Chapter 1 The Girl Who Died

NOVA

The scissors were cold.

Nova grabbed her ponytail, pressed the blade against it, and cut. Clean. Fast. She didn't watch the hair fall. Watching it fall meant letting it mean something, and she was done letting things mean something they weren't allowed to mean.

She grabbed the binding cloth off the edge of the sink, pressed it flat across her chest, wrapped it tight, and tucked the end. Her ribs compressed under the pull of it. Good. She needed that. Something physical to focus on instead of replaying the look her father had given her three days ago in front of every wolf in the Greyveil Pack.

Not anger. Not even disappointment.

Nothing.

Like she'd handed him a report he already knew the conclusion to.

She stared at the face in the cracked mirror above the basin. Jaw sharper with the hair gone. Eyes the same pale grey as they'd always been. Her mother's eyes, people used to say, and then stop talking, as if the observation hurt them.

Daughter and heir of Alpha Casen Greyveil. That title should mean something.

She picked up the small dark vial from the sink ledge. Cass had pressed it into her palm last night without a word, which meant she'd already decided to help before Nova had finished explaining. That was Cass. Disagreed loudly, helped quietly.

Nova tipped two drops onto her wrists, her throat, and the hollow behind each ear. The scent bloomed for a half second, something green and faintly bitter, then disappeared entirely. She inhaled. Nothing. She smelt like an empty room.

Perfect.

She pulled on the loose grey training shirt, shoved her feet into worn boots, picked up the single bag she'd packed, and took one last look at the mirror.

The girl who'd stood in that training yard three days ago and dropped seven men into the dirt was gone. The woman, whose father had waved off away like a fly, was gone.

What stood in their place was a lean, flat-chested, short-haired freshman with nothing to lose and a name that belonged to no pack in the region.

"Ash Darvin," she said out loud. Her voice hit the tile and came back steady. "That's all I am."

She walked out and didn't look back.

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Three days ago.

The Greyveil training ground had smelt like wet dirt and blood and the specific sweat of men who believed they were going to win.

Nova had fought all seven of them based on her father's terms for her to be worthy of Alpha. Beat every challenger he named, and she'd take her place as heir. No back doors, no exceptions. A straight line between effort and result, which was the only kind of deal she'd ever trusted.

Roen came first. Twice her weight, five years older, and so certain of the outcome that he hadn't even set his feet properly before she moved. She put him down in ninety seconds. Callum went next. Then the three younger males her father threw in together because he thought the odds were funny.

They weren't funny for long.

She fought methodically, moving through each one the way her mother had taught her before the sickness took her. Don't fight angrily. Angry wolves make noise. Quiet wolves win. By the fifth fight, her body had gone somewhere mechanical and cool and was just handling it.

Then came Garrett. Her father's actual favourite, the one he'd been saving for last. Built like he'd been constructed rather than born, with a jaw like a closed door and hands that could probably crack stone. He was good. She'd give him that. He broke her first hold and her second and got her on the ground once, and she felt that in her teeth for a full ten seconds before she was back on her feet.

Fourth attempt. She got behind him, locked his arm at the wrong angle, and drove him face-first into the dirt with her knee between his shoulder blades.

The training ground went silent.

Nova stood up. Her knuckles were split. Her lip was bleeding. She turned to face her father.

Alpha Casen of the Greyveil Pack stood at the edge of the yard with his arms folded and his face arranged into the expression she'd spent twenty-two years trying to crack open. Senior wolves flanked him on both sides. Garrett's father stood to his left, jaw tight.

"I won," Nova said. "Every challenger you named. I'm your heir."

Her father looked at her for a long moment.

Then he unfolded his arms and turned to address the yard.

"I'm naming Garrett's bloodline as successor." He said it like he was reading a schedule. "My daughter will marry the Alpha King and seal our alliance with the Crown Pack."

The silence in the yard changed; you could hear a pin drop.

Nova's hands went still at her sides.

"I beat every man you put in front of me," she said. Her voice didn't shake. She was proud of that. "That was the deal."

"There was no deal." He still hadn't looked at her. "You'll serve this pack the way women always have, just like your mother did, no exception, through a strategic marriage. That's where your value sits."

Something moved through her chest. Not anger. Anger, she knew how to manage. This was older and quieter and had her mother's face on it.

Her mother, Selene, who should have been Alpha of the Duskfen Pack. Whose father had given her title away to her brother and married her off to Casen Greyveil instead. Who'd spent twenty years in a house that treated her like furniture until the illness found her, and even then, lying in that bed with her hands getting cold and her breath coming short, she'd grabbed Nova's fingers hard enough to bruise.

Don't let them do this to you. Don't let them shelf you. You're more than what he says. Promise me, Nova. Promise me you'll fight and take your rightful place as Alpha of this pack when the time comes.

Nova had promised.

"If you won't give me what I earned," she said quietly, "I'll go get it somewhere else."

Her father waved a hand. Dismissal. Like swatting something small.

She walked back to the house, packed one bag, and called Cass.

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"Tell me you're not actually going to do this."

Cass was already pulling jars down from her shelves when she said it. Her back was to the door, her dark hair loose, her bare feet on the cold cottage floor. She always worked barefoot. Said shoes interrupted her connection to the earth, and Nova had stopped arguing with things that couldn't be argued with.

"Vordrak Academy," Cass said. A jar landed on the worktable harder than necessary. "All-male training ground. Northern territory. Takes in the best young alphas from every major bloodline and turns them into great Alphas. You know what they do to people who don't belong there."

"I know."

"A female in the middle of that," Cass turned around. Her eyes were doing the thing where they went very still and very direct. "Your scent alone will get you found in twenty minutes."

"That's why I'm here."

Cass stared at her for a long moment. Then she exhaled through her nose and went back to the shelves.

The vial she produced was dark glass, small enough to hide in a closed fist. She set it on the table between them.

"Full mask. You'll read as male, packless, and unmated. No one will smell through it as long as you hold your human form." She paused. "If you shift, even partway, it burns off. Your natural scent comes through the moment your wolf breaks the skin. I can't fix that."

"I won't shift."

"If you're cornered -"

"I won't shift." Nova held her gaze. "I'll find another way."

Cass pressed her lips together. She pushed the vial across the table.

"Be careful," she said. "Please."

Nova took the vial, tucked it into her front pocket, and picked up her bag.

At the door, she stopped and looked around at her home for the last time.

"Call me Ash," she said. "Ash Darvin. If anyone asks."

She heard Cass sit down heavily behind her.

She didn't look back and was never coming back, as the girl called Nova had died.