Chapter 1 — Invisible
The bucket of dirty water weighed more than it should have. Or maybe Selene's back weighed less—less flesh, less strength, less of everything a wolf should have.
She crossed Cinera's courtyard with her head down, as always. The packed-earth ground was cold beneath her bare feet, and the morning wind carried the scent of pine and the ashes from the previous night's fire. No one looked at her. No one ever looked.
"Hey, Selene!" The voice came from behind her, and she already knew the tone before turning. "You forgot to clean the Alpha's kitchen. He wants everything ready before noon."
It was Bruna. The Alpha's wife, Selene's stepmother, and Maya's mother—her half-sister, who spent her days measuring Selene's every step with a mixture of disgust and a secret fear that one day that "broken wolf" might dare to breathe at the same level as her. Bruna crossed her arms, lifted her chin, and flashed the smile that never reached her eyes.
"I cleaned it last night," Selene said without looking up.
"And I'm telling you it isn't good enough."
Selene tightened her grip on the bucket's handle. The dirty water sloshed. She felt the reply rise in her throat—hot, sharp, ready. But she swallowed it. Like she always swallowed everything.
"Fine."
Bruna snorted, satisfied, and walked away with the stride of someone who had never had to carry a bucket in her life.
Selene stood there for three seconds. She counted each one. That was how long she allowed herself to feel angry before locking it away in its usual place—that dark corner inside her chest where there was hardly room for anything else, yet she shoved it in anyway.
She turned and walked back to the kitchen.
The Gray Moon Pack wasn't large. A little over thirty wolves living in old wooden houses around a central hall that had seen better days. Its territory lay on the outskirts—where the forest was too dense and the soil too poor for any other pack to want it. Cinera existed because no one could be bothered to drive them out.
And Selene existed in Cinera the same way Cinera existed in the world: because no one could be bothered to notice her.
She scrubbed the kitchen floor for the second time, kneeling, her hands already red from the cold and soap. The pain in her fingers was familiar. Everything about her was familiar—the exhaustion, the hunger that never completely went away, the silence of her inner wolf.
That was the worst part of all.
Every shapeshifter felt their wolf inside them. A presence, an instinct, a voice that growled or purred depending on the moment. The others described it as having a second heart beating alongside the first.
Selene felt nothing.
As long as she could remember, the space where her wolf should have been was a silent void. She had tried everything—running until she couldn't go on, plunging into icy water, screaming alone in the forest in the dead of night. Nothing. Her wolf didn't respond. Maybe it didn't even exist.
"Broken wolf"—that was what they whispered behind her back. And Maya made sure to remind her of it every time she passed, as if Selene's uselessness were the only guarantee that the family throne itself would remain secure.
She finished the kitchen, dried her hands on her worn apron, and went out the back door. The sun was already high, but it gave off no warmth. It never did in Cinera.
Lyra found her behind the woodshed, sitting on a chopped log and eating a piece of stale bread she had hidden from breakfast.
"You saved some for me?" Lyra dropped down beside her, her brown curls bouncing with the movement.
Selene broke the bread in half and handed it over without a word.
"You know you're the worst omega in the world, right?" Lyra said between bites. "A real omega doesn't share food. A real omega fights for what's hers."
"Then I'm a terrible omega."
"You're a terrible wolf in general." Lyra smiled, and her smile was the only warm thing in that place. "But you're the best person I know. So that counts for something."
Selene almost smiled back. Almost.
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the wind in the trees. Then Lyra leaned closer and lowered her voice.
"Hear what people are saying?"
"About what?"
"Ferrum. Alpha Liam is coming here. A diplomatic visit, or whatever they call it when the most powerful wolf in the territory decides to show up at the most miserable pack just to prove he can."
Selene stopped chewing.
"When?"
"Tomorrow."
The wind changed direction. For one second—so brief that Selene thought she had imagined it—something moved inside her. Not in her head. Deeper. In that empty place where her wolf should have been.
Like a pulse.
One single, dull pulse, and then silence again.
Selene brought a hand to her chest without realizing it.
"Are you okay?" Lyra asked, frowning.
"I'm fine." She lowered her hand. "Yeah, I'm fine."
But that night, lying on the thin mattress in the little room at the back of her father's house, Selene stayed awake, staring at the ceiling. Moonlight slipped through the crack in the broken window and drew a silver line across the wooden floor.
And deep in her chest, in that place that had always been empty, something breathed.
Weakly. Barely at all.
But it was the first time