The soreness the next day was, as Tiernan had promised, worse.
“Everything hurts,” I groaned into my pillow.
“Good,” Brenna said unsympathetically from the chair she’d claimed by my desk. “Means things are working. Or breaking. One of the two.”
“How did you get in here?” I muffled.
“Door,” she said. “It’s this amazing invention. You turn the handle and—”
I threw my pillow at her.
She caught it, cackling.
“I bribed a warrior with extra pie,” she admitted. “He let me up here before morning drills.”
“I thought omegas weren’t allowed in the warrior wing,” I said, forcing myself upright. Every muscle protested.
She made a face. “Oh, they tried. One of them puffed his chest and said, ‘You can’t go in there, omega.’ I told him if he didn’t move, I’d teach his balls a new octave.”
“Brenna.”
“What? He moved.”
I sighed, but warmth stirred under my ribs.
“You look like you got trampled by a herd of moose,” she observed bluntly. “In a good way.”
“There’s no good way to get trampled,” I muttered.
She pounced on the bed beside me, bouncing, making my sore body jolt.
“Ow.”
“Tell me *everything*,” she demanded. “What’s it like? Being a wolf. With a wolf. The shift. The running. The almost-lightning. The moody alpha. The—”
“Breathe,” I said, overwhelmed.
She pressed her lips together theatrically, then mimed zipping them.
I rolled my eyes.
“The shift…hurts,” I said honestly. “But it’s…also kind of amazing. And terrible. And…everything.”
Her eyes shone. “Do you hear her? Your wolf?”
“Ashra?” I asked.
Brenna’s brows shot up. “You named her?”
“She named herself,” I corrected.
Ashra huffed. *I did, in fact. She was going to call me Fluffy.*
“I was not,” I muttered.
Brenna’s eyes widened. “You’re doing it again.”
“Right. Sorry.” I shook my head, trying to separate internal and external. “Yes. I hear her. She’s…loud.”
“I like her already,” Brenna said. “Can I say hi?”
Ashra perked up. *Friend.*
*Behave,* I warned.
I took a breath, then reached inside, gently nudging the boundary between us.
“Ashra?” I thought. “Want to…move closer? Just a little. Enough to…wave?”
She laughed. *We’ll try.*
The world…shifted.
Not physically. Internally.
A deeper presence rose in my chest, like someone stepping up behind me and resting their chin on my shoulder. My vision sharpened slightly. My hearing spiked.
“What are you doing?” Brenna whispered, eyes huge.
“Letting her…lean,” I said slowly. “She’s…here.”
“Hi,” Brenna said to the air.
*Hello, tiny loud one,* Ashra replied warmly.
Brenna gasped. “She answered!”
“Yes,” I said. “She…likes you.”
Ashra snorted. *’She’? We are ‘we.’ Remember.*
“We like you,” I amended.
Brenna beamed. “Tell her I like her too.”
“She heard you,” I said. “You don’t have to talk *through* me. Just…at. She’s clever.”
Ashra preened.
“This is so unfair,” Brenna muttered. “I want a wolf. I’d name her Bramble. Or Murder.”
I choked on a laugh. “Murder?”
She shrugged. “Why not? Everyone expects wolves to be named things like Snow and Shadow and Destiny. We could use more Murders in the world.”
Ashra squealed. *Murder and Ashra. We’d be unstoppable.*
“Stop plotting,” I warned.
The door thumped.
“Kaia?” Eren’s voice called. “You alive?”
“No,” I yelled. “Tell Tiernan I died. Training’s canceled.”
The door cracked open.
Eren poked his head in. “I’m not telling him that.”
Tiernan’s deeper voice drifted from the corridor. “Telling who what?”
Eren winced. “Nothing, Alpha. She’s just being dramatic.”
Brenna snorted.
Tiernan stepped into view, wearing dark pants and a sleeveless shirt that showed a frankly unfair amount of arm.
My stomach flipped.
“You’re late,” he said mildly.
“I’m in agony,” I countered. “Have some respect for the dead.”
“You’re not dead,” he said. “If you were, you wouldn’t be complaining.”
Ashra purred. *He’s right. Again.*
“Stop taking his side,” I grumbled.
“I’ll give you five more minutes,” Tiernan said, leaning against the doorframe. “Then we meet in the yard. Shorter session today. More focus work. Less running. Kellan wants you fresh for evening drills.”
I groaned. “There’s more?”
“There’s always more,” he said.
Brenna elbowed me. “You get to see him all sweaty again,” she whispered loudly.
Tiernan’s brows climbed. “I can hear you,” he pointed out.
She grinned unrepentantly. “I know.”
“Out,” I muttered, shoving at her. “Both of you. Let me at least put on pants without an audience.”
Eren blushed. Tiernan’s mouth quirked.
“Five minutes,” he repeated.
They left.
Brenna stuck her head back in a second later. “He totally has a crush on you.”
“Brenna.”
“I’m just saying,” she sing-songed, then vanished.
*She’s not wrong,* Ashra said.
“I hate everyone,” I muttered, dragging myself out of bed.
***
Training that day was…different.
Less dramatic.
More intricate.
Tiernan and Kellan had me shift three times, each one shorter, more controlled. We focused on walking with my eyes closed, trusting Ashra’s senses. On holding my wolf just under my skin without fully shifting—letting claws tip my fingers, fur ripple along my arms, then drawing it back.
It was hard.
Every time I felt my bones start to stretch, panic prickled. Memories of the first, catastrophic shift flickered—pain and burning and humiliation.
Tiernan’s voice anchored me.
“Breathe,” he’d say. “You’re not that girl on the dining hall floor anymore. You have tools. Use them.”
Ashra was surprisingly patient.
*Again,* she’d murmur when I pulled back too fast. *We’ll get it. You’re stubborn. So am I. It’s a good match.*
We didn’t play with lightning.
Tiernan said my reserves needed to rebuild.
Instead, he had me stand in the center of the ring, eyes closed, and *feel*.
“Elementals sense the world differently,” he explained. “You’re keyed to currents. Energies. I want you to learn to notice them before they knock you on your ass.”
So I stood there.
The cold seeped through my boots. The wind nipped my cheeks. The sounds of clangs and shouts and laughter swirled around.
I focused.
At first, all I felt was my own body—dull ache in my thighs, tightness in my shoulders, itch of healing skin where my fur had sprouted and withdrawn.
Then—faintly—I felt the air.
A subtle, constant movement. Tiny eddies as warriors moved past, their bodies temporarily disrupting the flow. Warm pockets where sunlight hit stone. Cool patches where shade lingered.
“Good,” Tiernan murmured. “Now deeper.”
Deeper.
I sank my awareness down, imagining my mind like a stone dropping through layers.
Under the air, I felt…something else.
A slow, pulsing thrum.
Not my heartbeat.
The earth’s.
“Can you feel it?” Tiernan asked.
“Yes,” I whispered, awed. “Like…drums. Far away. Slow.”
He smiled, though I only knew it from the warmth in his voice. “That’s the land. Old power. You’re attuned to it now. Your wolf woke in a surge…she’s plugged you in.”
“Is that…safe?” I asked nervously.
“Depends what you do with it,” he said. “Ignore it, and it’ll just hum along. Try to yank on it, and you’ll get burned. We’re not touching it yet. Just…listening.”
Ashra hummed, pleased. *I like him. He understands. Don’t yank the roots, pup.*
I inhaled.
Exhaled.
The earth’s slow pulse soothed some of the constant buzz inside me.
We ended earlier than the day before.
“Go eat,” Tiernan said, tossing me an apple as I wiped sweat from my neck. “Then rest. Evening run with the trainees at dusk. Don’t be late. Kellan won’t be as gentle as I am.”
“You’re gentle?” I scoffed.
He grinned. “You’ll miss me when he starts yelling.”
He wasn’t wrong.
***
The evening run was my first true taste of what I’d spent years watching.
The warrior trainees—about fifteen of them—gathered at the treeline as the sky turned purple, laughing, shoving each other, stretching.
Eren bounced beside me, vibrating with excitement.
“This is the best part,” he whispered. “Running under the stars. The way everyone moves together. The way it feels to…*belong*.”
My chest tightened.
Kellan strode up, brisk and no-nonsense. “Pairs!” he barked. “You all know the route. River loop, medium pace. Don’t outstrip the slowest wolf. No racing until the last stretch.”
He shot me a look. “Thorn. You stay with Eren. If you flag, he drags you. If you surge, he yells. Got it?”
“Yes, Gamma,” I said.
He snorted. “We’re not in the dining hall now. Speak up.”
“Yes, Gamma,” I repeated louder.
Whistles and chuckles drifted from the group.
“Strip and shift,” Kellan ordered. “Let’s go.”
The trainees began undressing without self-consciousness, tossing clothes into a designated pile.
I hesitated for a fraction of a second.
Years of conditioning screamed at me about modesty. About ranked wolves. About eyes.
Then I looked around.
Half these wolves had grown up playing naked in the river together. They’d shifted in front of each other for the first time at sixteen, bones cracking and rearranging in a communal mass of fur and howls.
No one was looking at me like prey.
No one was sneering.
Eren shrugged out of his shirt, revealing a lean, muscled chest, then glanced at my frozen posture.
“You okay?” he murmured.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
He lowered his voice further. “We can go behind a tree if you want.”
The thought of slinking off, hiding, made my spine stiffen.
I shook my head. “No. I’m good.”
I stripped.
The cold air bit my bare skin.
I ignored the way a few pairs of eyes lingered—curious, assessing—but not leering. Not like some of the warriors in the hall had, years ago, when I’d spilled water and bent to clean it up.
I closed my eyes, reached for the thread, and shifted.
Ashra flowed up, eager, smoothing the way. The pain was less this time. A series of familiar aches instead of an onslaught.
When I opened my wolf eyes, a ring of fur surrounded me.
Wolves in all shades—gray, brown, black, tawny. Some small and quick-looking, others broad and powerful.
Eren’s wolf—sleek, midsized, the color of wet sand—bumped my shoulder, tail wagging.
*Hi,* he yipped in my mind, surprised and delighted by the clean connection.
*Hi,* I replied, startled by how easily our wolves touched.
*You smell like rain,* he said, then flushed mentally. *Uh. In a good way.*
I snorted.
Kellan’s wolf—a massive, scarred gray—trotted up, eyes scanning the group.
“Remember,” his voice echoed in our shared mental space, alpha-linked to the trainees by long practice. “Stay together. No showing off. If I see anyone trying to impress our new elemental with fancy footwork and twisting an ankle instead, I’ll bite you myself.”
A ripple of laughter-huffs went through the group.
I shifted uneasily.
*Relax,* Ashra murmured. *We’ve been waiting for this.*
Kellan threw back his head and howled.
The others joined.
The sound rolled through me, vibrating my bones. For a moment, I froze, overwhelmed.
Then Ashra lifted our head and howled too.
The note that tore from our throat shocked me.
It was deeper than most females’, threaded with a faint crackle that made the fur along the nearest wolves’ spines stand up.
*Storm,* one wolf thought, half in awe.
The sound died.
Kellan took off.
We followed.
Running with others was…everything.
The forest rushed around us, trunks flashing in the corner of my vision. Snow crunched under dozens of paws. Breaths panted, white in the air. Bodies brushed mine, warm and solid, a moving wall of fur and muscle.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t watching the pack from the edge.
I was *in* it.
Ashra exulted.
*Yes,* she sang. *This. This is what we were born for.*
We kept pace with Eren near the middle of the group.
Faster wolves surged ahead briefly, then fell back to avoid breaking formation. Slower ones panted behind, tongues lolling. Kellan’s gray bulk ranged along the side, herding, correcting.
The route looped down toward the river, icy spray scenting the air.
We splashed through a shallow ford, cold biting our paws.
My muscles burned pleasantly.
The constant low-level buzz of power under my skin hummed in time with the pack’s rhythm.
Belonging tugged at something in my chest that had been empty for so long I’d forgotten how to name it.
*Pack,* Ashra murmured, awed. *Ours.*
My throat tightened.
On the last stretch—back up the hill toward the yard—Kellan gave the signal to release.
“Go,” he said. “Last furlong. Show me what you’ve got.”
The pack exploded.
Wolves surged forward, pounding up the incline. Eren shot me a look.
*Race?* he challenged.
My lips pulled back in a wolfish grin.
*You’re on,* I said, and *pushed*.
Speed thrilled through me.
Ashra roared with joy.
We ate the ground, legs stretching, claws digging. Eren yipped and tried to keep up, but we left him behind.
Wind tore at our fur.
Snow flew.
The yard’s lights glimmered ahead.
We’d almost reached the top when pain lanced through my chest.
Not physical.
Not mine.
Tiernan’s presence—usually a steady, background thrum—spiked with sudden, sharp panic.
I stumbled.
Ashra snarled, wheels locking.
*What—* I started.
A howl cut through the night.
Not Kellan’s. Not a trainee’s.
Tiernan.
It wasn’t a battle howl.
It was a call.
A desperate one.
Every hair on my body stood up.
I skidded to a halt, heart pounding, staring toward the packhouse. Lights flared in multiple windows. Shouts rose.
Eren barreled into my flank, yelping as he tumbled.
*Kaia—what—*
*Something’s wrong,* I snapped, already pivoting.
*With who?*
“Tiernan,” I said aloud, my wolf-voice rough and low.
Kellan’s gray form crested the hill behind us, eyes already scanning.
“What happened?” he demanded through the link.
I didn’t answer.
I ran.
Toward the storm.
---