Winter in Alberta was a white shroud stitched across the earth by the sky itself. At the heart of that shroud, the herd house throbbed like a sweaty, smoky, and thunderous pulse.
Tonight was the Winter Solstice. We were in the depths of that ancient night where wolves hallowed the moment the sun was at its weakest and darkness at its most potent.
Deer skeletons, fresh pine boughs, and crimson mistletoe hung from the ceiling of the cavernous hall.
Candlelight, seeping from the hollow eye sockets of the bones, cast trembling shadows onto the raw timber floors. In the center of the hall, the massive fireplace roared. Juniper branches crackled as they burned, bleeding a resinous, sooty smoke into the air. The Betas celebrated the arrival of winter by clashing their heavy wooden mugs, tearing into whole roasted boars and steaming haunches of venison. Their laughter rose like battle cries, mingling with the howling gale outside.
In one corner of the hall, the drums began their beat. Young wolves, their faces smeared with sacrificial blood and grey ash, danced in greeting to the "Spirit of Winter" with every heavy stomp of their feet upon the earth.
I, however, stood on the periphery of all this savagery and joy—a rare, mislabeled specimen in a museum display case. My hybridity flowed through my veins like a mistake; one half of me whispered that I belonged to this bloody ritual, while the other half shuddered at the scent of raw meat and sweat, longing to flee.
I felt like a vendor in the middle of a meat market. I was surrounded by a slaughterhouse, yet I stood there like a mere sentry, simply killing time.
This was a difficult place for an Omega whose exact nature remained a blurred mystery, accepted only as a technicality of the pack. Amidst everyone's display of power, I felt as if I were running around waving a red flag. There was a sense of unsuitability in me, an inherent "wrongness."
Perhaps it was my tainted, poisonous blood that caused this; perhaps it was the human heart beating in my chest.
Then, the crowd split in two, like a knife tearing through fabric.
Kael.
What a man he was...
If you set aside the wolf nonsense, he was the kind of handsome youth you'd want to swoon over in a school hallway. That was why my poor wolf heart and my low-IQ human side could be enchanted by him in every possible way !
It was as if he had been born to a double standard. When God kneaded his clay, He must have stolen the materials from every other Alpha male in the world. He had been generous only to Kael.
At the center of the ritual, he stood in all his glory. He was leagues away from the brute force and sweaty ferocity of the other Alphas.
Even the ash mask smeared across his face could not obscure those smooth, marble-like noble features. In his grey wool sweater and steel chain, he was the most refined, most unattainable being in this primitive rite. He wasn't just a leader he was the forbidden, dazzling fantasy that adorned every woman's dreams.
When his gaze found me in that dim corner, time seemed to suspend for a heartbeat. The faint, flirtatious smile that played on his lips—a smile that belonged only to me—imprisoned all the surrounding noise behind a wall of glass.
He walked toward me with heavy, confident strides. With every step, the rest of the hall seemed to blur into insignificance; the world had begun to revolve solely around him.
As he reached me, his scent dispersed the sooty air of the hall. It was intoxicating. Truly maddening.
Unlike the stale odor of hunted prey, the slackened skin of fish, and the reek of smoke carried by other Alphas, his scent was beautiful. It smelled of fresh mint, clean snow, and purified cold.
He gently tucked his fingers beneath my chin, tilting my face toward him. The touch was so light, as if he were a master of porcelain afraid I might shatter.
"The shadows are trying to hide you from me again, Vespera," he murmured. His voice resonated like a silver wire inside a velvet sheath—soft, yet razor-sharp.
"Yet the light of the ritual should shine in those silvery eyes of yours. The pack should see winter's most precious gift."
He leaned in, his breath brushing against my ear like a winter breeze. "I know that old council still trembles at the thought of a mixed-blood being this pack's Luna. But..." He placed his hand on my waist, pulling me an inch closer. It was a move that was both flirtatious and a clear message to the entire room: She is mine!
"Knowing your skin will be sealed to my soul is more real than all my prayers tonight."
Kael's lips left a cool kiss on my neck, right over my carotid artery. It wasn't a marking—not yet. But in that moment, under his admiring, flirtatious, and possessive gaze, it was impossible not to feel like the most precious treasure in the world. He was the "Dream Boy" everyone craved, and that night, he was shining only for me.
When his lips pulled away, the roar of the room fell upon us like a guillotine. As he returned to his throne, to that glittering circle of Alphas and Betas, the void he left behind filled with an icy draft. I could feel the weight of their stares... thousands of needle points piercing my skin, pinning me to the spot.
The raspy whispers of the Beta warriors who never left Kael's side rose above the drumbeats, reaching my ears.
"A mixed-blood Omega..." one of them said, making no effort to mask the disgust in his voice. "A useless thing with nothing but a pretty face, watering down the blood of the pack... Why is Kael wasting his time on such barren land?"
"Because she's a rare toy." another replied, slamming his glass onto the table. "But when winter ends, toys break. We need a purebred womb that can provide an heir—not a hybrid carrying the risk of human offspring."
Those words were like a deep gash opened in the marrow. In their eyes, my hybridity was a curse—a black stain on the genetic purity of the herd that brought only weakness and shame. It wasn't just the men's gazes that were poisonous; the Omegas huddled in the far corner were just as lethal. Especially Lira—the purebred Omega deemed most fit for Kael's side, with hair the color of fire and eyes burning with ambition. She never looked away. The fake laugh she let out while whispering to the girls beside her grated on my ears like a crystal vase falling to the floor and shattering.
It was as if I were a rabbit, not a wolf.
They didn't stop chasing me. Each of them grabbed a limb, draining my blood as if to tear me asunder. If it were only my body they craved, at some point I would have simply said, "Fine, take my wretched hybridity." But the real war was being waged for my soul.
They treated my very existence as a grand, cruel joke. They couldn't comprehend the Omega community, who saw themselves as nothing more than a hollow womb. The Alphas were trapped in a mindless cycle, finding honor in sowing chaos only to pride themselves on ending it; boasting of a hierarchy they had done nothing to earn since birth.
And the Betas... they were efficient enough, but they loved playing at being Alphas whenever the throne was empty. In the midst of this, most Omegas were prisoners of a jagged, unjust fate. Unless you chanced upon a generous enough Alpha, you were reduced to a mere incubator—a broodmare. You were like prey with a mark branded upon your neck.
When Lira looked at me with that patronizing pity, I couldn't find it in me to lash out. It wasn't that I was weak; it was just that as long as we viewed each other as "husband-thieves" instead of uniting for our own survival, nothing would ever change.
Perhaps I am just a fool whose wolf never woke, carrying a dormant poison within me. But the more I dwell on it, the more I simply wish to stop thinking altogether.
Lira glided through the crowd toward me. As she swirled the mug in her hand, the twisted smile on her face was as artificial as a mask.
"Kael is quite generous again today, isn't he, Vespera?" she said, every word in her voice carrying the venom of a scorpion's tail.
"He pities you so much that he leaves a little kiss of consolation on your neck in front of everyone. But we all know, darling... that silver mark will never be permanent on your skin. An Alpha, no matter how flirtatious, eventually returns home. And your blood can never offer him a home—only a temporary stop."
The other girls around us giggled in approval. As a hybrid, I was both the most protected and the most excluded part of the pack. Kael kept me inside a glass display case, but everyone outside was dying to throw a stone.
"My blood is none of your concern, Lira," I said, masking the tremor in my voice.
"It is my concern," she hissed, taking a step closer to unleash her dominant, purebred Omega scent upon me. "Because as long as you are here, the pack's fertility is choked. A barren Omega is winter's darkest omen. Your womb will never hold seed. It will never carry wolf-cubs. You'll die in labor just like your wretched human mother, leaving the Alpha widowed and childless for nothing!"
As she turned and sauntered away with unshakable confidence, the heavy, hate-filled atmosphere didn't dissipate. In every corner of the hall, there was a whisper of "useless," a snarl of "disapproval." Kael was my only sun in the eye of this storm, but even his light wasn't enough to eclipse this dark hatred.
While the Omega inside me was about to drown in this sea of rejection, my wolf side wanted only to flee. To escape this savage, judgmental world for the ordinary one—where I was seen only as "Vespera." To the laughter of humans that held no malice... I had gone to school like a real child. There, my status mattered to no one. The only concern was whether I'd finish my shitty school lunch pasta or which TV show we'd binge-watch next.
We didn't talk about the "hunt" with the girls; the boys weren't "matches" or "rivals." We could do our nails with the girls and watch American football with the guys.
Better yet, we could have "ship wars" on internet forums that even God had forgotten after creating them!
While Lira's poisonous whispers still hung in the air, a voice like a roll of thunder rose from the other end of the hall. There was a Vespera who lived there—one whose Omega status interested no one. A Vespera who wasn't viewed as a mere womb. A Vespera who worried about exams and was valued for her ideas, not because she was someone's mate or the mother of their children...
The Omega inside me, trembling under the yoke of this world, was weeping—but it wasn't me! She is the one crying, not me!
"Enough! The filth pouring from these mouths has started to smell heavier than the sacrificial blood!"
Suddenly, the crowd parted. Two of the pack's most trusted claws, Jax and Rhea, were approaching. Jax, with his massive shoulders and battle-worn face, was the quintessential Guardian Alpha. Rhea was his polar opposite—sharp-featured but carrying a maternal fire in her eyes, known as the swiftest female Alpha in the herd.
Nestled against Rhea's chest in a silk wrap, their few-month-old infant slept in serene peace. This child was the pack's sacred fruit, yet its parents were using that very sanctity as a shield to protect Vespera.
Jax descended like a nightmare upon the Betas who had just called Vespera "barren." He slammed his empty mug onto the table with such force that the bones scattered across the wood rattled.
"You lot!" Jax roared, eyeing the Betas one by one. "Men whose tongues loosen too easily during the winter rite! If I hear a single syllable regarding Vespera's blood ever again, I will sacrifice those tongues to the winter fire with my own hands. Get back to work!"
Cowering under Jax's crushing Alpha aura, the Betas retreated to their tables. Once he had dispersed them like a lion tamer, Jax turned to Vespera, his expression softening. Meanwhile, Rhea stood directly in front of Lira. The infant in her arms stirred slightly, but the piercing gaze in Rhea's eyes pinned Lira to the spot.
"Lira," Rhea said, her voice as thin and cold as a scalpel. "Before you boast of your own fertility, you should learn that being an Alpha's mate is about more than just a womb. Vespera is the heart of this pack. And if you attack the heart, you will find us standing in your way."
Swallowing hard against Rhea's unshakable authority, Lira turned on her heel and vanished into the crowd.
Rhea stepped beside Vespera, her free hand affectionately stroking her arm.
"Don't mind them, dear," she whispered. "When winter comes, wolves talk nonsense out of hunger. To us, you aren't a hybrid; you are Vespera."
Jax threw an arm over Rhea's shoulder and winked at Vespera. "Kael will ask you to dance soon; that'll shut their mouths for good. But for now—" Jax barked another command at the scuttling Betas, "You fools! Carry those logs faster! The ritual fire is dying out!"
As Jax and Rhea balanced soothing their baby with harshly correcting the pack's logistical blunders, Vespera felt as though she had found a small patch of dry land in the middle of a vast sea of hatred. Kael's glittering love felt like a crown, but Jax and Rhea's frantic, sincere defense was a true shield.
Yet, in the darkness outside the hall, a shadow smelling of gunpowder and leather continued to watch these scenes of friendship and Kael's flirtatious glances in profound silence—as if sharpening a thousand-year-old vengeance.
This was a table for wolves. You were either born to be someone significant, or you died as a nobody in a border skirmish. This was an empire of wolves. You either clung to the small wolf within you and defended yourself with a human soul, or...
I am Vespera, the seed of an Alpha father. The Vespera who managed to cling to life despite being a parasite that should never have survived in a human womb. And of that wolf inside me—the one who will never wake—I am the only friend...