Chapter 1: Hunger
Leila remembered the taste of hope. It was sweetish and sticky like resin — lingering on the tongue long after it should have dissolved into nothing.
Her father used to say that hope was the sweetest of traps. That it was better to unlearn its taste, because in the forest, every disappointment cost more than herunger. And yet she kept hiding it — deep beneath her ribs, in a crevice no one could reach. Not even him.
Now, sitting on a crumbling chair in a stranger's house, surrounded by strange scents and strange hostility, she felt that hidden hope shriveling, drying to a splinter.
Two men sat across from her.
The first — the closer one — wasn't overly tall, but the way he sprawled in his chair said everything: this chair belonged to him, along with the floor, the walls, and the air she breathed. He had dark hair and a face marked by time — not at the corners of his eyes, where it settled on ordinary people, but around his mouth. From clenching his jaw. From issuing orders. From anger that had been carving its own channel for years.
The second stood. He was always standing — Leila already knew this, though she was seeing him for the first time in her life. He was bulkier, heavier, built of muscle and silence. His arms, crossed over his chest, looked like two beams. He hadn't spoken once since they'd entered. He only watched, and his gaze was almost physical. Like a touch. Like cold fingers trailing down the back of her neck.
Behind them, against the wall, stood a woman. Slight, with calm hands clasped before her. At the Beta's side, but not in his shadow. When Leila looked at her, the woman returned the gaze. Not warmly — but without hostility either. Just watchful. Like someone who had seen many outcasts and wouldn't be surprised if these ones dissolved into nothing as well.
Beside Leila — her father. David. He sat so motionless that every few seconds she had to glance at his chest to make sure it was still rising. It rose. It fell. Rose. Fell. Like an old blacksmith's bellows that could rupture from strain any day now.
On her other side sat Lori.
Two years older. Calmer. Her long hair was a light blonde — warmer and softer than the milky white of Leila's. Both had inherited their mother's blue eyes, only Lori's resembled a tranquil sky before dusk, and Leila's — a restless lake surface, moments before the wind strikes. She had always been like that. Even when they were children, it was Lori who climbed the trees first to check if the branches would hold her younger sister. It was Lori who got up first after a fall and brushed the blood from her knees so Leila wouldn't have to see it. Now she sat beside her, straight as a reed, head held high — though Leila knew her muscles ached too, hunger burned her too, fear choked her too. Lori just didn't let it show. She never did.
"Look at me, not at them."
The Alpha's voice was low, but not deep — flat, rather. Like a stone dropped on frozen ground: hollow, without echo.
Leila raised her eyes. Slowly, because every movement hurt. Her muscles felt like tangled strings — stiff, ready to snap at the slightest tension.
"How long have you been in the forest?"
"We... we don't know exactly." Her own voice was raw, foreign, as though it belonged to someone else. "A few weeks. Maybe longer."
"Be specific."
"Hunters held us. A month. Then we escaped. The forest was... long."
The Alpha — Kenzo, as she would later name him in her mind — studied her with something that might have been disgust. The filth covering her stank. She knew it. Her clothes, torn at the knees and elbows, barely clung to her body.
"Name," he threw out. He didn't ask. He threw it like a bone.
"Leila."
"Full."
"Leila Elsher."
His gaze shifted further. It stopped on Lori.
"And you?"
"Lori Elsher." Lori's voice was calmer than Leila's. Quieter, but steadier. "I'm her sister."
Kenzo didn't answer right away. He looked at her. One, two, three seconds longer than he'd looked at Leila. His eyes — black, unreadable — lingered on her face as if searching for something he himself couldn't name. Then he looked away. Returned to Leila.
"And him?"
"Our father. David. He... can't speak."
Kenzo stood. Walked closer to David. For a moment he only stared down at him — at the sunken face and blue lips, at the fingers that trembled even though the room was warm.
"He's dying."
That wasn't a question. Leila clenched her teeth.
"I know."
Kenzo stepped back to his place. Sat down. For a moment he toyed with the signet ring on his finger — silver, engraved with a crescent moon.
"You're loners," the other one spoke. The Beta. His voice was lower, heavier, like a boulder tumbling down a slope.
"Yes," Lori answered. Leila was grateful that she had taken on the weight of the conversation. "Since birth. We are. Our parents... weren't always."
The Beta raised an eyebrow. The first time since they'd entered.
"What does that mean?"
Lori drew a deep breath. Leila heard the entire world's weariness in it.
"Our parents once belonged to a pack. Blue Moon." She spoke the name slowly, as if tasting it for the first time in a very long while. "It was slaughtered. Almost everyone. Rogues attacked at night. Mom and Dad only survived because they were out hunting at the time. When they came back... there was nothing to come back to."
Silence.
Kenzo narrowed his eyes.
"Blue Moon," he repeated. "I've never heard of it."
"No one has." Lori's voice was quiet, but hard. "We were small. The forest swallowed us."
Kenzo watched her for another moment. Then he stood. Walked to the window — the only one, barred, through which light fell so pale it gave no warmth. He turned his back to them.
"You're not the first. Outcasts find their way here regularly. We send some away. Some... stay. On various terms."
"What kind of terms?" Lori asked.
Kenzo turned his head. Looked at her — again, that moment longer than he should have.
"You're not in a position to ask about terms."
Silence fell. Leila could feel her father trembling beside her — tiny, barely perceptible shudders, as if his body was trying to warm itself and couldn't. Lori sat motionless, but Leila saw the muscles in her jaw tightening and releasing. She was counting to ten. An old habit from childhood.
"Give them a corner," Kenzo tossed to the Beta. "And water. We'll decide after."
The Beta — Billy — nodded. The woman at his side, Holly, glanced at him briefly. Without words. An understanding that needed no voice.
"Come," she said to them. "I'll show you where you can wash up."
---
The room was small. Three beds, a table, a basin of water. Holly brought bread and a jug. She set them on the table and hesitated.
"You need to rest," she said quietly. "Tomorrow the Alpha will make his decision."
Her voice was tired, but human. Real.
"Thank you," Leila said.
Holly looked at David, then at Lori, then back at Leila. Her face softened — minutely, almost imperceptibly, like ice melting from a single breath.
"You have each other," she said. "That's more than most who come here have." She paused at the door. "Hold onto that."
She left.
Leila and Lori washed their father. Together. Without words — they had learned to work in silence through years of living in the forest. David didn't open his eyes, but he breathed. More evenly than before. And that was something.
When their father lay dry and covered with a blanket, Leila went to the basin to wash her face. The water was cold and smelled of iron. She leaned over and saw her face in the surface — long, dirty, with matted hair that had once been white as milk and now resembled dirty snow. She hadn't seen herself in weeks. The girl in the reflection stared back at her with blue eyes — her mother's eyes. Leila had to look away.
Later, when their father slept, she sat on the edge of her bed. Lori sat beside her. Their shoulders touched — lightly, as they always did when they needed the reminder that they weren't alone.
"Do you think they'll take us in?" Leila asked.
Lori was silent for a long time. Then she sighed.
"I don't know. But you know what? That Alpha... Kenzo... there's something about him. I can't name it."
"He's terrifying."
"Yes." Lori looked down at her hands. "But he looked at me... strangely."
Leila frowned.
"Strangely?"
"I don't know. Maybe I imagined it."
Leila didn't press. She had more important things on her mind. Watching her father was like watching melting snow. Every day there was less of him. Their mother had gone first — Anna, warm and kind, with a laugh like little bells in the wind. Now their father was following her. Leila knew that was how the bond between soulmates worked. One dies. The other follows.
She knew no exceptions.
Except one.
She had heard of him in the forest, by campfires, from other loners who whispered the name like a spell. An Alpha who had survived. An Alpha who, after his mate's death, did not follow her — but stayed. Ruled. Fought. Breathed.
Nathan.
The Howling Maw pack.
Leila tightened her fingers on the edge of the bed. The wood was rough — unsanded, like everything here. A splinter pierced her skin. She didn't pull it out.
If Alpha Nathan could survive — if he knew a way — she would find it. Even if it meant crawling into the wolf's den and tearing the secret from his throat.
For David. For the father who was still breathing.
For Lori, who always went first — so that this time, she wouldn't have to.
