The first kick stole her breath; the second made the world ring.
Luna curled tighter around the bucket she'd dropped, arms instinctively shielding her ribs as dirty water soaked into her thin clothes and spread in a cold halo across the packed-earth floor. The scent of wet stone and old soap rose around her in the washroom, mixing with the salt tang of her own fear.
A heeled boot nudged the bucket away with casual disdain, metal clattering against the wall.
"Look at what you've done," Selene said, her voice smooth and lilting, almost musical. "Again."
Luna dragged in a shaky breath. Her cheek throbbed where she'd already been cuffed earlier in the day; now a fresh ache bloomed along her side. She pushed up onto one arm, fingers slipping in the spilled water.
"I—I'm sorry," she managed, the words rough from disuse. "I'll clean it."
She reached for the bucket.
A hand, pale and slender, came down and pressed against the back of her neck, forcing her face toward the muddy floor. Her chin hit the ground with a jolt. Grit bit into her skin.
"*Of course* you will," Selene murmured near her ear. "That's what runts are for."
Luna's heart hammered, loud enough she could hear it over the steady drip of water from the wash basin. She could see only Selene's boots now—soft leather, perfectly fitted—and the edge of a white dress trimmed in silver. In the faint reflection of a puddle, she caught the suggestion of golden hair and a satisfied curve of painted lips.
"I asked you for clean linens ten minutes ago," Selene continued. "Ten. And here you are, still... mopping the same spot on the same floor you filthy with your clumsiness. Do you enjoy wasting my time?"
"N-no," Luna whispered. Her fingers clenched around a wet rag. She wished they didn't shake.
Selene increased the pressure on her neck, pushing her a little harder into the cold mud.
"No," she agreed. "You don't enjoy it. You simply *are* it—waste. Wasted food, wasted space, wasted breath."
She let go abruptly.
Luna sucked in air and coughed, rolling weakly to one side. Her hair, dark and tangled, stuck to her damp face. The plain gray shirt she wore—two sizes too big, sleeves rolled and frayed—clung to her slight frame, already stained from a day of menial work.
Around them, the laundry outbuilding was nearly empty. The bustle of daytime—maids chatting, warriors dropping off training clothes, the constant churn of washing tubs—had dwindled with the light. It was almost evening, and most of the pack had moved on to the dining hall or to the training fields to catch the last of the day.
Luna always stayed behind, finishing what the others left undone.
Selene paced a slow circle around her, light footsteps echoing against stone. Even here, where the air smelled of damp cloth and lye, Selene carried the same aura she held in the Alpha's house: expensive perfume and sharper power.
"This pack," Selene said, as if lecturing a child rather than speaking to someone only a year younger than herself, "is feared for its strength. For its discipline. For its beauty." She paused, then let out a soft, derisive sound. "And then there's you."
Luna stared at the floor.
She knew what Selene saw when she looked at her.
Too small, too thin. Too pale compared to the sun-kissed warriors who trained in the yard. Luna's wolf, when she shifted, was no better—undersized, a soft grey with a narrow muzzle and lanky legs, always a step behind the others.
A runt. An orphan. A pity project.
Alpha Orion's father—old Alpha Rian—had taken her in as a baby when her rogue parents were found dead on the border, a crying bundle wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth. Some said he'd done it to please the Moon Goddess. Some said he'd done it out of morbid curiosity. Either way, she'd grown up in the Moonshadow pack as a guest who never became family, a stray kept just close enough to ensure everyone remembered who had the power to give and take away.
Selene stopped in front of Luna and crouched gracefully, the fabric of her dress pooling around her like moonlight.
"Do you know why I bother with you?" she asked, head tilted, blue eyes bright with a cruel light.
Luna swallowed. "...Because you enjoy it."
Selene's smile sharpened.
"At least you're not completely stupid." She reached forward, catching Luna's chin between her thumb and forefinger, forcing her to meet her gaze. "But that's not the only reason."
Up close, Selene's beauty was almost inhuman. High cheekbones, flawless skin, lips the color of rose petals, hair like spun gold, woven with silver threads and tiny pearls. She was every storybook Alpha's Luna brought to life—elegant, powerful, adored.
And she knew it.
"This pack," she said softly, "is watching me. They look at how I carry myself, how I manage the household, how I... handle problems. And you, little orphan, are the perfect problem."
Luna's pulse stumbled.
"I get to show them I am merciful—because I let you stay," Selene continued. "And I get to show them I am firm—because I never let you forget what you are."
Her nails dug suddenly into Luna's skin, sharp crescents of pain in her jaw.
"An orphan," Selene whispered. "A mistake. A mouth that should have starved along with the bodies it came from."
Heat flooded Luna's face. Her vision blurred for a moment—not from the pain, but from white-hot shame. She forced herself not to pull away. That only made things worse.
She had learned that lesson early: submission bought shorter torment. Resistance bought blood.
"Th–thank you," she croaked. The words tasted like ash. "For letting me stay."
Selene's laugh was soft and delighted.
"Listen to her," she murmured to the empty room. "Trained so well."
Footsteps sounded outside. Selene released her and stood just as Beta Kael passed by the open doorway, speaking with a junior warrior. His deep voice rumbled faintly, the words indistinct. His gaze flicked once inside, sweeping over Luna kneeling on the wet floor, then took in Selene's composed posture.
He nodded to Selene in brief respect and kept walking.
He did not look at Luna again.
No one ever did, not for more than a heartbeat.
"See?" Selene said lightly, her tone morphing instantly into something sweet and serene now that there had been witnesses. "This is what discipline looks like. You should be grateful I'm taking the time to... correct you."
"I am," Luna said automatically.
"Good." Selene's voice cooled once more as the footsteps faded. "Because without me, you'd be a wild little rat hiding in the woods. You owe me everything. Never forget that."
Luna's fingers dug into the wet rag until her knuckles went white.
"I won't," she said.
Selene smoothed her dress and stepped daintily over the puddle.
"The Alpha wants his cloak brushed and brought to the hall before supper," she said without looking back. "If you're late, I'll make sure you can't stand long enough to attend the meal at all. And don't even think about spilling anything on it. Or breathing on it too hard. Or..." She glanced over her shoulder, lips twisting in amusement. "Existing too close to it."
She left with a soft swirl of skirts and the faint chime of the silver anklet she wore, its tiny bells a deceptively delicate sound that had come to mean danger to Luna's ears.
Silence settled heavily in her wake.
For a few moments, all Luna could do was kneel there, chest rising and falling too fast, the cold seep from the water slowly working its way into her bones. Her cheek burned where Selene's nails had dug in, heat radiating outward.
Then she forced herself to move.
She cleaned first, because Selene would know if she left a mess. She always knew. Luna wrung out the rag and swiped it across the floor in steady strokes, squeezing the water back into the bucket with practiced motions. Her hands were small, but they were used to this: scrubbing, mending, hauling, carrying.
A runt was never trusted with tasks that mattered—only the ones no one cared to think about.
By the time she was done, her fingers were wrinkled and numb. The light from the high, narrow window above the wash basins had faded to the dim blue of evening. Luna set the rag aside and stood, wincing as her bruised ribs pulled.
The Alpha's cloak.
She crossed the courtyard quickly, keeping to shadows, shoulders automatically hunching in on themselves whenever someone walked past. Warriors emerged from the training field, sweat-damp and laughing, shoving each other in good-natured roughhousing. A few of them glanced her way, eyes sliding over her like she was just another broom leaning against the wall.
Luna kept her head down and moved faster.
Inside the main house, the air changed. Richer scents—roasted meat, herbs from the kitchen, polished wood, the faint perfume of Selene's lingering presence—crowded the space. Furs lined the walls, trophies from hunts and battles long past. The Moonshadow crest, a silver crescent over a shadowed forest, gleamed from carved beams and embroidered tapestries.
This had never felt like home.
She slipped into the small side room where the Alpha's outer garments were stored. Racks of cloaks in dark, heavy fabrics lined the walls, smelling of leather and pine and something distinctly male. Orion's scent—stronger than the rest, clean and wild like a storm over the mountains—hung thickest on the largest of them.
Luna's hand hovered for an instant before she reached for his black cloak, the one lined in dark grey fur. Her fingertips brushed the edge, and a faint shiver ran down her arms.
She told herself it was just the cold of the fabric.
Orion was a presence more than a person in her life. Alpha now, since his father's death two winters ago, he carried the weight of the pack like an invisible mantle broader than any cloak. Luna saw him sometimes at a distance: on the training field, issuing calm commands; on the dais in the hall, shoulders straight, jaw set; at ceremonies beneath the full moon, face turned upward in reverent stillness.
He almost never looked at her.
On the rare occasions his gaze had swept past her—a stray glance when she refilled his cup at dinner, or when she scuttled out of the way of his boots in the corridor—his expression had been unreadable. Not cruel like Selene's. Not mocking like some of the warriors'. Just... distant. As if she were no more significant than the shadow of a chair leg.
She had no idea if he even remembered the night his father had brought her in, swaddled and screaming. To him, she was one more duty inherited along with the title and the pack. A mouth to feed. A body to house. An inconvenience.
Luna lifted the cloak carefully from its peg. The weight of it made her arms strain. She laid it across the small table, grabbed the stiff-bristled brush, and began to sweep it in long, even strokes, just as the housekeeper had drilled into her years ago.
Brush with the nap. Never against.
Her thoughts drifted as the repetitive motion soothed the lingering tremble in her hands.
They drifted, as they always did when she was alone, toward the one place she allowed them to go: upward, past wooden ceilings and stone walls, past the highest pine, to the cold silver face that watched them all.
*Moon Goddess,* she thought, the words as familiar as breathing. *Are you listening?*
No one had taught her the formal prayers. The ones the Elders recited during ceremonies under the moon's full glow were all stiff vowels and ancient phrases that turned to dust the moment they left her tongue. But her own words—awkward, plain, clumsy—felt truer.
*Did you mean for me to live?* she asked silently, brush gliding over smooth fur. *Did you mean for me to end up here, with them? Or did something go wrong?*
A burst of raucous laughter drifted from the hall, followed by the clink of cups. Luna paused, listening. The scent of roasted venison made her stomach twist painfully; she couldn't remember her last full meal. It didn't matter. She'd eat later, when the best cuts were long gone and only scraps remained.
She went back to brushing.
*If you saved me,* she thought, *if it was you who guided me to this pack instead of letting me die with my parents... why?*
She had asked that question so many times it had worn a groove inside her, a hollow where everything else tumbled. At first, as a child, she'd imagined simple answers: that she was meant to become a warrior, or a healer, or someone important. Someone who didn't flinch whenever bootsteps approached.
But years had passed, and all she'd become was smaller on the inside.
Luna's jaw tightened. The bristles snagged on a small tangle in the fur. She worked it free with careful fingers.
*If this is all I am meant to be,* she thought, *then I'll accept it. I'll live it. Just... send me something. A sign. A reason. A way to keep going.*
She finished with the cloak, running her palm down to smooth any remaining wrinkles, then gathered it carefully in her arms. Its weight settled against her like another burden to carry. She stepped back into the corridor, heart picking up speed as she approached the main hall's double doors.
The hall buzzed with voices, firelight flickering against stone and polished wood. Banners bearing the Moonshadow crest hung from the rafters. Long tables were crowded with pack members, bowls and plates and jugs littering every surface. At the head of the room, on a raised dais, the high table held Orion, Selene at his side, and a few of the senior wolves.
Luna hovered at the edge for a moment, eyes lowering automatically. She felt the press of attention without seeing it. Some wolves liked to humor themselves by watching her stumble through her duties, nudging each other at every small misstep. Others ignored her entirely.
"Move, runt."
A shoulder bumped her as one of the warriors shouldered past, nearly sending her into the doorframe. She caught herself just in time, fingers clenching around the cloak. The man didn't look back.
Heat flushed her face. She ducked her head further and slipped along the edge of the hall, hugging the walls until she reached the side of the dais. She could feel Selene's gaze before she dared look up.
The future Luna was radiant tonight, draped in a gown of midnight blue that clung to her curves and spilled in shimmering waves to the floor. Silver jewelry traced the line of her throat and wrists, catching the firelight. Her golden hair fell in a cascade down her back, intricate braids woven through with tiny moonstone beads.
By contrast, Luna felt like a smudge of shadow at the edge of a painting.
"Your cloak, Alpha," she murmured, voice barely carrying over the din as she approached the back of Orion's chair.
She didn't expect a response. She never did.
But Orion's head turned slightly, and for a heartbeat she found herself caught in his profile: the strong line of his jaw, the faint scar along his cheekbone from a training accident years ago, the dark hair tied at the nape of his neck. His eyes—a deep, stormy grey—flicked to the cloak in her hands, then, briefly, to her face.
The contact was fleeting, like a spark that didn't quite catch.
"Leave it," he said simply, his voice low and even.
Luna set the folded cloak carefully over the back of his chair, fingers moving fast, then stepped back, ready to retreat to the shadows.
Selene's hand appeared, languidly curling around Orion's arm as she leaned toward him. Her perfume wafted over Luna again, cloying and sweet.
"Careful, my love," Selene said in a tone pitched just loud enough for those nearby to hear. "If you let the little stray touch your things too often, her scent might linger."
A few chuckles bubbled from the closest table.
Luna froze, then forced herself to move, backing away before someone pointed out how obviously she wanted to disappear.
Orion's brow furrowed.
"Selene," he said quietly, a note of rebuke there. "Enough."
Selene's smile didn't falter, but her eyes cooled by a degree.
"I'm only teasing," she murmured, patting his hand. "Everyone knows you're generous. Letting her stay is proof of that."
Her gaze slid to Luna like a knife.
"Isn't it, little one?" she called out, bright and falsely warm. "Aren't we generous?"
Dozens of heads turned toward Luna at once.
Her throat went dry. Her mind blanked. All she could feel was the weight of their attention and the familiar, suffocating heat of humiliation creeping up her neck.
"Yes," she managed, voice thin. "You are. I... thank you."
The laughter that followed was scattered, uneasy in some places, cruel in others. Luna kept her expression carefully neutral, the practiced mask of someone who had learned the hard way that showing hurt only made the game more entertaining for those who played it.
She dipped her head in a small bow and retreated, Selene's satisfied eyes burning between her shoulder blades.
When she finally escaped into the cooler air of the corridor, she sucked in a shaky breath and pressed her back to the wall, eyes squeezed shut.
The dinner bell rang again behind her, summoning any stragglers.
Luna turned away.
She didn't go to the kitchens. She didn't go to her small room tucked behind the laundry. Instead, she slipped out a side door and into the thickening dusk.
Outside, the air was sharper, tinged with pine and the faint promise of night. The sounds of the pack—laughter, clatter, the distant bark of orders from the training field—faded as she crossed the yard and headed for the treeline.
No one stopped her. No one called her back. She was too insignificant to notice leaving, and too predictable: everyone knew the runt preferred shadows.
Roots snaked across the ground as she entered the woods, tree trunks rising like pillars into the canopy above. The last light of day filtered through the leaves in streaks of dying gold. A chill slipped between the trees, brushing over her bare forearms and cooling the flush from her cheeks.
Luna walked a familiar path, feet finding every dip and rise without thought. Twigs snapped softly under her thin-soled shoes; an owl hooted somewhere overhead. Every few steps, she had to wipe her eyes on the back of her hand, furious with herself for the tears.
"It's nothing," she muttered under her breath. "It's always been like this. This is normal. Stop crying."
But the words didn't change the tightness in her chest or the heaviness in her limbs.
The trees began to thin ahead, and then she stepped into her place: a small clearing ringed by birch and pine, the grass soft underfoot, the sky open above like a darkening bowl. In the center, a flat rock jutted from the ground, worn smooth with time and weather.
Luna climbed onto it and sat cross-legged, arms wrapped around herself.
The first stars pricked the horizon. Above the jagged line of the distant mountains, a faint glow heralded the moon's rise.
She closed her eyes.
"Moon Goddess," she whispered to the chill air. "Lady of Night. Mother of Wolves. Queen of Silver."
The titles weren't formal; they'd simply come to her over the years, pieced together from fragments of stories and her own desperate imagination. They felt more real on her tongue than the polished phrases the Elders used.
"It's me again," she said quietly, almost embarrassed at the thought of being repetitive even in prayer. "Luna."
A bitter half-laugh escaped her.
"Luna," she repeated. "They named me for you, you know. The runt named for the moon. Maybe they thought it was funny."
She leaned back on her hands and lifted her face to the sky, the last traces of daylight painting the edges of the clouds in bruised purple and red.
"You've heard all this before," she murmured. "Same silly girl, same pathetic problems. Today Selene pushed my face into the floor and called me waste again. Yesterday she made me run laps until I threw up behind the kennels. The day before that..." She trailed off, jaw clenching. "You were there. You always are."
Crickets had begun their chorus. A breeze moved through the branches, setting the leaves whispering.
"I don't understand why you let me live," she confessed to the darkening sky. "If all I'm meant to do is... to exist so she has someone to step on, what's the point? I'm tired. I'm so tired."
Her voice cracked on the last word. She blinked up at the first shy sliver of moon cresting the trees, a pale curve that looked almost fragile, but she knew better. Even a sliver of the moon could tug on the oceans and drag the tides.
"Do you know what it's like?" she asked. "To be surrounded by a pack and still feel alone? To hear them talk about their parents, their siblings, their mates, and know you're just... extra. A mistake that refused to die."
She swallowed, hard.
"I hear them whisper when they think I can't," she went on. "That my parents were rogues. That they brought bad luck. That letting me live cursed this pack. I don't even remember their faces. I don't remember anything but this place and their voices."
She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, pressing her forehead against them for a moment.
"If they were truly guilty of something," she whispered, "why am *I* the one paying for it?"
She waited for anger to come, hot and cleansing, something that might burn through the numbness. It didn't. All that rose was a deep, hollow ache.
"Sometimes," she admitted, voice barely audible, "I wish you'd just taken me with them. That I'd died on that border and never had to learn how to flinch exactly right so it hurts less, or how to make myself so small no one sees me until they need something wiped or carried."
A tear slipped free, warm against the cool night.
"But I didn't die," she said stubbornly. "I'm here. So... why?"
The moon climbed higher, shedding more of itself, its pale light slowly washing over the clearing. Stars bloomed around it, scattered dust across the endless dark.
"Everyone else seems to know their place," Luna said. "Even the ones who complain—they still belong. They're warriors. Scouts. Healers. Mothers. Sons. Daughters. They have names that mean something when people say them. When they say *Luna*, they just mean... the runt. The orphan. The burden."
She let the words hang there, sour and bitter.
"I'm afraid," she admitted, throat tight. "Not of Selene. Not really. Not anymore. I'm afraid that this is all there ever will be. That I'll grow up and grow old and die in a corner of the laundry room, and the only thing anyone will say is, 'Remember that little stray? What a shame she never amounted to anything.'"
Her fingers dug into the rock beneath her. The surface was rough and cool, grounding.
"If that's the truth," she said, "then show me. Let me... accept it. Let me stop hoping for more. Because this hope—it hurts more than her hands do."
The wind picked up, carrying the scents of pine, damp earth, and distant smoke. It wrapped around her like invisible fingers, tugging at her hair, ghosting over the bruises she hid beneath her clothes.
She tipped her head back and spoke directly to the moon now, her voice thin but steady.
"But if there *is* more," she whispered, "if you kept me alive for a reason, if there's something out there beyond this pack that I can't see yet... please. I'm begging you. Show me. Give me a sign. A dream. A feeling. Anything. I don't care if it's difficult, or dangerous, or if it hurts. I'll take it." Her hands curled into fists. "Just... don't leave me like this. Half-alive. Half-hoping."
Silence answered.
The forest breathed. An owl swooped low across the clearing, silent wings pale in the moonlight. Somewhere far off, a wolf howled—a long, mournful sound that made Luna's bones ache with a yearning she didn't have words for.
Luna let out a shaky breath.
"I know you're busy," she muttered, a faint, self-deprecating smile tugging at her mouth. "You've got bigger things to worry about than one useless girl in a corner of one fairly average pack."
Her smile faded.
"But I'm still going to talk to you," she said softly. "Because if I stop... I don't know what I'll be. There'll be nothing left but the bruises and the scrubbing and the way she says my name like it's something stuck to the bottom of her shoe."
The moon had fully risen now, a slender crescent casting a gentle, silvery glow over the clearing. It washed over Luna's upturned face, softened the angles of her jaw and the shadows beneath her tired eyes.
For the first time that day, the unbearable tightness in her chest eased.
"Maybe tomorrow will be different," she said, because she had to. "Maybe you'll send me something then."
She slid off the rock and sank to her knees in the grass, bowing her head low until her forehead touched the cool earth.
"Moon Goddess," she whispered into the soil and roots and stone. "Please. Don't forget me. Don't leave me in this place forever. If I'm meant to rise, help me stand. If I'm meant to leave, show me how. If I'm meant to fight, give me something inside myself that isn't afraid."
Her shoulders shook once, twice. Then she straightened slowly and wiped her face with both hands, smearing away tears and dirt alike.
"I'll come back tomorrow," she promised the watching sky. "And the next day. And the next. Until you answer. Or until I don't have a voice left."
She turned away from the clearing, the moonlight tracing her small figure as she melted back into the trees.
On the way home, she moved more quietly. The night sharpened her senses: the crunch of leaves underfoot, the distant rustle of some animal in the underbrush, the soft hoot of an owl changing perch. The pack's sounds grew nearer with each step—the murmur of voices, a burst of raucous laughter, the clank of pots in the kitchen.
By the time she slipped in through the back entrance, supper was well underway. She kept to the shadows along the walls, avoiding pools of firelight, skirting the open doors where warmth and noise spilled out.
No one called her name.
Her small room behind the laundry was little more than a narrow rectangle carved out of unused space. A thin mattress lay on a low wooden frame, a single blanket folded at the foot. A wooden crate beside the bed held the few belongings she possessed: a second shirt, mended with uneven stitches; a pair of trousers; a chipped mug; a scrap of cloth embroidered with a crude crescent moon—the first and only thing she had ever sewn for herself.
A tiny square window, placed too high to look out of without standing on the bed, let in a sliver of moonlight. It painted a pale line across the floorboards.
Luna closed the door softly behind her and leaned against it for a moment, listening.
Nothing but the faint gurgle of pipes and the distant thump of footsteps overhead.
She crossed to the bed and sat down gingerly, testing how much her ribs protested. Pain flared, sharp and local, but not deep. No broken bones this time. Just bruises. Bruises would fade.
They always did.
She lay back and stared up at the low ceiling, following the hairline cracks with her eyes. Her limbs felt heavy, but her mind wouldn't still. Selene's words repeated in her head, a poisoned mantra.
*Waste. Stray. Mistake.*
Luna turned her head, looking toward the window. From this angle, she could just see a slice of the night sky: a dark blue cut, the edge of the moon hanging there like a piece of bone.
"Watch me," she whispered into the dimness. "Please."
She didn't know if the Moon Goddess could see into rooms like this, if her light could find its way through narrow windows and worn shutters. But she asked anyway.
"Watch me," she said again, quieter. "I'll get up tomorrow. I'll scrub and carry and run until my legs give out. I'll endure whatever she decides I deserve. But I'm not going to stop asking you for more. Even if it makes me a fool. Especially if it does."
Her eyelids grew heavy.
As sleep crept in at the edges of her thoughts, one last, stubborn fragment of herself reached out—past the plaster and stone, past the roofs and treetops, toward that cold, distant light.
*Please,* she thought one final time, too faint for words. *If there's anything in me worth saving... don't let it be crushed here.*
Her breathing slowed. The lines of tension in her face softened. The night wrapped her in its cool hands.
Far above the Moonshadow compound, the moon sailed silently across the sky, casting its pale sheen over rooftops and treetops and the small, forgotten room where an orphan runt slept with tear tracks still damp on her cheeks.
There was no thunder, no vision, no voice splitting the sky.
But in the deep, hidden places of the world—beneath roots and rivers, beneath stone and shadow—something ancient shifted, like an eye opening a fraction wider.
And in Luna's chest, just behind the bruises and the ache, a faint warmth flickered once, as if a coal had been touched by a breath only it could feel.
She did not wake. She did not know.
But the Moon Goddess had heard. And though the pack still saw only a runt beneath their moon, the first, almost imperceptible steps of a different path had already begun to unfold beneath Luna's tired feet.