Lyra did not scream when she woke.
She lay still beneath the thin blanket, staring at the cracked ceiling of her room, listening to the familiar sounds of the pack house settling around her. The night air was cool against her skin. Her breathing was steady.
In her first life, she had always woken up every morning already tired—of being invisible, of being careful, of trying not to take up space.
Not this time.
She pushed herself upright and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her body felt lighter than she remembered. Not stronger, not yet, but responsive. Awake. As if it were waiting for instruction.
Lyra crossed the room and stood before the small mirror nailed to the wall.
The girl staring back at her looked the same.
Same dark eyes. Same soft features. Same slender frame the pack had always dismissed as fragile. But the fear was gone from her gaze.
"I won't be you again," Lyra whispered to her reflection. "Not the one who begged."
She dressed quickly, pulling on worn training pants and a long-sleeved shirt. The pack would still be asleep at this hour. Omegas rose early, but Lyra knew the patrol routes. She knew when the warriors changed shifts.
Knowledge was power.
She slipped out of the pack house and into the forest, the earth cool beneath her bare feet. The trees welcomed her like old friends, their shadows thick and comforting. Above, the moon lingered low, watching—but it felt different now. Not distant. Not cruel.
Present.
Lyra stopped at a small clearing deep within the woods. She had stumbled upon it by accident in her first life, a place no one else used. Forgotten. Like her.
Perfect.
She closed her eyes and breathed in slowly.
Move, she told herself, do anything but do not stay idle.
She ran.
At first, it was awkward, her lungs burning, her legs protesting. Sweating through her clothes almost immediately, and her heart hammered painfully in her chest. She stumbled once, then twice, then she falls to the ground groaning in pain.
Checking her elbow, she sees she has sustained injury on both.
In her first life, she would have stopped.
Now, she stood back up.
Pushes the pain to the back of her mind.
Again.
And again.
By the time the sun began to rise, Lyra was shaking, her muscles screaming in protest. She drops to her knees in the dirt, gasping for air, her vision swimming.
Inside her, her wolf stirrs.
Not loudly.
Not fiercely.
But awake.
Lyra pressed a hand to her chest, closing her eyes as she feels warmth spread through her veins. It wasn't power. It was presence. A quiet acknowledgment.
I'm here, her wolf seemed to say.
Tears burned her eyes, not from pain, but from something dangerously close to relief.
"I know," Lyra whispered. "And I won't fail you again."
She stayed there until her breathing steadied, until the shaking passed. Then she stood, brushing dirt from her clothes.
This was only the beginning.
As she turned back toward the pack house, Lyra didn't notice the faint ripple of power left behind in the clearing.
Or the fact that, miles away, Alpha Kael Blackwood paused mid-step, a sudden, unfamiliar tension tightening in his chest.
He frowned, pressing a hand over his chest.
Something had shifted.
And for the first time in his life, the Alpha did not understand why.