mumbled a real smile. The first of her life, it felt like touching her lips. “You knew this would happen. I knew you would happen.” He corrected his voice full of reverence. He brushed a thumb over the silver cresant mark on her palm, and his own mark pulsed in answer. the healer of the broken. She looked past him at the nine other faces that were now her world.

Ronan the tracker was already sharpening a blade. Elias was looking at the barn, his blue eyes, calculating planning. Gabriel was cleaning his medical supplies. The twins, Jasper and Owen, were already arguing about the best way to build a fire. They weren’t waiting for orders.

 They were simply being her family. Ronan, she called, and her voice, her new voice, rang out. Your watch. Finelias scouted the perimeter. I want to know this valley by sunrise. They snapped to attention, smiling. “Yes, my queen,” Elias said, bowing with a flourish, which earned him a shove from Ronan. We stay here, Amanda said, looking at the broken down barn. This is our home. This This is our beginning.

Caleb took her hand, his fingers lacing with hers. And what a beginning it is, he said. They walked back into the barn, not as a refuge from a storm, but as the seat of a new power. The barn where an omega had expected to die was now the foundation of a new world.

 The nest of 10 wolves had been the cradle of a queen, and she was just getting started. And so the rejected Omega, the girl left to die in a barn, found her power, not in spite of her rejection, but because of it. Amanda’s story teaches us that sometimes the world has to tear you down to your very foundation before you can rebuild yourself into the queen you were always meant to be. She wasn’t just surrounded by a nest of wolves.

 She was surrounded by a destiny she was finally ready to claim. But the story isn’t over. Alpha Marcus is still in charge of his pack and a blood moon is on the horizon. What kind of darkness is coming for them? And how will Amanda and her 10 wolf guard face it? If you loved this story and want to find out what happens next, please let me know in the comments.

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