For a long time after that night on the porch, life settled into a steady rhythm for Ronan.
Training. Patrols. Observing meetings. Quiet lessons.
Nothing dramatic, nothing exceptional.
His father guided him with patience, shaping him not into a prodigy, but into someone steady. Someone responsible. Someone a pack could someday trust.
Ronan grew slowly, naturally, without anything remarkable in his blood or behavior.
By fourteen he stopped stumbling behind other betas.
By fifteen he held his ground in spars.
By sixteen he could predict pack tension better than some adults.
By seventeen he knew how to listen before speaking.
His father was proud — quietly, without needing to say it.
But that time did not last.
⸻
Not long after Ronan turned eighteen, his father died.
Not in battle.
Not at the hands of hunters.
Not through a wound.
His father died saving one of their own.
A young wolf had been mauled in an incident near the east fence — a wound deep enough to be fatal. The healer said the boy would not last the night.
And so Ronan watched, helpless, as his father placed a hand over the boy's chest, inhaled softly, and released everything he had left.
His spark.
His power.
His life-force.
A warm, golden pulse spread through the boy's body, stabilizing him instantly. His breathing evened out. His skin healed. His heartbeat steadied.
But the moment the spark left the Alpha…
His father collapsed.
Ronan reached him too late.
He died before Ronan could say goodbye.
⸻
Because the Alpha spark had been willingly burned to save another, there was nothing for Ronan to inherit.
No natural ascension.
No spark transfer.
No rite of succession.
He was the Alpha's son —
but not an Alpha.
He became simply the strongest beta left in a grieving pack.
A pack that suddenly relied on him more than he was ready for.
He did what he could.
He mediated small disputes.
He held meetings together.
He helped steady the territory during mourning.
He tried.
Not because he felt destined.
But because someone had to.
⸻
Then came the night everything changed.
Ronan left on a simple patrol — a routine errand, one he had done a hundred times before.
But he didn't return.
For days.
No one knew what happened.
No one knew where he was.
No one knew he was enduring the Trials — torture beneath mirrored moonlight meant to break wolves.
He didn't remember escaping.
Only pain.
Only running.
Only the sound of his heartbeat pounding louder than thought.
He crawled home.
Alone.
Collapsed at the edge of pack land.
They carried him inside with trembling hands.
⸻
Three days passed in stillness.
His body wasn't dying.
But it wasn't healing normally either.
His scent had shifted.
His heartbeat was stronger.
His nerves twitched with energy they didn't recognize.
His wolf was quiet — too quiet.
On the fourth night, under rolling thunder, Ronan finally inhaled sharply.
His back arched.
His eyes snapped open—
And glowed Alpha red.
Pure.
Unmistakable.
Wrong.
Instinct hit the room like pressure.
Betas lowered their eyes automatically.
One dropped to a knee.
Not out of loyalty —
but because something ancient in their blood told them to.
Yet none of them spoke.
Because none of them knew who he had killed.
Or what had happened.
Or how a boy with no inherited spark now carried an Alpha's glow in his eyes.
Ronan blinked hard.
The red faded back to his human blue-green.
Silence followed.
He looked down at his shaking hands — the same hands that, weeks ago, belonged to an ordinary beta with no future spark to inherit.
Now something else lived in his blood.
Something forged by suffering.
Something awakened by surviving what should have killed him.
He wasn't just "not Beta."
He wasn't "normal Alpha."
He was something born of pain, not lineage.
Something new.
Something the pack had no name for.