They Laughed at the Weak Omega — Until Her Silver Wolf Emerged and the Court Dropped to Its Knees

The great hall of Valdron Court rire of blood and cruelty.

Varys pressed herself against the stone pillar, trying to make her body smaller, invisible, as the noble wolves paraded past in their finery.

She had no business being here among the elite.

But her mistress had demanded fresh herbs from the mountain pass, and the only route back to the servants quarters cut through the hall.

Today, it seemed the court had gathered for entertainment.

Bring forth the prisoner.

Lord Aldrichs voice echoed from the rays deis where he lounged on a throne that wasn’t his to claim.

As the kings regent, he ruled Valdron with an iron fist.

Though whispers said the true bloodline had been extinguished years ago, the crowd parted and Varys’s breath caught in her throat.

Two guards dragged a man between them, though dragged seemed inadequate for the violence of their movements.

They hauled him like a carcass, his bare feet scraping against the stone floor, leaving dark smears of blood in their wake.

Iron chains bound his wrists.

The metal searing against his skin with the telltale smoke of silver alloy designed to suppress a wolf’s healing.

He was enormous even in his broken state.

Broad shoulders, arms thick with muscle despite obvious starvation.

His dark hair hung matted with blood, but Varys could see he had been brutalized systematically.

A rogue from the borderlands, Aldrich announced, his lips curling with satisfaction.

Caught trespassing on crown territory.

His pack has been given seven days to pay his blood debt.

The regent paused, letting silence stretch before delivering the blow.

Today marks the eighth day.

No gold has come.

Laughter rippled through the court.

Varys felt her stomach turn.

The law demands restitution.

Aldrich continued.

50 silver marks or this wolf’s servitude until the debt is paid.

Who among you will bid?

The prisoner raised his head then, and Varys felt something crack open in her chest.

His eyes were the pale gray of winter storms, and despite everything, the chains, the wounds, the degradation, they held no submission, only cold, calculating assessment as they swept across the assembled nobility.

When his gaze found hers across the crowded hall, Varys forgot how to breathe.

“Come now!”

Aldrich taunted when no bids came.

Even a rogue has his uses.

Strong back, decent breeding stock, if nothing else, more laughter.

A young lordling near the front snatched a goblet from a servant and hurled the dregs at the prisoner.

Wine splattered across his face, dripping down his jaw, and still those winter eyes didn’t waver.

“20 silver then,” Aldrich said, dropping the price with theatrical disappointment.

“Surely someone.

What use is a beast that will slit our throats the moment we sleep?”

Called out Lady Marggo, her voice dripping with false concern.

“Put him down and be done with it,” the crowd murmured.

“Agreement.”

Varys watched the guards hands move toward their blades, and something inside her snapped.

Wait.

The word left her mouth before she could stop it, cutting through the hall like a blade through silk.

Every eye turned to find the source.

And when they landed on her small, plain, cowering by a pillar, the laughter that erupted was deafening.

The wolfless speaks.

Someone howled.

What would you do with a male little Omega?

You cannot even shift to run from him.

Heat flooded Varys’s face, but she forced her feet forward, forced her voice steady.

The law says anyone may bid.

I have 20 silver marks.

You?

Aldrich leaned forward.

Genuine amusement brightening his cold features.

The herb gatherer’s assistant.

The cursed one born without a wolf.

He looked to the crowd, inviting them to share in the joke.

What would you do with such a beast, little Omega?

Varys lifted her chin.

I would honor the law, my lord, which states that a debt claimed is a debt settled regardless of who pays it.

The laughter died into uncomfortable silence.

She was right, and everyone knew it.

He’s a rogue wolf, Aldrich said slowly, the amusement draining from his face.

“A killer, and you are nothing, less than nothing.

A wolfless omega with no pack, no protection, no standing in this court.

Then you lose nothing if he kills me,” Varys replied, surprised by the steel in her own voice.

“And if he doesn’t, the crown gains 20 silver marks.”

It wasn’t expecting.

The prisoner was staring at her now with an intensity that made her skin prickle.

She refused to meet his gaze, keeping her focus on Aldrich.

A long moment passed.

Then the regent’s lips twisted into something cruel.

“So be it,” he declared.

Let it be witnessed the wolf less Omega purchases the rogue when he tears out her throat.

Let no one say the court didn’t warn her.

He gestured sharply and the guards shoved the prisoner forward.

He stumbled, his chains clanking, and Varys saw fresh blood seeping from a wound on his side, a wound that glinted with something wrong, something dark, veins of black corruption spreading beneath his skin.

She moved to steady him without thinking, her small hands finding his arm.

Even through the fever heat of his skin, she felt him shudder at her touch.

Little fool, Lady Margot hissed as Varys passed.

“He’s more beast than man.

You’ve bought yourself a death sentence.”

Varys looked back at the assembled court, at their sneering faces and cruel eyes, and felt something harden in her heart.

“Perhaps,” she said quietly.

“But he’s more than any of you will ever be.”

She turned away from their laughter and led the stumbling prisoner toward the door, his weight heavy against her shoulder, his blood staining her simple dress.

Behind her, the court’s mockery echoed off the ancient stones.

But she didn’t look back.

Not once.

The servant’s passage from the great hall to the outer grounds had never felt so long.

Varys half carried, half dragged the prisoner through narrow corridors, her muscles screaming in protest.

He was trying to bear his own weight.

She could feel it in the rigid tension of his body.

But whatever poison blackened his wound was stealing his strength with every passing moment.

Almost there, she whispered, though she wasn’t sure if he understood her.

Rogues were said to come from the wild territories beyond the mountains, where the old tongue still prevailed.

For all she knew, her words were meaningless sounds to him.

They emerged into the fading afternoon light, and Varys steered them toward the small dwellings beyond the castle walls where the packless servants lived.

Her own cottage sat at the furthest edge, practically in the forest itself.

Mama.

A small figure burst from the cottage door, dark braids flying.

Ren skidded to a halt at the sight of the bloodied stranger, her amber eyes going wide.

Inside, Varys commanded.

Now, for once, her daughter obeyed without argument, darting back through the door.

Varys adjusted her grip on the prisoner and pushed forward.

They were 10 paces from the threshold when she felt him tense.

His head lifted, nostrils flaring despite his obvious weakness, and those storm gray eyes fixed on the treeine with sudden intensity.

He’s calculating his escape, she realized.

The forest was mere steps away.

In full health, a wolf could vanish into those shadows and never be found.

Varys released his arm and stepped back.

“Go,” she said, gesturing toward the trees.

“If that’s what you want, I won’t stop you.”

He stared at her, confusion flickering across his battered features.

She made the gesture again, more emphatic this time, pointing to the forest and then making a shoeing motion.

Go, be free.

I only bought your debt to spare you their cruelty.

Not to claim ownership of He moved so fast she didn’t see it coming.

One moment he was swaying on his feet.

The next, his hand was cupping her jaw, tilting her face up toward his.

This close, she could see the striations of silver in his gray eyes, could smell pine and wood smoke beneath the blood and dungeon filth.

He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding, his nostrils flaring as he breathed her in.

Then he spoke, his voice a ruined rasp that still managed to send shivers down her spine.

“You have no wolf,” he said in heavily accented but unmistakable common tongue.

“Yet you smell of moonlight and ancient power.”

His eyes searched her face with something like wonder.

“What are you?”

Before Varys could respond, before she could even process that he spoke her language, his eyes rolled back and he crumpled.

She barely managed to catch him before his head struck the ground.

Ren, she screamed.

Help me.

Together, mother and daughter dragged the unconscious stranger through the cottage door, his final words echoing through Varys’s mind like a prophecy.

What are you?

She had no answer.

She had never had an answer.

But as she looked down at his face, peaceful now in unconsciousness, she felt something stir deep in her chest.

Something that had been sleeping for a very, very long time.

Night had fallen by the time Varys finished cleaning the worst of his wounds.

She worked by candle light, her hands moving with practice deficiency, even as her mind raced.

The gashes and bruises were brutal but straightforward.

She’d treated worse on the servants who fell a foul of noble tempers.

But the wound on his side, the one with the black veins, that was something else entirely.

It’s spreading, Ren whispered from her perch on the storage chest.

Varys had tried to send her to bed twice, but her daughter had inherited her stubbornness.

The black lines, they’re longer than when we brought him in.

She was right.

The corruption had crept another inch across his abdomen, the veins pulsing faintly with each labored breath he took.

Varys had never seen anything like it.

It’s poison, she murmured, more to herself than to Ren.

But not any poison, I know.

She had tried everything.

Herbs to draw out infection, salves to purify blood, tinctures that her grandmother had sworn could cure any ailment.

Nothing worked.

The black veins seem to drink in her remedies and grow stronger.

Mama.

Ren’s voice had gone very quiet.

His eyes are open.

Varys’s head snapped up.

The prisoner was awake but wrong.

His body remained motionless on the pallet.

Muscles rigid.

Breath coming in shallow pants.

And his eyes his eyes blazed molten gold, bright as twin suns in the darkness of the cottage.

Stay back, Varys commanded Ren, rising slowly to her feet.

Go to your room and bar the door.

But now, Ren, she heard her daughter’s footsteps retreat, heard the wooden bar slide into place.

Only then did she turn her full attention to the stranger.

He was watching her with those impossible golden eyes, his chest heaving, sweat streaming down his temples.

When he spoke, the words came out in a language she didn’t recognize, guttural and ancient, filled with sounds that seemed to vibrate in her bones.

I don’t understand, Varys said carefully, keeping her voice soft as she would with a wounded animal.

Please, I’m trying to help you.

His hand shot out and caught her wrist.

The touch was electric, sending shock waves up her arm and straight into her heart.

She gasped, tried to pull away, but his grip was immovable despite his weakened state.

He pulled her closer, close enough that she could feel the furnace heat of his fever, could see the gold of his eyes swirling like liquid fire.

His other hand came up to cup her face, and the gentleness of that touch contrasted so sharply with his iron grip on her wrist that tears sprang to her eyes.

He spoke again, and this time she caught fragments she almost recognized old words, ceremonial words, the kind spoken during bonding rights.

“Please,” she whispered.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

His thumb traced her cheekbone, achingly tender.

Then his head lowered, his breath hot against her throat, and she felt him inhale her scent just as he had outside.

The sound that escaped him was barely human, a low, rumbling growl that seemed to originate from somewhere deeper than his chest.

It resonated through her body, awakening something in the hollow place where her wolf should have been.

“Mine,” he rasped, the single word crystal clear.

Then his teeth sank into her throat.

Varys screamed or tried to.

The sound died in her throat as pain lanced through her, sharp and bright and overwhelming.

She felt his teeth pierce her skin.

Felt the hot rush of her own blood.

Felt fire.

Fire flooding her veins, burning through her blood, racing toward her heart like a living thing.

The pain of the bite vanished, replaced by sensations so intense she couldn’t tell if it was agony or ecstasy.

Her hands found his shoulders, meaning to push him away, but instead her fingers dug into his flesh as wave after wave of heat crashed through her.

She felt him everywhere.

Not just his mouth at her throat, but inside her mind, her soul, her very essence.

Something was unfurling in the empty space within her.

Something that had been curled so small and so still, she’d never known it existed.

Then he released her.

The stranger collapsed back onto the pallet, golden eyes dimming to gray before closing completely.

His breathing steadied, deepened the sleep of healing rather than unconsciousness.

The black veins on his wound had stopped spreading.

Varys pressed her hand to her throat, feeling the warmth of her own blood, and tried to understand what had just happened.

The bite marks throbbed, but not with pain, with something else.

Something that pulsed in time with her heartbeat, connecting her to the fire reached her heart.

She had one moment to gasp, one moment to think, Ren, and then her body was tearing itself apart from the inside.

Bones cracked, muscles seized.

The empty place inside her chest that had been hollow all her life suddenly blazed with light and pain and terrible wonderful awakening.

Varys crumpled to the floor beside the stranger, her vision fracturing into golden shards.

Her final thought before darkness claimed her a single word of desperate hope.

Finally, Varys woke to gray morning light and the sound of her daughter crying.

Mama, mama, please wake up.

She opened her eyes to find Ren kneeling beside her.

Small hands shaking her shoulders, tears streaming down her face.

The floor was cold and hard beneath Varys’s back, and every muscle in her body achd as if she’d been trampled by horses.

“I’m here,” she croked, struggling to sit up.

“I’m all right, little one.

You were on the floor all night,” Ren sobbed.

“I couldn’t wake you.

I thought you were dead like Papa, I thought.”

Varys pulled her daughter into her arms, holding tight despite the protest of her exhausted body.

I’m here.

I’m not going anywhere.

Over Ren’s shoulder, her gaze found the stranger on the pallet.

He was still unconscious, but his breathing was deep and even, and the wound on his side.

She blinked, certain she was seeing wrong.

The black veins were gone, not faded, not diminished, gone entirely.

The wound itself had closed to a pink scar.

Healing that should have taken weeks accomplished in a single night.

Her hand flew to her own throat, expecting torn flesh and crusted blood.

Instead, her fingers found smooth skin with only the faintest raised marks where his teeth had pierced her.

“That’s impossible,” she breathed.

“Your neck healed, too,” Ren said, pulling back to study her mother’s face with those two perceptive amber eyes.

“I watched it happen while you were sleeping.

It just closed up.

Varys heart hammered against her ribs.

Wolves healed fast.

Everyone knew that.

But she wasn’t a wolf.

She had never been a wolf.

The emptiness inside her had been her constant companion since birth.

The hollow space where her beast should have lived.

Except it didn’t feel quite so empty anymore.

She pressed her palm flat against her chest.

And something pressed back.

Something warm and waiting, like an ember buried beneath ash.

Mama.

Ren’s voice was very small.

What happened last night?

Before Varys could answer, a sound from the pallet made them both freeze.

The stranger was seizing.

His back arched off the bed, muscles locked rigid, a horrible gurgling sound escaping his throat.

The black veins hadn’t vanished at all.

Varys realized with dawning horror.

They had merely retreated.

Now they surged back with renewed fury, spreading across his chest like dark lightning, racing toward his heart.

No!

Varys gasped, scrambling to his side.

“No, no, no.”

She pressed her hands to his chest without thinking, without planning, acting on pure desperate instinct.

And something answered.

Light bloomed from her palms soft and silver, bright as moonrise over still water.

It poured into the stranger’s body, and Varys felt the poison recoil from it like a living thing.

Felt it hiss and writhe beneath her touch.

Mama.

Ren’s whisper was barely audible.

Your hands are glowing.

Varys couldn’t respond.

The power flowing through her demanded all her focus, all her will.

She could feel the corruption now, could sense its oily malevolence as it fought against her light.

This was no natural poison.

It [clears throat] was crafted, designed, meant to kill wolves slowly and painfully.

But beneath the darkness, she felt something else.

The stranger’s own power, wild and vast as a storm tossed sea.

It recognized her light and surged to meet it, twining together with her magic like two rivers joining.

The sensation was overwhelming, intimate.

She could feel his heartbeat as if it were her own.

Could sense his consciousness stirring beneath the surface like a great beast rising from the deep.

The black veins shattered.

Varys gasped as the poison dissolved into nothing, leaving clean flesh behind.

The silver light faded from her hands, and she slumped forward, utterly drained.

“It’s gone,” Ren breathed.

“Mama, you did it.

You saved him.

Never speak of this, Varys said urgently, gripping her daughter’s arm.

Do you understand me?

What you just saw, what I just did.

If anyone finds out, I know, Ren’s young face was solemn.

The burning.

That’s what happens to witches.

To anyone with forbidden power.

Varys pulled her daughter close.

Promise me, Ren.

Promise you’ll never tell a soul.

I promise, Mama.

I’d never.

She won’t need to tell anyone.

The voice was a low rasp, rough from disuse, but steady.

Varys spun to find the stranger watching her, his storm gray eyes clear and alert.

He had seen everything.

“You carry the old magic,” he continued, pushing himself up on one elbow despite what must have been tremendous weakness.

“The silver light of the moon mothers.”

His gaze held hers with burning intensity.

I thought your kind had been hunted to extinction.

Varys opened her mouth to deny it, to claim he’d been hallucinating, to say anything that might protect her secret.

But the words died unspoken.

He had felt her power merge with his.

There was no point in lying.

“What are you going to do?”

She whispered.

The stranger studied her for a long moment.

Then, slowly, he pressed his fist to his heart and bowed his head.

“I’m going to keep your secret,” he said quietly, as you kept mine when you could have let me die.

He raised his eyes to hers.

“I am called Kalin, and I believe, little wolf, that our fates are now bound together.”

A sharp knock at the cottage door shattered the moment.

Varys.

A voice she knew too well.

Aldrich’s captain of the guard.

Open this door by order of the regent.

Varys’s blood turned to ice.

Hide.

She hissed at Calin.

But he was already moving.

Rolling off the pallet with silent grace despite his recent brush with death.

He pressed himself into the shadows behind the door.

Positioning himself where he would be invisible when it opened.

Ren, the herbs, Ferris commanded, pretend were working.

Her daughter moved instantly, scattering dried plants across the table just as Varys opened the door.

Captain Brennan stood on her threshold, his scarred face twisted with disgust.

Behind him, two guards waited with hands on their sword hilts.

The regent sent me to check on his investment, Brennan said, the word dripping with contempt.

He wants to ensure the rogue hasn’t killed you yet.

As you can see, I’m perfectly well.

Varys kept her body blocking the doorway.

The prisoner is resting.

His wounds required extensive treatment.

I’ll see for myself.

Brennan pushed past her before she could object.

His guards following.

Varys heart hammered as they surveyed her small cottage.

The pallet with its bloodstained blankets.

The table covered in herbs.

The shadows where Kalin hid.

Where is he?

Brennan demanded.

I told you he’s The pallet is empty.

The captain’s hand closed around her arm, bruising tight.

Where is the rogue witch?

I’m not a witch, Varys said automatically.

The denial reflexive after years of practice.

No.

Brennan’s smile was cruel.

That’s not what the court whispers.

They say you speak to plants.

That your remedies work too well.

His grip tightened.

They say you bought that beast because you recognized something of yourself in him.

Let her go.

Calin emerged from the shadows like a wraith and even diminished by imprisonment and poison.

He was terrifying.

The guards drew their swords, but he moved faster, flowing between them with lethal grace, disarming one and slamming the other against the wall before either could react.

Then he stood before Brennan.

And though the captain still held Varys’s arm, it was clear who held the true power in that moment.

I said, Kalin repeated softly.

Let her go.

Brennan released Varys’s arm and reached for his blade.

Calin caught his wrist, twisted, and the captain dropped to his knees with a cry of pain.

You dare?

Brennan gasped.

I dare much more than this.

Kalins voice was ice.

I dare tear your throat out for touching what is mine, but my savior has claimed me legally, and I am bound by her laws.

He leaned close to the captain’s ear.

For now, he released Brennan, who scrambled backward, cradling his injured wrist.

“This isn’t over,” the captain spat.

Lord Aldrich will hear of this.

“I’m counting on it,” Kalin replied.

The moment the guards fled, Varys turned on him.

“What were you thinking?

Now they’ll come back with more men with silver weapons.

They were going to hurt you.

The words were simple, absolute.

I will not permit that.

You barely survived a poisoning.

You’re in no condition to fight anyone.

Something flickered in his gray eyes amusement.

Perhaps or something warmer.

You healed me, little wolf.

I am stronger than I appear.

Don’t call me that.

The old wound achd at the name.

I’m not a wolf.

I’ve never been a wolf.

Kalin stepped closer and Varys’s breath caught at his nearness.

“You carry the silver light,” he said quietly.

“You healed a wound that should have killed me.

And when I bit you last night,” his hand rose to hover over her throat, not quite touching the marks hidden beneath her hair.

“You should have died.

Instead, you survived.”

“Do you know what that means?”

Varys shook her head, unable to speak.

“It means there is a wolf inside you,” Calin murmured.

She has been sleeping, waiting for the right call to wake her.

His eyes held hers.

My bite was that call.

Before Varys could process this, a small voice interrupted.

Mama, there are wolves outside.

They both turned to find Ren at the window, her face pressed against the gap in the shutters.

Varys rushed to look, and her blood ran cold.

At least a dozen wolves had emerged from the treeine.

Massive creatures with silver gray fur and eyes that gleamed with human intelligence.

They sat in perfect formation, watching the cottage waiting.

My pack, Kalin said quietly.

They’ve come for me.

Then go.

Varys stepped back from the window.

Go with them before Aldrich sends an army.

Come with me.

The words hung in the air between them.

Varys stared at him, certain she’d misheard.

You have power, Calin continued.

Power that will get you killed if you stay here.

And you have a child to protect.

Come with me to the Highlands.

I can offer you sanctuary.

I don’t even know who you are, Varys whispered.

Not really.

Calin held her gaze for a long moment.

Then he crossed to where Ren stood by the window and knelt before her, bringing himself to eye level with the child.

Little one, he said gently.

Will you tell your mother something for me?

Ren nodded solemnly.

Tell her that among my people, a life debt is sacred.

She saved me when she had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

I will spend the rest of my days repaying that debt if she will let me.

He rose and moved toward the door, pausing with his hand on the frame.

When he spoke again, his voice was raw with something Varys couldn’t name.

Varys.

It was the first time he’d said her name, and the sound of it in his accented voice made her heart stutter.

If you change your mind, follow the wolves.

They will lead you to me.

He stepped outside, and Varys watched through the window as the pack surrounded him, their tails wagging, their bodies pressing close in obvious welcome.

Kalin knelt among them, and she saw him speak to the largest wolf, a silver female with amber eyes.

Then he began to change, his body rippled, bones cracking and reforming, fur spreading across his skin.

Within seconds, a massive black wolf stood where the man had been.

He was enormous, dwarfing even the silver female, his coat gleaming like polished obsidian.

As if sensing her gaze, the black wolf turned to look at the cottage.

For one heartbeat, his eyes met hers through the gap in the shutters.

Then the pack vanished into the forest like smoke dissolving in wind, and Varys was left standing in her empty cottage, with her daughter’s hand in hers, the ghost of his voice still echoing in her ears.

Three weeks passed, and Varys learned what it meant to be haunted by a living ghost.

The dreams came every night without fail.

Dreams of mist shrouded mountains and ancient forests.

Of running through moonlit glades on four legs she didn’t possess.

Of a black wolf who watched her with storm gray eyes and called her name in a voice like thunder.

She would wake gasping, her body drenched in sweat, the marks on her throat throbbing with phantom heat.

Some nights the dreams felt so real she could smell him pine and woods smoke and wild clean wind.

And always, always, there was the ache.

It had started as a whisper, a faint hollow feeling in her chest.

Now it was a constant companion, growing stronger with each passing day.

She couldn’t eat without tasting ash, couldn’t sleep without dreaming of him, couldn’t think without her mind wandering to gray eyes and gentle hands, and the devastating tenderness of his voice when he spoke her name.

“Mama, you’re getting worse.”

Ren’s voice cut through her fog.

Varys looked up from the herbs she’d been staring at for the past hour, unable to remember what she’d intended to do with them.

I’m fine, little one.

You’re not.

Ren’s amber eyes were too old, too knowing.

You don’t eat, you barely sleep, and sometimes you just stop like you’re listening to something I can’t hear.

Varys opened her mouth to reassure her daughter, but a wave of dizziness struck without warning.

She gripped the table edge, fighting to stay upright as the world tilted around her.

Something’s wrong with me, she admitted, the words torn from her against her will.

Something connected to to him.

Then we should find him.

Ren spoke with the simple logic of childhood.

He said to follow the wolves.

We can’t just A pounding at the door interrupted her.

Not Brennan’s sharp knock this time, but something more urgent, more desperate.

Varys.

A woman’s voice frantic.

Please, I know what they say about you, but my son, he’s burning up, and the court healers won’t help us, please.

Varys exchanged a look with Ren, then moved to open the door.

A young mother stood on her threshold.

A child of perhaps four years clutched in her arms.

The boy was limp, his skin flushed with fever, his breathing shallow and rapid.

But what made Varys’s blood run cold was the dark veining around a wound on his arm.

Black corruption, the same poison that had nearly killed Calin.

Where did this happen?

Varys demanded, ushering the woman inside the market.

He cut himself on a merchant’s blade.

The merchant was selling.

The mother’s voice cracked.

He was selling weapons.

Special weapons for hunting wolves.

Varys hands trembled as she examined the wound.

The poison was spreading fast, already creeping toward the boy’s shoulder.

Without her power, he would be dead by nightfall.

“Wait outside,” she told the mother.

“I need to work in silence.”

The moment the door closed, Varys placed her hands over the wound and reached for the silver light.

It came sluggishly this time, flickering like a candle in wind rather than blazing like moonrise.

The ache in her chest intensified as she pushed power into the child’s body, fighting the corruption with everything she had.

It wasn’t enough.

The poison was stronger than before, or she was weaker.

Probably both.

Varys felt her strength draining away, felt darkness creeping at the edges of her vision, and still the black veins advanced.

“Please,” she whispered to whatever might be listening.

“Please, he’s just a child.”

The light flared, not silver this time, but brilliant gold.

Power that wasn’t hers flooded through the bond she hadn’t known existed, rushing across miles of distance from a source that felt like storms and forests and home.

The poison shattered.

Varys collapsed to her knees as the foreign power withdrew, leaving her hollow and shaking.

The boy’s color was already improving.

The wound clean and healing.

Mama.

Ren’s voice was frightened.

Mama, you’re bleeding.

Varys touched her nose and her fingers came away red.

The effort had cost her more than she’d realized.

Far more.

She was dying.

She could feel it now with crystal clarity.

The incomplete bond slowly draining her life force.

The dormant wolf inside her fighting to wake while her body fought to stay human.

She couldn’t survive much longer like this.

But before she could process that truth, the cottage door burst inward.

Lord Aldrich stood on her threshold, a dozen guards at his back.

His cold eyes swept the scene, the healing child, Varys’s bloodied face, the fading traces of golden light still clinging to her hands.

I knew it, he breathed, something like triumph lighting his features.

I knew you were more than you seemed.

He gestured to his men.

Seize the witch and bring her child as well.

Both of them will prove useful in flushing out the highland beasts.

Varys tried to run, tried to fight, but her depleted body betrayed her.

The last thing she saw before darkness claimed her was Ren screaming, reaching for her with desperate hands, and the young mother fleeing through the back door with her healed son clutched to her chest.

Then a wolf’s howl split the night close, so close, filled with rage and promise, and the shadows themselves seemed to surge toward the cottage like a tide of fangs and fury.

Varys woke to warmth and the scent of pine.

For a moment, she simply lay still, letting her senses adjust.

She was in a bed, a real bed with soft furs and feather pillows, not her thin pallet at home.

Fire light flickered against stone walls hung with tapestries depicting wolves running beneath silver moons.

This was not her cottage.

Mama.

Ren’s weight crashed into her as her daughter flung herself onto the bed.

Varys caught her, holding tight, breathing in the familiar scent of her child’s hair.

You’re awake, Ren sobbed.

You’ve been asleep for 3 days.

I was so scared.

3 days.

Varys struggled to sit up, her body weak, but no longer racked with pain.

Where are we?

What happened?

The wolves came.

Ren pulled back, her amber eyes bright with wonder rather than fear.

When the bad man tried to take us, the wolves came out of nowhere.

The big black one he carried you in his mouth so gently, mama.

Like you were made of glass, Kalin.

He had come for her.

Where is he now?

Varys asked.

Ren’s expression flickered.

He brought us here to his home.

But he he won’t come see you.

The healer say he blames himself for making you sick.

Before Varys could respond, the chamber door opened.

An elderly woman entered, her silver hair braided with leather cords, her weathered face kind but grave.

You’re awake at last, the woman said.

I am healer to the Highland Pack.

How do you feel?

Confused, Varys admitted.

Where am I and what do you mean?

He blames himself.

Aar settled into a chair beside the bed.

You are in the Citadel of Thornhaven, seat of the Highland Wolves.

And as for blame, she sighed.

The alpha believes his bite is killing you.

His bite healed weeks ago.

The wound healed.

The bond did not complete.

Leaned forward.

When a wolf claims a mate, the bite creates a connection between their souls.

But you are human.

Or so we thought.

Your body has been fighting the bond.

And the bond has been draining your life force in return.

Varys hand moved instinctively to her throat.

The ache, the dreams, the way I could feel him even from miles away.

All symptoms of an incomplete claiming.

All nodded.

Among our kind.

Such a bite would be answered within hours.

The mate would bite back, sealing the bond.

But you had no wolf to answer with.

Your body has been trapped between two states, human and wolf, slowly destroying itself.

Then what do I do?

Varys whispered.

How do I complete it?

Allah’s face grew troubled.

That is the question Calin has been torturing himself with.

In all our histories, no human has survived a claiming bite.

You should have died that first night.

The fact that you didn’t.

She shook her head.

He believes you carry dormant wolf blood, awakened by his bite, but unable to fully emerge.

And he believes the only way to save you is to sever the bond entirely.

Can that be done?

Only through death.

Ara’s voice was barely audible.

His death.

The words hit Varys like a physical blow.

No.

No, he can’t.

He has already petitioned the Elder Council.

Glistened with unshed tears.

He means to sacrifice himself at the next moon to free you from the bond.

He believes it is the only way to save your life.

Varys threw off the furs.

Struggling to her feet despite her weakness.

Where is he?

I need to see him.

He has forbidden anyone from bringing you to him.

He says voice broke.

He says he cannot bear to see your face and know he has doomed you.

He hasn’t doomed me.

Varys’s voice shook with fury and desperation.

He woke something inside me.

Something that was always there, waiting, and I will not let him die for a choice I made.

She staggered toward the door.

Ren rushing to support her.

But when she wrenched it open, a massive wolf blocked her path.

The silver female she had seen with Calin’s pack.

The wolf’s amber eyes held unmistakable warning.

“Please,” Varys begged, addressing the beast as she would a person.

“Please, I have to reach him.

I have to stop this.”

The silver wolf stared at her for a long moment.

Then slowly she stepped aside.

Varys ran.

The citadel was a maze of stone corridors and spiraling stairs.

But she followed her instincts, followed the pull of the bond that had haunted her for weeks.

It led her up, always up, until she burst through a final door onto a windswept tower.

Calin stood at the edge, his back to her, staring out at the mountains that surrounded them.

He didn’t turn at her approach, but she saw his shoulders tense.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said quietly.

And you shouldn’t be planning to die for me.”

He turned then, and the sight of him stole her breath.

Dark circles shadowed his gray eyes.

His cheekbones stood out sharply, as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

The powerful warrior who had faced down guards without flinching looked hollowed out, destroyed by guilt.

“I did this to you,” he said, his voice cracking.

“I claimed you in fever madness, bound you to me without consent, and now you’re dying because of my weakness.

I’m not dying.”

Varys moved closer, ignoring how he flinched away.

Ara says, “My body is fighting the bond, but what if it doesn’t have to fight?

What if I stopped resisting?

You don’t know what you’re saying.

I know exactly what I’m saying.”

She caught his hand, felt him shudder at the contact.

I felt you, Kalin, when I was healing that child.

Your power came to me across miles of distance.

You saved his life through me.

That’s not a curse.

That’s a gift.

It’s a chain.

His voice was anguished, binding you to a world you never chose, a life you never wanted.

I want it, the words hung between them, raw and honest.

I want it, Varys repeated, her voice stronger now.

I want the bond.

I want the wolf inside me to wake.

I want.

Her breath caught.

I want you.

Calin’s control shattered.

He pulled her against him, burying his face in her hair, his body shaking with silent sobs.

You cannot mean that.

You cannot want this monster who hurt you.

You are not a monster.

Varys pulled back enough to cup his face in her hands.

You are the man who bowed to me when I saved your life.

Who protected my daughter without being asked, who came for me when I was taken, even knowing it might kill you.

She rose on her toes, bringing her lips close to his ear.

Now let me save you.

Before he could respond, a horn blast shattered the moment.

Calin’s head snapped up, his body going rigid.

The council, he breathed.

They’ve moved the ceremony forward.

Then we stop them.

Varys, you don’t understand.

The ritual has begun.

Once started, it cannot be stopped unless he met her eyes and she saw desperate hope waring with despair.

Unless a true mate claims me before the final strike.

Then that’s what I’ll do.

You have no wolf.

You cannot.

Varys silenced him with a kiss.

Fierce, desperate.

Pouring everything she felt into that single point of contact.

She felt the bond blaze between them.

Felt the ember inside her chest surge toward flame.

“Watch me,” she whispered against his lips, and she ran.

The sacred grove lay at the heart of Thornhaven.

A circle of ancient stones beneath an open sky.

Varys’s lungs burned as she raced through the citadel, following the sound of chanting voices and the pull of the bond.

Her body screamed in protest.

She was still weak, still depleted, held together by will alone, but she would not let him die.

The grove came into view, and her heart nearly stopped.

Kalin knelt at the center of the stone circle, his wrists bound with silver chains that smoked against his skin.

Around him, the elder council stood in ceremonial robes, their voices raised in ancient words, and before him, a white-haired elder held a blade that gleamed with silver light.

The killing stroke was seconds away.

Stop!

Varys scream tore through the sacred air.

The chanting faltered.

Dozens of faces turned toward her, and among them, she recognized nobles from Valdron Court.

Lord Aldrich was there, his cold eyes widening with shock.

Lady Marggo, Captain Brennan with his arm in a sling.

All the wolves who had laughed at her, mocked her, called her worthless, and cursed.

They had come to witness the death of the Highland King.

And Varys finally understood.

Kalin wasn’t just an alpha.

He was the lost king of all wolves, the true bloodline that Aldrich had tried to exterminate.

His death would cement Aldrich’s claim to the throne forever.

The wolfless speaks again.

Aldrich recovered first.

His lips curving into a cruel smile.

“Have you come to watch your beast die, little Omega?

To see the fitting end for a rogue who dared touch his betters?

He is not a rogue.”

Varys walked forward, and the crowd parted before her without seeming to realize they were doing it.

And I am not wolfless.

She could feel it now, the wolf inside her, no longer dormant, but straining against its cage.

The bond blazed like a beacon, calling to its other half, demanding completion.

“Kill him!”

Aldrich commanded the elder with the blade.

Kill him now before she Before I What?

Varys reached the inner circle, placed herself between Calin and the executioner’s blade.

Before I claim what’s mine, she turned to face Calin, dropping to her knees before him.

His gray eyes were wide, disbelieving.

But beneath the shock, she saw hope kindle like a flame.

I don’t know if this will work, she whispered.

I don’t know if I have enough wolf in me, too.

You do?

His voice was rough with emotion.

I can feel her, Varys.

She’s beautiful.

She’s been waiting so long.

Then let’s wake her together.

Varys leaned forward and pressed her lips to the place where his neck met his shoulder.

She felt the bond surge.

Felt the wolf inside her rise with a roar that seemed to shake the foundations of the world, and she bit down.

The moment her teeth broke his skin, everything changed.

Power exploded through her.

Not the gentle silver light of her healing magic, but something far older, far wilder.

She felt her bones begin to shift, her muscles tear and reform, her senses expanding until she could hear every heartbeat in the grove, smell every emotion, see every flicker of movement.

It should have hurt.

It should have been agony.

Instead, it felt like coming home.

Varys threw her head back and howled a sound no human throat should have been able to produce.

The cry echoed off the standing stones, filled with triumph and joy and the wild freedom of a wolf finally unchained.

When she opened her eyes, the world had transformed.

She stood on four legs, her fur gleaming silver white in the moonlight, silver as the magic she wielded, silver as the prophecies had foretold.

She was larger than any wolf present, her presence commanding in a way her human form had never been.

And at her feet, Calin knelt with tears streaming down his face, the silver chains crumbling to dust around his wrists.

“The Silver Queen,” someone whispered.

“The prophecy, she’s real.”

Varys felt the words ripple through the assembled wolves like a shock wave.

Ancient legends stirred in their blood.

Instincts older than memory, compelling them to respond.

One by one, the Highland wolves dropped to their knees.

Then the Elder Council.

Then, impossibly, the nobles of Valdron Court.

Aldrich fought it longest, his face contorted with fury and disbelief as his body betrayed him.

But even he couldn’t resist the primal command that radiated from her silver form.

His knees hit the ground and a sound escaped him.

Something between a snarl and a sob.

No, he gasped.

This is impossible.

You were nothing.

You were less than nothing.

Varys shifted back to human form, standing tall and unashamed in the moonlight.

Her hair had transformed along with the rest of her silver now, cascading down her back like liquid moonlight.

“I was never nothing,” she said quietly.

“I was always exactly what I needed to be.

You just couldn’t see it.”

She turned to Calin, offering him her hand.

He took it, rising to stand beside her.

And when their eyes met, she saw her own wonder reflected in his gaze.

“My queen,” he breathed.

“My mate, my heart, my king,” she answered.

“My wolf, my home,” he pulled her close, claiming her mouth in a kiss that sealed their bond once and for all.

She felt it lock into place two souls that had been searching for each other across years and miles and impossible odds finally complete when they broke apart.

Varys looked out at the kneeling assembly.

At Aldrich’s defeated rage, at the Highland wolves joyful tears at her daughter Ren, who had somehow made it to the grove and was watching with a smile bright enough to rival the moon.

Rise, Varys commanded, and her voice carried the weight of generations.

All of you, the old ways are ended.

A new age begins.

As the wolves rose, as Calin’s arm wrapped around her waist, as Ren ran to embrace them both, Varys finally understood what she had always been.

Not cursed, not broken, not worthless.

She had simply been waiting, waiting for the right moment, the right call, the right love to wake the silver wolf that had slumbered inside her all along.

And now that she was awake, she would never sleep again.

6 months later, Varys stood on the balcony of Thornhaven Citadel, watching the sun set over her kingdom.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” Calin murmured, his arms wrapping around her from behind.

“I can feel it through the bond.”

Varys leaned back into his warmth.

“I’m thinking about how much has changed.”

“For the better, I hope,” she smiled.

“Aldrich is imprisoned.

The poison that nearly killed you has been destroyed.

Wolves and humans are learning to live in peace.”

She turned in his arms.

And I have you always, he pressed his forehead to hers.

You have me always.

From somewhere inside the citadel, Rens laughter rang out.

She had made fast friends with the packs children and spent her days running wild through the highlands.

The childhood she deserved finally within reach.

Any regrets?

Calin asked softly.

Varys thought of her old life.

The cottage at the edge of the forest.

The endless hiding.

The constant fear.

The hollow ache of her missing wolf.

She thought of the court that had mocked her.

The regent who had called her worthless, the world that had seen her as nothing.

Not one, she said.

Everything I suffered led me here to Ren’s happiness, to my wolf, to you.

Calin’s smile was devastating, even after all these months.

Then come, my queen.

The pack gathers for the moonun.

And I believe you promised to race me to the northern ridge.

I promise to beat you to the northern ridge.

Varys corrected.

We shall see about that.

They shifted together, silver and black wolves leaping from the balcony into the twilight.

Behind them, the pack howled their joy, and ahead the moon rose full and bright over the highlands.

Varys ran beside her mate, her heart full and her wolf finally free.

She had spent her whole life being told she was nothing.

Now she was everything, and the court that had laughed at her would never forget the day they dropped to their knees before the silver queen.

Thank you so much for listening.

I hope you enjoyed the