Mira.
The word hangs in the clearing, a single, sharp stone dropped into a silent pool. Her. Me.
The silence stretches, thin and fragile, until it shatters.
“You savage,” my father explodes, his face turning a deep, mottled red. “You think you can come to my lands and demand my daughter like she is livestock?”
Darius steps forward, placing himself between me and the Shadowpine Alpha. It is a protective stance, but it feels possessive. It feels like he is guarding property.
“Mira is not for trade,” Darius sneers, his voice full of performative authority. “She is under the protection of my future alliance. You will not lay a hand on her.”
They are all talking about me. Bargaining. Threatening. Declaring. I am a game piece on a board, and they are the players. The lecherous Alpha Kaelen. My calculating father. The cruel, arrogant Darius. And now this scarred, terrifying Fenrir.
Something inside me snaps. The quiet, fragile thing I have protected for years finally breaks, and a strange, hot calm pours into the void. I am done being a watcher. I am done being decor.
I take a step forward.
And another.
I move past Darius, whose arm is still outstretched. I move past my father, whose face is a mask of disbelief. I walk into the very center of the clearing, into the space between the two Alphas, and I stop.
Every eye is on me. For the first time in my life, I am not invisible.
My voice is a whisper when it starts, shaking with the force of my own heartbeat. “I accept.”
Absolute silence falls again. Harder this time. Heavier. Darius stares at me, his mouth slightly open. My father looks as though I have struck him.
I turn my head and look directly at Fenrir. His strange, mismatched eyes watch me, one green and one silver. There is no surprise in them. Only a flicker of something else. Something like confirmation.
I find my strength. My voice comes out again, louder now, and clear as a bell in the tense air.
“I will go with you,” I say, my gaze unwavering. “On one condition.”
Fenrir tilts his head, an almost imperceptible motion. “Name it.”
“Your pact of non-aggression is not just a promise. It is sworn in blood. Here and now.” I take a breath, feeling the power of my own words. “And it protects every soul in my pack. The elders, the children, the mothers. Not just the warriors.”
The unspoken accusation hangs in the air. A pack is only as strong as those it protects, not just those who can fight. It is a truth they have all forgotten in their quest for power.
Darius sputters. “Mira, what are you doing? This is madness. You cannot make this choice.”
“You already made a choice for me, Darius,” I say, my voice cold as ice. “You chose to humiliate me. Father chose to sell me. My choice is the only one that has not been heard.”
I turn my back on him completely, dismissing him. I look only at Fenrir.
A slow smirk spreads across Fenrir’s lips. It is not a cruel smile. It is a smile of genuine, startling respect. It reaches his pale, scarred eye.
“Agreed,” he says, his voice a low rumble. He pulls a knife from his belt, the blade dark as night. Without hesitation, he slices a clean line across his palm.
Blood, dark and thick, wells up. He extends his hand.
My father takes a step forward. “Mira, do not.”
I ignore him. I look at Darius’s silver dagger, still sheathed at Lyra’s side in my memory. The warrior and the watcher. I pull a small utility knife from the pocket of my tunic, a simple tool Mira gave me for foraging herbs. My own blade.
I draw it across my own palm. The sting is sharp, grounding. Blood flows, mirroring his. I place my hand in Fenrir’s, and his grip is firm, shockingly warm. Our blood mixes.
“Ten years,” he says, his eyes locked on mine. “The Shadowpine pack will not cross your borders. We will not harm a single soul under the protection of the Silvermoon pack. This I swear on my blood and my life.”
“I accept this oath,” I say, my voice steady. “And I will honor my part of the bargain.”
We release our hands. The pact is sealed. A deal made not by Alphas and heirs, but by me.
Darius is pale, his authority completely shattered in front of two packs. My father looks old, defeated. They stare at me as if I am a stranger.
Maybe I am.
“It is done,” Fenrir says, his voice leaving no room for argument. He gestures with his head toward the deep woods of his own territory. “Come.”
I take a deep breath. I do not look back at my father’s shocked face. I do not look at the utter humiliation twisting Darius’s handsome features. I turn my back on the silent warriors of my pack, on the cage they built for me.
And with my head held high, I walk away with the Alpha of the Shadowpine. I walk toward a future I chose for myself. I do not know if I am walking toward salvation or destruction, but for the first time in my life, it feels like freedom.
