Chapter 32: Alphas Gone Wild

A slave walked away from a bonfire, a holier-than-thou priestess, and three Alpha-blooded men who tried to go after her so fast their Betas had to restrain them.

Their wolves lost their shit.

The first Alpha’s wolf came up swinging. The torches around him turned blood-red. Every wolf nearby got the fuck out of the way. He crashed to all fours, fighting the phoenix sensation, and said the words out loud that he thought to his wolf: "STAND DOWN."

The second’s suit lit up like the sun. His wolf got halfway to the surface before lightning flashed. The only reason he didn’t shift was his Beta had him by the torso, and he was losing the tug-of-war by the inch.

The third’s wolf surged in tandem with his brothers. Lightning doubled in the sky. But this was his fifty-second attempt at getting this day right and he had never reached the results in the arena, let alone the sacred fire. He fought his wolf with every fiber in his body because he was not going to be the reason there was a fifty-third try.

"What’s happening to them?" a draftee whispered, watching the Betas restrain the Alphas. None of the other draftees answered her. No one knew.

Nova didn’t see any of that.

She kept walking.

None of the sounds registered. Sounds had been treating her head like a piñata all day. Her brain quit, flipped the table, and set it on fire.

There was some whispering. To be expected. This was a very long ceremony.

"Is that... supposed to happen?"

"Does ANYTHING here look like it’s supposed to be happening?"

"...Fair point."

What registered was the flashbang from hell. Light supernovaed across the clearing, and every set of eyes paid the price. Her shadow appeared on the ground in front of her, like divine intervention had pointed a floodlight at her back.

Every wolf in the corridor was shielding their eyes, forearms up, heads turned, squinting through fingers like the sun had relocated to ground level. Women who had been standing with their fists to their chests were now using those fists to block out the light.

Nova glanced down at her shadow again. It was still there. Still being cast by something behind her that she had already walked away from.

She assumed it was the next woman in line. Maria’s had been a spectacle. Maybe whoever stepped up after Nova had a wolf with a flair for theatrics and the Goddess was rolling out the red carpet. If it were up to Nova, every woman here would get that. Good for that girl in the mid-five-hundreds for earning a flame that bright.

She hoped that priestess took note and got a migraine from it.

She continued towards the treeline.

Then warmth arrived. It sucker-punched her so hard, she grunted, buckled, and stumbled forward all in the same second.

She forced her back straight because she really wanted to get to those damn woods and ideally not collapse in front of the group that just witnessed her rejection. She took another step. Her composure had been running on fumes and duct tape.

More warmth flooded into her bloodstream. Warmth that felt like honey and moved like mercy. It was the feeling of being held by something she couldn’t see, something that had no hands but was holding her anyway, and it was the most comforting thing she had ever experienced in her life.

It wasn’t stopping either. It grew stronger like someone was turning up the setting on it.

Then something told her to stop.

She couldn’t identify the source. Instinct wore a different costume. This was quieter. Older. The kind of voice that doesn’t ask permission because it predates the concept.

Her legs stopped moving.

Then whatever it was took over. The equivalent of a gentle hand on the steering wheel and a calm voice saying I’ve got this, you can stop white-knuckling it now. She was aware. She could feel her body, feel the ground, feel the air. But she was a passenger.

She felt herself turn slowly.

The sacred flame was gone. In its place was a white cylinder of fire that towered at least two hundred feet tall, making the priestess look ant-sized in comparison.

It was white. Pure, blinding, retina-divorcing white. Every color from the story, the emerald, the ruby, the sapphire, the silver, the gold, none of them applied. This wasn’t on the menu. This wasn’t in the sermon.

An elder who had attended more sacred fires than anyone in the clearing was barking orders.

"AWAY FROM THE FIRE. ALL OF YOU! MOVE BACK. NOW."

No one moved. Everyone around the elder seemed to have lost their ability to hear. Two Betas from rival packs exchanged a look that was worth a thousand words.

FWOOM.

Every torch in the clearing doubled in height and changed to white. Even the ones that were red moments ago. It was the same impossible, unnatural, soul-bleaching white that was currently rewriting the skyline.

One wolf near the perimeter watched his torch go white and took a step away from it like it might do something else.

Nova blinked, a bit surprised by the display, still not fully understanding what was happening. But then again, neither was anyone else.

That’s when she noticed outlines of wolves running around the column of flame, barely distinguishable from the fire itself.

A warrior’s voice sounded nearby.

"What ARE those?"

No one answered.

One wolf broke off. It came low and fast across the clearing and it didn’t slow down when it reached Nova. It circled her once. Twice. Then pressed its muzzle into her palm. Nova looked down at it, dazed. It felt real like fur, but it was definitely made of light. Or fire. She wasn’t sure.

This was off-script, off-book, and off the goddamn rails. The Goddess had apparently decided that subtlety was bullshit and pyrotechnics were the answer.

Nova’s eyes swept the hill. There was no one new at the flame.

The priestess looked like a woman whose entire damn religion had just gone rogue and left her standing there holding her holy dick in the wind.

In hindsight, turning her back on a divine fire was either the bravest or the dumbest thing Nova had ever done. The Goddess apparently found it hilarious.