The pack was never silent for long. Wolves thrived on noise, on chatter, on laughter, on the steady rhythm of lives woven together. But in the days after the burial, the noise turned into whispers.
Low, hissing words that carried farther than they should have, slipping under doors and through cracks like smoke Jasmine couldn't escape.
Wherever she walked, eyes followed. Some lingered with pity, soft and heavy as chains. Others carried something colder, like fear, as if she had become a vessel of misfortune. A cursed thing. A failure.
"She lost the Alpha's heir."
"Maybe the Moon Goddess rejected her."
"It's not natural… maybe she's cursed."
The words weren't always said aloud. Sometimes they hung in the air, clear enough in the silence when conversations cut off as she entered a room.
Jasmine kept her chin high, but inside, grief was a gnawing, hollow beast. Every whisper fed it.
