The morning of my eighteenth birthday arrived like a storm. The air in the house felt heavier than usual, charged with unspoken tension. Even the walls seemed to lean in closer, listening, waiting.
Father's glare was sharper than ever. "Today marks your eighteenth year, Raelia. Do not disappoint."
I nodded silently, my stomach twisting. Nineteen years of this life had taught me to obey. But beneath the fear, a pulse of something new beat within me—a steady, insistent rhythm that felt alive.
I left the hall and went to my small room at the back of the house. Alone, I allowed myself a single, trembling breath.
Then it began.
At first, it was subtle—a warmth in my chest, a hum under my skin. My claws tingled. My senses sharpened; I could hear the wind outside, the creak of the floors above, even the faintest heartbeat of a wolf in the forest beyond the walls.
And then the light changed.
It poured in from the window like silver fire, and my fur began to shimmer, shifting until the soft white sheen of my coat glowed faintly in the morning light. My eyes… my eyes glowed with something more than brown, more than green. They burned with silver, a spark of the rare white wolf I had always been but never known.
I fell to my knees, overwhelmed. The power coursing through me was dizzying, frightening… intoxicating.
Footsteps thundered in the hallway. My father's voice, low and hard, echoed behind the door. "Raelia! What is happening in there?"
I didn't answer. I could hear the panic in my father's movements, the fear in my brother's shout. They hadn't expected this. They had treated me as weak, a slave, a nobody… never imagining that the girl they scorned held power beyond their comprehension.
They had underestimated me.
"You… you were meant to be controlled," my father spat as he burst into the room, eyes wide with a mix of fear and fury. "I—"
I rose slowly, trembling but steady, letting the power flow through me. My claws gleamed, my presence radiated strength. I wasn't afraid of them anymore.
"I am not yours to control," I said, my voice stronger than I thought possible. "And I never was."
My brother took a step back, his sneer faltering. I could see the jealousy in his eyes—the hatred for the truth he had tried to bury.
Father's hand shook as he raised it. "You… you're different. You are—"
I cut him off with a stare sharp enough to silence a wolf pack. I was done hiding. Done submitting. Done believing I was nothing.
The white wolf within me had awakened. And with it came a promise: my destiny, my power, and my second chance at love, all waiting beyond these walls.
For the first time in my life, I was free.