The River Wolf

NATALIE

As long as I’ve been alive, I haven’t been able to feel anything.

Not the way other people mean it when they say that, anyway.

I feel emotions. Too many of those, actually. They pile up in my chest until it feels crowded, like there’s never enough air to go around. I know heartbreak. I know anger. I know humiliation so sharp it tastes metallic. I know grief in the abstract—watching it happen to other people, watching their faces crumple, their shoulders cave in, knowing I’m supposed to mirror that reaction even when my body doesn’t quite get the memo.

But my physical body?

It feels… nothing.

No pain. No warning. No screaming nerves to tell me when something is wrong.

I don’t feel scratches. Not the kind you get from thorns or nails or sharp branches snapping back too fast. I don’t feel cuts, not when skin splits or blood wells up slow and dark. I don’t feel breaks—bones snapping with a sound that makes other people pale and gag. I don’t even feel the dull ache afterward, the lingering throb everyone complains about for weeks.

Nothing.

I only know something is wrong when other people react.

The sharp inhale. The way faces drain of color. The sudden chaos—voices rising, hands grabbing me, someone yelling for help like the world is ending right there at my feet. I’ve learned to recognize that look. Horror. Pure, unfiltered horror, reflected back at me like I’m standing in front of a mirror that shows something I can’t see myself.

They sprint me to hospitals. They shove me into trucks, onto stretchers, into the arms of panicking adults who keep saying my name like if they say it enough times I’ll stop bleeding out. The medbay is basically my second home. They tell me not to move. They tell me to stay awake. They tell me to focus.

I usually just stare at the ceiling and wonder what all the fuss is about.

There have been some very close calls. The kind no one ever quite wants to talk about afterward. The kind that linger in hushed voices and careful glances, in the way my parents—before—used to watch me like I was made of glass and dynamite all at once.

Collapsed lungs. Internal bleeding. Compound fractures where bone punched through skin like it was trying to escape me.

Apparently, I came terrifyingly close to dying more than once.

Apparently.

As far as I’m aware, though, I can’t even do that right.

Stupid. Useless. Broken body.

It’s not like I’m indestructible. That would almost make sense. That would at least be something. I can clearly break. I can bleed. I’ve seen the evidence afterward—casts, stitches, scars that feel more like rumors than memories.

I just… can’t feel like the others can.

And the worst part?

I don’t even know what I’m missing.

Pain is supposed to teach you things. It’s supposed to warn you, shape you, make you cautious. Everyone says it’s necessary, that it keeps you alive. But when you’ve never felt it—when your nerves stay silent no matter how badly your body is screaming—you don’t grow careful.

You grow reckless.

You grow numb in a way that has nothing to do with bravery.

I learned early that my body can betray me without warning. That I can be walking just fine one second and bleeding out the next. That I can be smiling while something inside me is catastrophically wrong. So I stopped trusting myself. Stopped trusting my instincts. Stopped believing my own sense of reality.

If my body won’t tell me the truth, what else can I rely on?

Certainly not this pack.

But, today is a big day.

That’s what everyone keeps saying, anyway. Like if they repeat it enough times, it’ll become meaningful to me too.

The pack is throwing a celebration for the Alpha’s daughter, Brileigh. She’s getting her wolf today.

Sixteen years old. Prime age. Perfect timing. Everything lining up exactly the way it’s supposed to.

Everyone is required to attend.

And when they say required, they mean it. Mandatory smiles. Mandatory applause. Mandatory awe. Attendance taken not on paper, but in looks and whispers and the quiet, dangerous knowledge of what happens when you don’t show up for the Alpha’s family.

I don’t want to go.

My siblings don’t want to go either, which at least makes me feel a little less insane. Jessie and Casey don’t bother hiding their irritation—they never have. They’re older, they’ve already earned the right to be openly unimpressed with pack politics.

Brileigh, in case it isn’t obvious already, is a bitch.

Not the fun kind. Not the sarcastic, sharp-tongued kind who can be cruel and charming in equal measure. No—she’s a mega-bitch. The kind that smiles sweetly while she destroys you, the kind that knows exactly how much power she has and enjoys testing its limits.

She doesn’t even know what the word nice means.

I’ve seen her reduce girls to tears in under five minutes. Casual comments, carefully placed rumors, a well-timed laugh when someone trips or stutters or dares to exist in her orbit without permission. She’s made more people cry than I can count, and not once has she ever looked sorry about it.

Yet she’s the princess of this pack.

Beloved. Protected. Untouchable.

Rules bend for her. Consequences evaporate. Adults who should know better laugh off her behavior like it’s a phase, like cruelty is cute when it comes wrapped in pretty hair and an Alpha’s bloodline.

Fuck her.

And fuck today.

Once she shifts—assuming everything goes perfectly, which of course it will—she’ll go on her first run. A big ceremonial thing. Tradition. Symbolism. Legacy. All that bullshit.

Those of us who can already shift are expected to follow her. To flank her. To let her lead her first pack run, even though half of us could outrun her blindfolded.

Again—fuck her.

This time, though, it’s personal.

I turned sixteen two weeks ago.

Nothing happened.

No wolf. No internal voice. No strange pull toward the forest or heat under my skin or sudden clarity like everyone else describes. Just… silence. The same dead quiet I’ve always lived with inside my body.

Jessie and Casey keep telling me it’s normal. Some wolves are late bloomers. It happens. Sometimes the stress delays it. Sometimes trauma does. Sometimes you just wake up one day, and there it is.

They say it casually, but I can hear the edge underneath. The worry they’re trying not to show.

Because what if I’m not late?

What if I’m just… wrong?

I already can’t feel pain. Already don’t function the way I’m supposed to. Already walk around in a body that doesn’t send warnings, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t react.

What if my wolf looked at all that and decided I wasn’t worth the effort?

What if there’s nothing there to come back to me?

I don’t say any of this out loud. I’ve learned better. Worrying people just makes them watch you harder, and being watched in this pack has never ended well for anyone like me.

So instead, we get ready for the big party.

Jessie and Casey move through our shared space like a well-oiled machine. Dresses laid out. Hair products lined up. Shoes tossed onto the bed without ceremony. They look effortlessly put together even when they’re annoyed, even when they’re muttering insults under their breath.

And of course, they make me get dressed up too.

Because being the youngest sister apparently means being their personal dress-up doll for life.

I protest half-heartedly, knowing it won’t matter. Jessie ignores me completely. Casey tilts her head, squints at my face like she’s assessing a piece of art she didn’t ask for but is determined to improve anyway.

“You’re not wearing that,” she says flatly.

“I wasn’t planning on wearing anything,” I reply, deadpan.

She snorts. Jessie rolls her eyes.

They fuss with my hair. They pick out clothes that feel too tight, too noticeable. I let them. I always do. It’s easier than fighting. Easier than explaining why I don’t want to stand out, why being seen feels like standing under a spotlight with no exit.

At some point, Jessie presses a hand to my shoulder, grounding me without making a big deal out of it. It’s the kind of touch that would probably feel comforting if I could feel it. Instead, it’s just… there. A reminder more than a sensation.

“You okay?” she asks quietly.

I nod. Because that’s what I do.

And then we’re off to the pack house.

The closer we get, the louder everything becomes. Music. Laughter. The thrum of too many bodies packed together, all buzzing with anticipation. The air feels thick with excitement and expectation, like the whole place is holding its breath.

Torches line the path. Banners hang from the trees. The pack house looms ahead of us, massive and proud and suffocating all at once.

This is home, they say.

I’ve never felt like it was mine.

As we step onto the grounds, I can already feel the shift in attention. Eyes flick toward us. Some curious. Some dismissive. Some sharp in that way that makes my shoulders tense even though my body won’t tell me why.

Brileigh will arrive soon. When she does, everything will orbit her. The celebration will swell, the energy spike, the pack closing ranks around its golden girl.

And I’ll stand there, smiling when I’m supposed to, clapping when everyone else does, pretending that I don’t feel like I’m fading out of focus.

Pretending that today isn’t another reminder of everything I don’t have.

Pretending that when she shifts—when her wolf tears free and proves, once again, that the world works exactly the way it’s supposed to—I won’t feel that quiet, terrifying emptiness widen inside my chest.

Because if I let myself think too hard about that?

If I let myself wonder what it means that my body doesn’t feel pain, that my wolf hasn’t come, that I don’t fit into the neat, brutal order of this pack—

I might finally feel something.

And I don’t know if I’d survive that either.