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Fifteen winters had come and gone, and still, Jayden walked the edge of the pack like a ghost no one wanted to see.
He lived in the outskirts, far from the dens of the others, where the wind bit colder and the trees whispered louder. His shelter was nothing more than a hollowed tree reinforced with old stones and scavenged wood. But it was enough. He never asked for more. No one ever offered.
They feared him.
Not because he was violent — though he could be. Not because he was stronger — though he was. It was his eyes. They were wrong, they said. Too red, too alive. Like coals waiting for something to spark them into flame.
He heard them whisper at night. Cursed. Demon-born. Marked by the Blood Moon. They said he should have been left in the forest like the other half-borns. But Sarah, his mother, had defied that law. And for that, she paid with her life.
No one said it out loud, but Jayden knew.
Still, he survived.
He taught himself to hunt. Fought for every scrap of meat. Learned to take a punch without flinching and give one that made others think twice. He didn't train with the pack — they wouldn't allow it. So he trained with the shadows, with stone and snow and silence. The wild became his teacher.
And the fire inside him grew.
There were days he felt it boiling in his chest, like something ancient waking up, stretching in his bones. Sometimes, when the moon was full, his hands would shake and his vision would blur. He could hear the heartbeat of the forest. Feel the blood of the earth pulsing beneath his feet.
No one else talked about that. No one else felt it.
He didn't know what it meant. Only that it was his — and it was growing stronger.
When he turned fifteen, the High Alpha summoned him.
It was rare for someone of his status — an outcast, half-blood, barely tolerated — to be called before the Alpha himself. Jayden didn't ask questions. He showed up, dressed in a rough tunic and leathers, eyes sharp.
Merek sat on the carved blackstone throne in the center of the council hall. Old, powerful, and sharp as broken bone. Around him stood the elders, warriors, and betas of the Shadowfang Pack.
"You've lived on our land," Merek said, "eaten from our hunts, and drawn from our blood. Yet you give nothing in return."
Jayden held his ground. "Because no one lets me."
"You want a place here?" Merek leaned forward. "Prove it. There's a rogue pack gathering near the Ashen Pass. Kill them. Bring back their heads. Do that, and maybe we'll speak again."
Everyone knew it was a death sentence. The rogue clans were brutal, wild, and numerous. They didn't follow rules. They didn't show mercy. Sending one boy — even one as capable as Jayden — was just the pack's way of washing their hands clean.
Jayden only nodded.
Three days passed.
On the fourth, the gates of Shadowfang opened at dawn.
Jayden returned — bloodied, limping, but alive.
And he wasn't alone.
Behind him walked seven wolves. Rogues. Scarred, fierce, but silent. They didn't snarl. They didn't attack. They followed. And every one of them looked at Jayden with the kind of loyalty that couldn't be forced. Only earned.
He stood before the pack, dropped the bloody sigil of the rogue Alpha on the ground, and stared Merek in the eye.
"I completed your task," he said.
No one spoke. The silence was heavy. Charged.
Then Jayden added, "But I didn't bring back heads. I brought something better."
He turned, and the rogues bowed — not to the council, not to Merek.
To him.
That night, a new howl rose over the mountains. Fierce. Unrelenting.
And every wolf that heard it felt something deep in their bones:
The beginning of something they couldn't stop.