The dawn of the day was quiet, the kind that pressed down with soft mist and made everything feel like a half-remembered dream.
The barn in the pack creaked in its old age, wood swollen from years of rain, which retained water in it.
Its corners are webbed with spider silk, and the scent of mold is thick in the air all over the place.
Lyra stirred, the scratch of straw against her skin woke her before the chill did.
She pulled the blanket, which she used to cover herself tightly around her shoulders, though it did little against the cold that never left her bones.
Her fingers drifted to her wrist, brushing over the faint, silvery brand burned into her skin, a mark she never asked for, yet couldn't forget.
Although she was still an infant, she was very conscious of the day she was branded an omega.
Quietly, her foot slipped from beneath the blanket. The crescent moon carved on her ankle shimmered, pale and secret, hidden where no one dared look.
A laugh cracked through the silence, too light, too cruel.
"She's awake," someone whispered.
She is tensed. The barn door creaked open, spilling pale morning light and shadow.
Three pups padded into the barn, eyes wide with mischief and curiosity. One giggled. "They say if you touch her mark, you'll get lucky."
"Do it," another hissed.
Lyra didn't speak. She just sat there, stony, watching as a trembling hand reached out.
She wanted to scream . She wanted to bite, to run because she felt a bit endangered.
But instead, she stayed.
Because no one believes an omega pup.
The ground squelched beneath her bare feet as Lyra stepped outside. Morning dew clung to the grass, but it was the mud by the pens that waited like a trap.
They were already there, the pups. Older, stronger, crueler.
"There she is," one muttered.
"Moon-marked freak," another grinned, with a gan unforgiving gaze.
They moved in a loose circle, boots thudding against wet earth.
Lyra stood still, heart rattling in her chest like a trapped bird. She kept her eyes low, hoping they would grow bored, looking at her.
But boys who tasted fear never stopped staring at her.
At first one stepped forward and shoved her shoulder confidently.
Another laughed and pushed from behind. Her feet slid. The mud grabbed her knees, and she fell with a sickening splash, from where she stood with excruciating pain.
She could hear their laughter.
She tried to rise, hands sinking in thick, cold earth. A fistful of mud slammed against her back, another smeared across her cheek, gritty and wet. Her hair hung in strings, slick and heavy with filth.
"Touch her mark," someone called.
"No!" she said, too soft, too slow, like she was being overpowered.
A hand seized her wrist, and she felt the warmth. The brand flared under the boy's thumb. "Omega luck," he sneered. "Maybe I'll win my first shift."
His fingers dug in. Her mark burned, and everybody saw it.
Lyra bit her lip until it bled. Her fists clenched in the sludge. She wanted to claw, to scream, to shift to her inner wolf but she couldn't. Not yet. Not like them.
At the edge of the field, an elder passed while all this was happening. Eyes met hers. He looked away
The boy laughed again.
Lyra lay still, body shaking, rage coiling deep where no one could see, with the cold of the earth getting to her ribs.
Someday, she would make them pay.
But today, she swallowed it all.
Lyra left the wolves who humiliated her and went back inside the barn.
All wolves went to the pack courtyard on the order of the Luna, Luna Marissa, for a special announcement which was to be rendered by her.
Smoke curled around the courtyard, thick with the scent of roasting meat and fat dripping into fire pits.
Laughter rolled across long tables where warriors clinked mugs, pups wrestled near benches, and elders leaned back with greasy fingers.
Lyra moved between them, barefoot and filthy. Dried mud clung to her arms from the incident she faced earlier.
Her dress was torn and stained, and it was stuck to her skin. Her stomach twisted as she passed a roasted boar, its skin crisp, juices sliding down the tray.
A sharp voice barked, "Scraps, girl, you are an omega."
She knelt beside a table, scraping bones into a bucket already buzzing with flies.
Bits of bread, meat gristle, and fruit rinds all dropped into her hands. She wiped her fingers on her skirt, then lifted the next mug to refill it, careful not to spill.
The hunger gnawed at her because she was not being fed well at the barn. Her vision blurred for a moment when the heat from a roasted deer leg brushed her cheek.
"Careful, mongrel," a she-wolf hissed, slapping the tray away. It clattered. Ale spilled.
Lyra dropped to her knees again. She gathered shards, hands trembling, just to eat anything she could.
A silence. Not from the pack, they still roared and ate. But from one corner.
She felt it.
A gaze.
She looked up, only once.
And she saw Kaleen.
The Beta heir sat in clean furs, gold-tipped goblet in hand. He did not laugh. He did not speak.
But his eyes followed her. Every step. Every scrape.
And Lyra felt naked beneath them; he felt his gaze upon her.
Lyra crouched low behind the last table, looking for all the pieces of food she could get her hands on, fingers numb as they worked through scraps.
The cold of the stone pressed through her knees. She moved quietly, head down, the stench of grease and old bones clinging to her hands.
Voices rose above her with drunken laughter in her ears, mugs clinking. No one saw her. No one spoke to her.
Then a shadow passed just above her.
She didn't look up.
Something soft and warm thudded by her foot.
She blinked a bit.
A piece of venison, thick, dark, still warm. Her fingers froze above the bone bucket. Her heart jumped.
She looked around, quick and sharp. No one noticed.
But as Kaelen moved past, she saw it.
The twitch of his sleeve.
He didn't turn. Didn't pause. Didn't speak.
But he knew.
Her hand darted out. She snatched the meat and tucked it deep into her skirt pocket.
Her heart wouldn't calm. It beat hard in her chest, louder than the drums.
That night, she waited until the barn was quiet. The animals were also asleep, the world was silent, and everything and everywhere was quiet.
She crept behind the hay bales, away from the stables, where the moon couldn't see her.
She unwrapped the meat from the fold of cloth.
It was still warm, soft and satisfying.
She bit into it slowly, teeth sinking into the tenderness; she never had the luxury of eating meat as food in the barn, it was only for the betas of the pack. Her eyes were wet with tears before she knew they were.
She didn't cry because she was hungry.
She cried because someone saw her.
Someone cared enough not to say a word.
And that person was Kaleen.
The wind whispered through the broken slats of the barn, lifting old straw and rattling the rafters above.
Lyra curled tighter.
Neath her thin blanket, her breath fogged in the cold.
The animals stirred softly; anybody inside the barn could hear a sheep's sigh, the rustle of feathers, but the night was mostly still.
She hummed to herself, barely a sound, just enough to chase the silence.
It was a lullaby which she sang to herself most nights, it was slow, soft, the one from Mira's book hidden beneath the hayloft floor. Words long forgotten, but the melody lived in her chest.
Hmmm… hmmm… hmmm...
The notes floated like threads of smoke.
Then with the second line of songs
A second hum.
Faint. Echoing.
Matching hers.
She stopped breathing.
Her lips stilled. The air thickened.
That hum… still there.
Not wind. Not beast. A voice.
Somewhere above.
Her eyes flicked up, into the black rafters overhead.
Silence again.
Her fingers trembled as she pushed off the blanket. She stood slowly, every inch of her skin tight with cold and fear. The hay crunched underfoot.
She stepped back.
Then she saw it.
Above her straw bed, carved deep into one of the beams, she saw a single claw mark. Long. Crooked.
The wood splintered around it like it had been burned.
Her breath caught.
It wasn't a wolf's.
It was something older.
Something forgotten.
The hush wrapped around her like fog, and the song in her throat died. She stared at the mark as the wind sang its tune, high and thin, through the rafters.
She didn't sleep that night, but was only afraid and curious.