Chapter 1
Fire in the White Pack.
Since I was a little wolf girl, everybody in the White Pack used to look at me like I was something important.
Not because I was funny. Not because I was the loudest child running all over the place. No. It was because I was Alpha Lucien Whitehart’s daughter. My mother, Elara, used to say I came out with moonlight sitting in my eyes. My father used to laugh and say that was serious nonsense, but even he would stare at me sometimes like he was seeing something he could not explain.
My name is Kaelie Whitehart.
Back then, before everything got fucked up, life was good.
I had my mother. I had my father. I had my older brother Aiden, who was always chatting too much and making me run after him. He was hilarious when he wanted to be and annoying all the time. He would steal my bread, call me slow, then give me half of it back when Mother glared at him.
“Kaelie, hurry up,” he would shout.
And I would shout back, “Fuck you, Aiden.”
Then Mother would smack the back of his head and say, “Do not teach your sister rubbish.”
Father would only shake his head like whatever, these children will drive me crazy one day.
I loved those days.
In the White Pack, the houses were built strong, with white stone and old wood polished by rain and time. The air always smelled like pine, smoke, and meat roasting over fire. At night the whole place glowed silver under the moon. I thought nothing bad could ever happen to us. I thought fathers like mine did not lose. I thought mothers like mine did not fall. I thought my brother would always be there laughing like a fool.
I was wrong.
There had been talk before that night. Even I knew it. I was young, but not stupid. The adults went quiet when I entered rooms. Warriors kept returning from meetings with hard faces. Mother started sleeping with a knife under her pillow. Father stayed out late, talking with his men and drawing lines on maps.
One afternoon I heard shouting from Father’s hall.
“You should sign it,” one elder said.
“I won’t bow to that animal,” my father answered.
“If you do not sign, there will be attack.”
“Then let them come.”
I remember standing outside the door, afraid to move.
Later, I asked Mother what was going on.
She knelt in front of me and brushed my hair from my face. “Nothing you need to fear now.”
Now.
Not later.
That should have warned me.
That evening Father sat with us for dinner. He looked tired but still strong. He tore meat with his hands and passed me the soft part because he knew I liked it.
Aiden leaned close and whispered, “You know Black Pack people smell like rotten blood.”
I laughed.
Mother gave him a look. “Enough.”
Father looked at us one by one. At Mother. At Aiden. At me. His eyes stayed on me the longest.
“Whatever happens,” he said quietly, “you run when your mother tells you to run.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“I am not afraid,” I told him.
He gave me this sad smile I did not understand then. “That is the problem. You are too young to be afraid.”
That was the last peaceful night of my life.
It started after midnight.
At first I heard wolves howling, but not like normal pack calls. This was different. This was sharp, ugly, and wrong. Then I heard screaming. Real screaming. Then the first bell rang.
Mother sat up so fast the blanket fell from her body.
Father was already on his feet.
“Lucien,” she breathed.
He had his sword in hand before I could even stand. “They are here.”
Aiden came bursting into my room half dressed, eyes wide. “Kaelie, wake up. Wake up now.”
I was awake already. My heart was beating too fast.
Outside, the night had turned orange.
Fire.
I smelled smoke before I saw it. Thick, hot, choking smoke.
Mother grabbed my arm. “Shoes. Now.”
I could barely think. My hands were shaking. Everything was loud. Men yelling. Women crying. Children screaming. More bells. More howls.
Father opened the door and two warriors rushed past. One of them had blood all over his chest.
“The Black Pack broke the west gate,” he shouted.
Damn it.
Even now I still hate those words.
The Black Pack.
Father pulled Mother close for one fast second. “Take them to the east woods.”
Mother nodded once. No crying. No begging. She was Luna of the White Pack. She did not waste time.
Aiden grabbed a hunting knife from the table. Father looked at him and said, “No.”
“I can fight.”
“You can obey.”
“I am not a child.”
Father stepped closer. “Tonight you are my son. That means you protect your mother and sister.”
Aiden’s jaw went hard. He hated it, but he nodded.
Then Father turned to me.
He touched my cheek.
That was all.
No long speech. No hello, no goodbye, no love you like in funny stories people tell to make grief sound better.
Just one touch.
Then he was gone.
Mother pushed us out through the back hall. The cold air hit my face, but the night was not dark anymore. Half the village was burning. Flames climbed roofs. Wolves were fighting in the street. I saw one man torn open near the well. I saw one of our houses fall in on itself in a shower of sparks. I saw blood on snow.
My legs would not move.
Mother dragged me. “Kaelie. Run.”
Aiden was ahead of us, looking back every two steps. “This way.”
We crossed the lower yard. A body lay near the grain store. I knew him. It was Tomas, the baker’s son. His eyes were open but there was nothing in them.
I started crying.
Mother grabbed my face so hard it hurt. “Listen to me. You cry later. You run now.”
So I ran.
We were almost at the tree line when three Black Pack wolves burst from the smoke. One was in wolf form, dark as night, teeth red. The other two shifted half-way, claws out, eyes wild.
Aiden shouted and jumped in front of me.
Mother shoved me back. “Stay behind me.”
The first wolf lunged.
Mother shifted fast, quicker than my eyes could follow. Her wolf was huge and silver-brown, beautiful and terrible. She ripped into the attacker’s throat before he even touched us. Blood sprayed hot across the snow.
The second one came at Aiden. My brother moved badly, too young, too angry, but he still fought like hell. He slashed the man’s arm. The third enemy crashed into Mother’s side and sent her into a burning cart.
“Mother!”
She got up.
She got up because she had to.
Everything after that became running, screaming, smoke, and pain.
Aiden yelled for us to go. Mother shifted back enough to grab me with one arm and drag me toward the forest. We ran while the whole White Pack burned behind us. My chest hurt. My throat hurt. My eyes burned from smoke. Branches slapped my face. Somewhere behind us men were still fighting. Somewhere in that fire my father was killing or being killed. I did not know. I only knew we had left him.
Mother stumbled.
Then she stumbled again.
When I looked down I saw blood pouring from her leg.
“Mother—”
“Keep moving.”
We did. For a while.
Then we reached the broken old house at the edge of the forest, the one nobody used anymore. Half of it was already on fire from sparks carried by the wind. Mother tried to climb past the fallen beam with me in her arms and her foot came down wrong.
I heard the crack.
She screamed and dropped to one knee.
That sound still lives inside my head.
Her leg bent in a way it should not. She tried to stand and fell again. I started shaking so hard I could not breathe.
Aiden turned back toward us, bleeding from the shoulder. “Come on!”
Mother pushed me off her. “Run.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“Kaelie—run.”
“I won’t!”
She slapped me.
Not hard. Hard enough.
Her eyes were full of pain, full of fear, full of love, and that scared me more than anything else.
“Listen to me,” she said, voice rough. “Your father stayed to fight. Your brother is fighting. You do not die here. Do you hear me? You run. You keep running. Do not look back.”
I was crying too much to answer.
She grabbed my face with bloody hands. “You are White Pack. You are my daughter. You are not weak. Now go.”
Another howl split the night, too close.
Aiden shouted, “They are coming!”
Mother picked up a burning branch like a weapon. Even with her broken leg she looked like death itself.
“Go!” she screamed.
So I ran.
I ran because she told me to. I ran because I was afraid. I ran because the whole world was on fire and I was only a little wolf girl and there was nothing else left for me to do.
And while I was running, I heard my mother scream behind me.
Then I heard fighting.
Then I heard nothing but the sound of my own feet hitting the frozen ground.
That was the night the White Pack died.
That was the night I lost everything.
And I did not know yet that worse things were still waiting for me in the dark.
