Her journal told me everything. Pages and pages of deliberate humiliation. Seren and Raven's calculated cruelty, their whispered campaigns to isolate her from the pack, to taint her scent-standing until no wolf would acknowledge her presence.
I brought the evidence to my father, Elder Dorian of the Ashvale Pack.
Seren wept, her Omega distress-scent flooding the room. Raven sobbed harder, clutching at my father's arm.
I was cast out of the den that same night.
That winter was brutal. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones and settles there like frost that never thaws.
I was hours away from becoming a lone wolf—packless, unprotected, prey for any territorial male who caught my scent—when Alaric found me. He'd searched every corner of the territory, tracking my fading trail through frozen forests and abandoned hunting grounds.
He pulled me into his arms so tightly I couldn't breathe, his wolf rumbling beneath his skin, his voice caught between fury and anguish.
"Why didn't you come to me?"
"Lyra." He tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his storm-grey eyes. "Remember this. Even if every pack in existence turns their backs on you, I want you. I will always want you."
After that, Alaric poured everything he had into caring for me.
He brought me into the Nightfall Pack's elite training grounds, a world of Alpha heirs and pure-blooded wolves where I stuck out like a stray among thoroughbreds. Everyone waited for me to fail. To crumble. To prove I didn't belong among their ancient bloodlines.
At the opening gathering of the season, Alaric took the central stone as the pack's most promising young Alpha. He was supposed to give a speech about territory expansion and alliance strategies.
Instead, he looked directly into the assembled wolves and declared:
"Lyra Ashvale is my life. Touch her, and you touch me. Harm her, and I will personally ensure your line ends with you."
The whispers stopped after that.
He hunted for me every single day—bringing fresh kills, proper nutrition, determined to put healthy weight on my too-thin frame. Whenever the master craftswolves released their seasonal collections of ceremonial garments and enchanted accessories, he had everything sent to my quarters before I could even browse the offerings.