ANEICA
The wind changed.
She felt it in her bones before the trees did. Before the wolves raised their heads. Before the crows stopped singing.
It was ancient.
Not loud, not sudden. But steady — a silence that pressed against the skin, like the weight of deep water. Something old had stirred. Something watching.
Anecia stood barefoot at the edge of the glade, her mark burning beneath her skin like a forgotten sun. The pack lingered behind her, uneasy. Even Liri, who rarely left her side, had kept her distance since the meeting with Damien. Since the words. Since her name had passed through her lips like it had been waiting all her life to be remembered.
"Damien," she whispered again now, just to see how it tasted.
It still hurt.
Not like a wound — more like an ache. A pulling in her chest, like vines coiling around her ribs and refusing to let go.
She'd stayed away. For three nights. Three long, hollow nights.
She ran the old trails. Drank from the hidden springs. She hunted with the pack — or tried. But her mind wandered. Her steps were off. She missed a kill.
The Alpha growled at her. A warning.
"You are not focused," his posture said.
"You are not one of us," the air whispered.
And wasn't it true?
Her body moved like a wolf's, but her thoughts were no longer bound by instinct alone.
She thought of voices. Of names. Of heat and cloth and the way Damien had looked at her like she was more than just wild.
Like she was meant for something.
She crouched now near the river's edge, fingertips trailing across the water. It shimmered with moonlight, soft and slow.
Her reflection stared back at her — pale skin streaked with dirt, leaves tangled in her hair, eyes violet-bright even in the dark.
Not human.
Not wolf.
Something else.
The birthmark on her shoulder pulsed again.
She sucked in a sharp breath as the skin shimmered — not glowing like before, but shifting.
The cat's tail curled tighter, as if stretching. The eyes in the mark blinked — just once — and then stilled.
Anecia scrambled back, heart racing.
She pressed her hand over it, chest heaving.
It was alive.
Or magic.
Or both.
From the corner of her vision, the trees shimmered — not from wind, not from movement. Like the bark itself rippled, reality bending like heat over fire.
A whisper reached her ears.
Not in words. Not even in sound.
But she understood.
Come home.
Anecia froze.
That voice was not wolf.
Not Damien.
It came from nowhere.
And everywhere.
She stood slowly.
Something beyond the forest was calling her. Not Damien, not the humans — but something older.
Something that knew her.
She looked to the west, toward the edge of the forest. Where the mist clung heavier, and the trees grew too tall. The wolves never ventured there.
The Hollowed Grove.
The older ones never spoke of it. Some said the veil was thin there — the place where spirit and skin blurred, where names had power and time meant nothing.
Anecia's mark pulsed again.
And in the distance, thunder rolled.
She returned to the pack that night, silent.
The Alpha met her eyes, and for the first time, he did not challenge her. He only looked.
And she saw the truth there.
He'd always known she wasn't theirs.
But they'd kept her anyway.
Loved her anyway.
She curled beside Liri, one last time.
The pup whimpered and nudged her cheek, sensing the change.
Anecia closed her eyes.
Tomorrow, she would leave.
Not for Damien.
Not even for herself.
But for the truth clawing its way up her spine and curling around her throat like silver smoke.
She wasn't cursed.
She wasn't wild.
She was called.
And whatever waited in the Hollowed Grove knew her name — even if she didn't know it yet.