Chapter 5 ANCIENT BLOODLINE

Days went by, or so it felt. Gwen couldn't count the days since she had lived in the woods. Time meant nothing to her now; neither did the sunrise and sunset remind her of what had happened nor the face of someone from her family reassure her that this all was real. Only the woods. She adapted fast.

The forest stood thick with the Sanctuary, and yet a cage, whispers of the trees, twisted arms revealing ancient secrets, forgotten gods; wild dangers within, furrows to hold them snug, even sizzling air was charged with the primary electric force-so that even the softest murmur constituted a promise from the mystery hidden close by from her glare.

Survival in the beginning was a struggle, without any tool, knowledge of hunting, and experience with wilds surrounding her. She was weak and had not been able to fight against the gnawing feeling in her stomach and make herself not shiver in cold.

But that was before. Now, Gwen moved with a surety, a glide as if floating along the trails; the sting in the cold that had whipped with the wind in her face could no longer hold its biting bitterness. She seemed to see or hear the snap of every limb, every scattering mouse among rustling leaves, and the sound a river would murmur through far, off hills, the instinct of sudden movement had crystallized inside. The thing is, she had absolutely no clue how she had developed these skills, but they felt. natural. More than that, they felt right.

It happened for the first time when she had been making her way through a heavy undergrowth, her stomach growling for want of food. An instantaneous shift in the air; a pull deep inside her, like an invisible string, tugged her forward. Mindless, she had pushed through the thicket to find a deer nibbling along, profoundly unaware, in the clearing.

The air seemed to thicken with energy before she could even process what was happening. Her body tensed, every muscle coiling, and without conscious thought, she launched herself, forward faster than she'd ever moved in her life. The deer never even saw her coming. She had caught it with a speed and precision that left her astounded, her hands clasped around its neck, teeth grazing its flesh.

There was no hesitation, no fear, only the will to survive. Standing over the deer, Gwen panted and trembled, realizing for the first time that she had just taken a life in the wild. And it had come so easily. Far too easily. But it wasn't only her senses that had changed. She could feel some strange, wild power surging through her veins now-so primordial. It was an energy that hummed beneath her skin, tingling, alive, and seemingly connected to something much greater than herself.

A whisper of a memory surfaced in her mind. The Blood Moon Gathering. The moment she first felt the connection with logan. No, it wasn't logan's presence that had triggered this transformation. It was something older. Something far more ancient. She was born into the Whiteclaw Pack, raised in its traditions and beliefs, but there had always been something inside her, something that never quite fitted. She had always been the outsider, the omega.

But now... She closed her eyes, letting the wind caress her skin. Full of the sensation of being grounded to the earth itself, the pulse of the forest seemed alive; the heartbeat of every tree, every rock, every blade of grass. There was a very ancient rhythm to the world, and it was to that she was moving in time. It was then that she realized what was happening. She wasn't just a wolf. She was connected to something much, much older. An ancient bloodline.

The werewolf bloodline.

Since the dawn of time, or since there were wolves, it was said there were legends about a special race of werewolves, ones that are big, stronger, swifter, and more natural than any normal wolf. Powers rumored not to have a rival among brethren in the Lupari, who possess unparalleled feats of capability. For many years, such stories disappeared as fast as this bloodline into oblivion and stayed with few old supernatural werewolves.

But Gwen... Gwen felt deep inside her the tug of the bloodline that flowed through the veins. The tips of her fingers touched, trembling, onto the forest ground, and into the pulse at her fingertips lay the power to be had, waiting. The power was within her, stirring, calling on her to don it. She had no idea what had just occurred-she knew not how she had managed to tap into such an ability or why it showed up then. One thing, however, remained clear: things could never return to normal in her life anymore.

As the days started passing, Gwen polished the skill. The power now moving inside of her was what she started testing out, stretching it to its full potential. She felt her senses sharpen to the extent that she was aware of even the tiniest creatures in the forest rustling, an owl flapping its wings, and the way the wind slightly changed. Her vision had turned almost supernatural, and she could see in the darkest of nights.

It would be easier now for her to track animals and move noiselessly through the woods, as a shadow. Changes weren't all physical, either. She also had begun to feel a deep connection to the earth itself.

She was seated on the edge of the cliff, with a view overlooking the forest down below, when it first happened. She was daydreaming, and her mind was nowhere in particular, when suddenly this surge of energy from the ground came, nearly like a heartbeat, in tandem with her own. She realized then that it was true; she had the power to command the very elements of nature.

With a thought, the wind whirled upon command to eddy at her sides, the shifting earth beneath her feet sensed, the shifting trees, the weight and vigor in the air. It was more than an exercise in power-the deepest of primordial ties to the surrounding world. Awe made Gwen's chest tight.

She was connected to something far more ancient than herself, something that had existed way before the pack, before the Alphas, before the Blood Moon Gatherings. This she had been born into. She was the last of the ancient bloodline. The realization hit her like a wave, it could have, save that it crashed over her with a force that left her breathless. The power inside her was hers for ordering. Yet, there was a price to pay for it.

The bond to the pack, the family she once was part of, was gone. The tie that was there between her and logan-the Alpha that she had thought her mate-listened to the sound of an echo far, far away. She had no pack. She was alone. But Gwen did not feel this pain she expected. Instead, she felt free.

She could feel the power surging inside her, like the beat of a heart. It was her birthright, the inheritance from some long-forgotten lineage of an ancient origin. The intoxication of that power was irresistible; she went deeper inside its depths. But there was something else, something darker lurking beneath the surface.

As she delved deeper into the power of the ancient bloodline, she felt an odd tugging-a whisper in the back of her head, almost urging her to seek out the truth of her heritage. The bloodline was calling her. And Gwen knew she could no longer ignore the legacy that had been left to her. She had no choice but to follow the path ahead, even when it took her into the unknown. Because in the end, she was no longer just Gwen Stark; the omega of the Whiteclaw Pack.

She was the last of the ancient bloodline.

And her journey was just beginning.......