Chapter 139 THE FIRST STEP

Chapter 139 THE FIRST STEP
AMBER'S POV
I knew something was wrong the moment I stepped into the house and it felt empty in a way that had nothing to do with silence. The air was still, too still.
“My mother?” I called out before I even shut the door. “Mama?”
No answer and I knew I shouldn’t be surprised because at the same time, I knew everything that had happened and it surely wasn’t something I was happy about.
The kitchen still smelled like herbs and dried leaves. A pot sat on the stove, cold, like it had been left halfway through something. My mother never left anything halfway, not food or even work and definitely not words.
“Mama!” I called again, louder this time.
I checked her room first. The bed was made but her wooden box of beads was gone. The small mirror she kept by the window was gone too. The curtains were open, moving slightly with the wind. It felt like the room had been emptied carefully, not rushed and that scared me more than I was letting on.
I ran outside and almost crashed into my father in the yard. He was sitting on the low stone bench, his hands hanging between his knees. His shoulders looked heavy and smaller than the last time I had seen him.
“Papa, where is she?” I asked.
He didn’t look up at first. He just kept staring at the ground like it had answers written on it.
“Papa.”
He lifted his head slowly and his eyes were red, a far contrast to how I had expected to see him.
“She’s gone,” he said.
“Gone where?”
He swallowed. “She left.”
My chest tightened. “Left? Without telling me?”
He didn’t answer that, he just rubbed his face with both hands.
“She wouldn’t leave,” I said. “Not like this.”
He let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and wasn’t quite a sob. “There are things about your mother you don’t understand.”
I frowned. “Then explain them.”
He shook his head. “It’s not my place.”
The words stuck in my mind. Since when did my father believe anything about his mate wasn’t his place?
I stepped back slowly. “Did you fight?”
“No.” he said, as if trying to dismiss me.
“Did someone take her?”
“No.”
“Then why are you sitting here looking like the world ended?”
His jaw tightened. “Because it did.”
I stared at him. My father was Alpha by blood. Strong and loud and so very certain but right now he looked broken, not angry and vengeful. Just… broken and that frightened me more than if he had roared.
I walked back inside without another word. My heart was beating too fast even as my wolf felt restless under my skin, pacing.
Something wasn’t right, that much I knew and I hated not knowing what that was because I hated suspense.
I went into my mother’s small workroom at the back of the house. The shelves were still full of jars. Dried flowers and small bones with crushed leaves but some spaces were empty. Like she had taken only what mattered most.
My fingers brushed over a table, and I felt it again, that hum.
It had always been there when she worked. A quiet vibration in the air and I used to think it was just the sound of her grinding herbs but now, standing alone in the room, I realized the hum wasn’t coming from the tools, it was coming from me.
I stepped back quickly.
“No,” I whispered.
I had always known I was different from the other wolves in the pack. My shifts had come late and my senses worked strangely. I could hear things before they happened sometimes. Feel changes in the air but we always said it was because I was strong. Alpha blood.
Pure Alpha lineage, that was what my father always said.
“You carry only strength,” he used to tell me.
But now I remembered other things.
The way my mother never came to full moon hunts. The way some of the elders looked at her with quiet respect, not fear. The way she would press her hand to my forehead when I had nightmares, and the dreams would stop instantly. No wolf could do that.
I closed my eyes and focused on the hum inside me and it answered. Heat crawled along my fingers as I opened my eyes and saw the small candle on the table flicker.
I hadn’t touched it yet and I wasn’t intending to because I had no idea what this could mean.
My breathing grew uneven. “Stop,” I whispered.
The flame jumped higher as I pulled my hand back fast, knocking over a jar. It shattered on the floor. The flame burst, licking up the side of the wooden shelf.
“No!”
I rushed forward, grabbing a cloth to smother it. The fire died quickly, but my hands were shaking.
My wolf growled inside me, confused but this wasn’t wolf power, this was something else. I sank to the floor, staring at the black mark left behind.
My father’s words echoed in my head, there are things about your mother you don’t understand.
I thought about the way she used to look at me sometimes. Like she was waiting and like she knew something I didn’t.
I wasn’t just Alpha, I wasn’t pure. I didn’t feel ashamed and I didn’t feel angry.
I felt clarity as the pieces were sliding into place quietly, without anyone having to say them out loud. I pressed my palm flat against the floor and closed my eyes again as the hum grew stronger.
This time, I didn’t pull away.
The first time I tried to use it on purpose, I almost burned the house down.
I waited until my father left to meet with the elders. He hadn’t spoken much since that day. He moved like a man walking through fog.
I went back into my mother’s workroom and shut the door behind me.
“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Slow.”
I held out my hand the way I had seen her do before. Not stiff and forced. Just open.
Nothing happened at first then I felt it. That same heat crawled under my skin.
I focused on the candle again as the flame bent toward me. My heart jumped and I lost focus.
The window behind me shattered as I screamed and ducked as glass rained down.
“Amber!”
The door burst open and Fauna rushed in. Her eyes widened at the broken glass and the smoke curling near the ceiling.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
“I don’t know!” I yelled back.
The candle flared again, this time catching the edge of a cloth on the table. Fire spread fast as Fauna grabbed a bucket and threw water over it and steam filled the room.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” she snapped.
I stared at my hands. They were glowing faintly, not bright, but enough.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said.
Her expression shifted. Not to fear and not to disgust.
“So it’s true,” she said quietly.
I looked at her. “You knew?”
She hesitated. “I suspected.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t my secret.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “Everyone seems to have secrets about me.”
She stepped closer. “Your mother didn’t hide it to hurt you.”
“I know.”
Fauna crouched in front of me. “If you’re going to do this, you need control. You can’t just feel your way through it.”
“I don’t even know what I am.”
“You’re Amber,” she said firmly. “Start there.”
I swallowed. “Help me.”
She studied me for a long moment, then nodded.
Training started that same day. At first, it was small things. Lighting a candle without blowing up the room. Moving a leaf across the table without cracking the walls but it wasn’t easy.
The power inside me wasn’t calm. It felt wild and it didn’t like being pushed into lines. One afternoon, I tried to lift a small stone from the floor. Instead, the shelf behind me exploded as jars flew everywhere and windows cracked again.
Fauna ducked just in time as a wooden chair splintered against the wall.
“Breathe!” she shouted.
“I am breathing!”
“No, you’re panicking!”
She grabbed my shoulders. “Feel it, don’t fight it.”
I closed my eyes as the hum was louder now. Stronger than before and it wasn’t just heat anymore. It was like something alive, stretching inside me.
I thought about my mother’s hands. Steady and gentle as I forced myself to calm down. Slowly, the air settled.
The broken pieces stopped rattling and when I opened my eyes, Fauna was staring at me like she was seeing me for the first time.
“You’re stronger than she was,” she whispered.
I didn’t know if that was good and as days passed like that. Practice, chaos and repair.
We broke three windows, burned two tables and nearly set the roof on fire once but I was learning not just how to use it but how to listen.
The power didn’t feel foreign anymore. It felt like it had always been there, waiting for me to stop pretending I was something else.
One evening, as the sun was setting, I stood alone in the yard. as I held out my hand and focused. The wind shifted toward me, not violently. Just enough and a small smile touched my lips.
Then I felt it, the pull, not from inside me but from somewhere far beyond the trees.
It wasn’t the moon and it wasn’t my wolf but this was different and older.
My stomach tightened as the hum inside me responded like it recognized the call.
I turned slowly toward the forest as the air felt heavier.
“Amber?” Fauna’s voice called from behind me.
I didn’t answer because deep in the woods, something moved and it was coming closer.


HIDDEN BLOOD TRUTH