Midnight Rose

Forgotten things were harder to kill twice.

That was one of the reasons I always chose the back corner.

From there, I could see the door, the windows, and everyone who walked into the room long before they reached me. Surprises had a way of getting people killed.

Everyone else was thinking about the Ceremony. Who they’d be matched with. What pack they’d join. Whether their future would get bigger or smaller.

Those were the normal worries.

Mine was simpler.

I just wanted to survive it.

At the front of the room, Professor Harlan read from his tablet without ever looking up. Half the class wasn’t listening. He knew it. Nobody cared enough to pretend otherwise.

Professor Harlan kept talking about chemical bonds while I traced the initials carved into my desk. Apparently, enough attraction could hold almost anything together.

Until something pulled hard enough.

My head dipped. I caught myself and snapped upright before anyone noticed. I glanced around the room.

No one had noticed.

Good.

I slipped my hand beneath my collar and curled my fingers around the necklace. The black crystal rose rested cold against my chest, silver thorns curled around it like a warning.

It was the last relic of the Midnight Pack. The last piece of home I had left. It was both my shield and my cage.

The crystal answered with a faint pulse.

I was eight years old again.

Wet grass soaked my bare feet. Smoke stung my eyes.

The manor burned behind me.

Red security lights strobed across the windows. Car alarms screamed across the gravel drive. Glass shattered somewhere inside.

Wolves howled from the burning house. Their cries cut off one after another, swallowed by whatever moved through the smoke.

My mother dragged me past the stone fountain and the broken iron gate. Her grip crushed my hand, but she never slowed.

“Where’s papa?”

Her hand tightened around mine.

“He’s fighting,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “We have to keep moving.”

Smoke rolled across the lawn, thick enough to turn the moon gray.

Then she dropped to her knees in front of me, breathing hard, her black dress torn along one side.

Her hands trembled only once as she fastened the necklace around my throat. Then she cupped my face.

Her eyes glistened as they searched mine.

For one heartbeat, she said nothing.

“Midnight Rose,” she whispered.

The relic answered.

The black rose at my throat unfurled.

Petals of obsidian crystal unfolded from the pendant, one after another, darker than the smoke around us. At first they looked black, but when the firelight struck them, violet shimmered beneath the surface like trapped stars.

One curved behind my back. Another swept over my shoulder. More spread beneath my feet and rose around me, silver-edged and sharp as thorns, until the world beyond shimmered through dark crystal veined with violet light.

I stumbled backward. “Mama? Mama!”

Panic surged through me. I threw myself against the crystal, pounding until tears blurred my vision. Outside, Mama’s eyes snapped to mine. She pressed her palm against the other side, and I flattened mine against it.

Her mouth moved, but no sound reached me.

Then she pulled her hand away and stood.

“No!”

I slammed both palms against the crystal. “Mama! Papa!”

They couldn’t leave me there. Pain shot through my hands as I struck it again and again, screaming until my throat burned.

The fighting spread across the lawn. Most of them were wolves now. Black wolves. Silver wolves. Brown wolves. They crashed through the smoke in flashes of fur, teeth, and blood. The crystal kept the screams away, but it couldn’t keep out that smell. Vinegar. Rotten eggs. A stench that burned the back of my throat.

Something moved faster than anything should have been able to move. It dropped from the mansion walls, launched from the roof, vanished into smoke, then appeared somewhere else before my eyes could follow.

One landed near the fountain and turned toward the stretch of grass where I stood hidden. A black wolf hit it from the side before it made it halfway across the lawn. Another Erebuse burst from the smoke near the broken gate, claws tearing into the earth as it lunged forward, but two Midnight wolves met it first. They went down together in a tangle of snarls and shadow.

Again and again, the fighting swept past me. No one looked toward the crystal. No one called my name. But every time one of the creatures came too close, one of ours threw themselves in front of it before it could reach me.

At eight years old, I thought it was luck. Years later, I understood. My pack had turned the lawn into a wall, and one by one, that wall fell.

My eyes searched the chaos.

Then they found her.

She moved through the carnage as if nothing could touch her.

Smoke rolled around her. Her dress was torn. There was blood on her sleeve. She kept coming.

An Erebuse launched from the side of the mansion.

She met it in midair.

They crashed to the ground together. The creature never got back up. My mother did.

Hope flared inside my chest.

She was still alive.

She would make it back.

She had to.

Another wolf staggered nearby, blood soaking his fur. My mother caught him as he fell, steadying him with one arm.

The wolf looked at her.

Just once.

Then he went limp.

She held him for one heartbeat longer, then lowered him gently to the ground.

Then she turned back toward the fighting. For one impossible moment, she looked unstoppable.

A flash of silver cut through the smoke.

My mother faltered.

Her hand flew to her side, her eyes widening for the smallest heartbeat.

Then an Erebuse lunged.

She tried to raise her weapon, but her arm gave out.

Its claws tore across her neck and shoulder.

Her head snapped to the side.

Blood spread across her collar and down the front of her dress.

She hit the ground.

“Mama!”

She had to get up. She always got back up.

Something pale drifted from the wound. At first, I thought it was smoke.

Then it moved.

Silver strands twisted through the air.

The Erebuse drew them into its mouth.

Her eyes fluttered closed.

The bell rang.

The memory shattered.

Rows of desks surrounded me. Students shoved books into their bags. Someone laughed near the door.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe. My hand was still locked around the pendant.

I forced my fingers open and stood. The dead would have to wait.

By the time I stepped into the hall, I’d buried it all again.

Around me, the academy had already moved on. Students crowded the corridor in gray blazers and stiff collars, laughing, gossiping, arguing over which packs they hoped would choose them.

Most kept their marks hidden beneath regulation collars and sleeves.

The handful of Alphas wore theirs openly.

There were only a few of them at the academy, but a few was enough.

A Solis boy leaned against the lockers, his blazer unbuttoned, the amber sunburst over his heart glowing faintly through his white shirt. Beside him, an Astra girl wore her hair pinned high, violet constellations climbing above the stiff collar of her blazer.

They were ordinary Alphas. Minor bloodlines. Lower-district nobility.

Still, the hallway bent around them.

An Omega stepped aside as the Solis boy backed away from the lockers without looking. Her books slipped from her arms and hit the floor, pages scattering across the polished tile.

One page escaped her binder, gliding farther than the rest. The only word I caught before it disappeared beneath someone’s shoe was Ambrose.

He glanced at the books scattered across the floor.

“Seriously?”

The Omega dropped to her knees. “I’m sorry, Alpha.”

“You should be.”

The Astra girl planted her heel on one of the notebooks before the Omega could reach it. She leaned down just enough to smile.

“You missed one.”

The Omega reached for it.

The Astra girl nudged it just out of reach with the toe of her shoe.

“Try again.”

The Omega froze, her hand suspended over the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

No one stepped in.

My foot moved before I could stop it.

My nails bit into my palm.

Don’t.

Don’t let them see you.

The Astra girl lifted her foot, and the Alphas continued down the hallway as though they’d already forgotten her.

The hallway carried on as though nothing had happened.

So did I.

I hated myself for it.

As the Alphas passed the trophy case, two mid-rank boys lowered their voices.

“Why would the prince come here?” one asked.

“Because we’re in the Ceremony.”

“Half the schools in the territory are participating.”

“Exactly.”

The first boy glanced after them. “So it’s a display.”

“It’s always a display.”

The Astra girl’s smile thinned.

Without looking back, she said, “Some of us know how to be grateful.”

The Alphas continued down the hall, unconcerned.

Mids slowed as they passed. Omegas moved first.

I moved with them.

The first pulse slammed into my throat, stealing my breath. I swallowed the gasp before it escaped.

What…

The necklace pulsed again.

Harder.

A laugh cut off, followed by the scrape of shoes against the polished floor. Someone swallowed. The chatter dissolved into a tense hush.

No one said his name.

No one had to.

The hallway made room long before he arrived.

Prince Kai walked through the space they had already made for him. Teachers inclined their heads. Students lowered their gazes as he passed.

He walked without acknowledging the silence that followed him.

His next step came a fraction too late.

No.

His head began to turn.

I lowered my gaze with everyone else.

Around me, the academy remained perfectly still.

I counted one heartbeat.

Then another.

His footsteps continued.

Only when the hallway stirred again did I force my legs to move.

I didn’t look back.

The moment I looked, I would know.

And the moment I knew, it would show on my face.

So I kept walking.

The side doors slid open with a soft hiss, and cold air struck my face. I crossed the courtyard, passing dead winter grass, security cameras, and the academy crest bolted beside the entrance without breaking stride.

By the time the bleachers swallowed the school from view, my hands were shaking.

Then I ran.

My shoes tore across the field. My breath came sharp and thin as panic finally caught up to me. I vaulted the fence, hit the ground hard on the other side, and disappeared into the trees.

The woods swallowed me whole.

For the first time since the hallway, I risked a glance behind me.

Nothing.

No guards.

No teachers.

No prince.

Relief hit so fast it almost hurt.

Then a voice opened inside my mind.

“Wait.”

I stumbled.

The sound hadn’t reached my ears. It hadn’t crossed the space between us. Somehow, it had slipped past the black rose and settled inside my mind.

My heart nearly stopped.

No one had ever reached through the necklace before. Not once.

The connection didn’t break.

It stretched between us, taut as a thread I couldn’t cut.

Branches clawed at my blazer as I threw every ounce of strength into slamming my mental walls shut. I couldn’t let him in. I couldn’t let Anwir’s heir see who I was.

The woods should have been loud with my escape. Branches snapped beneath my feet. Leaves tore under every stride. My breathing burned in my lungs.

I barely heard any of it.

Something else had my attention.

The silence.

It wasn’t empty.

It was moving with me.

My stomach dropped.

They didn’t have to rush. They weren’t chasing me.

They were herding me.

Kai hadn’t followed. He’d sent them.

Every time I tried to angle away, they shifted with me, cutting off the path before I could take it and leaving only one direction open.

The lake.

They knew exactly what they were doing.

So did I. I ran harder.

The lake opened ahead, hammered silver beneath the fading light.

Then the pain hit.

Fire ripped down my spine as the mark beneath my skin revolted. The connection between us snapped tight, sharp and merciless, and my body betrayed me before I could stop it.

No.

The fire slammed into the relic.

The relic answered.

Pain exploded behind my eyes.

My vision fractured into red and white as I stumbled, one hand flying to my shoulder blade. Heat spread beneath my skin.

I bit down on a scream and threw myself toward the lake.

The water hit me like ice. My lungs seized, and the fire dulled as dark water closed over my head. I sank beneath the surface, fingers shaking as they found the necklace.

“Midnight Rose.”

The words turned into bubbles.

The relic answered.

Black crystal surged from the pendant, unfolding around me in sharp obsidian petals. Violet shimmered beneath the surface as the bloom closed, sealing me inside a dark, silent womb. The cold vanished, and the world went still.

Through the translucent petals, I saw the tan wolf stop at the water’s edge. The black wolf joined him a heartbeat later.

Neither moved.

Then a white wolf stepped from the trees.

The tan and black wolf gave way without hesitation.

Prince Kai.

Even in wolf form, I knew.

He didn’t howl. He didn’t call for guards. He didn’t expose me.

He simply watched.

Through the water and crystal, his gaze settled on the black rose clutched in my hands, and I had the impossible feeling that every lie I’d lived behind was suddenly paper-thin.

The necklace pulsed, and his ears flicked forward.

He felt it.

My hand tightened around the pendant as I fought the urge to hide it.

Don’t see me.

For one breath, neither of us moved. Then something tightened between us, so sudden and absolute that it stole the air from my lungs. It wasn’t a voice or a thought, only a certainty neither of us had invited and neither of us understood.

Recognition.

The force of it hit me like a physical blow.

The white wolf stepped back, and the tan and black wolves moved with him at once, silent as shadows returning to heel.

Before the trees swallowed him, he looked back once. Even through the water and crystal, his molten-gold eyes held mine.

Then he disappeared into the woods.

The certainty between us didn’t.