Chapter 1 Chapter 1
Amber
"Hold still, Amber."
"I am holding still."
"You are breathing too aggressively."
The pins were going to be the death of me that mom was trying to kill me with while trying to fix my dress.
Why couldn’t it be the brutal sparring sessions I'd been sneaking into since I was twelve years old?
I caught my sister, Jolene's eye in the mirror, and mouthed breathing too aggressively with the most offended expression I could manage. She pressed her lips together, fighting a smile, and looked away before Mom could notice.
My mother had forced me into an ivory silk dress with gold embroidery along the hem, a neckline that my father had personally approved as modest and appropriate for a first introduction.
It made me look exactly what I was supposed to be tonight.
I had inherited my dark hair and the particular shade of amber in my eyes from my mother, Lena but that was where our similarities ended. She wore her role as the alpha's wife naturally and made it look effortless.
I had never once dreamt of being Luna or somebody’s wife.
"Dad promised me." I turned away from the mirror because I couldn't stand looking at myself in that dress any longer. "Two years ago, he promised me that if I trained hard enough, if I proved myself, he would let me train as a warrior. I have outrun every Omega in this pack. I have defeated three ranked warriors of our pack in sparring. Garrett doesn't even like shaking my hand anymore because I broke two of his fingers last spring…"
"Amber." Her voice was gentle but firm. "The Alpha of the Crestmoor pack is coming tonight with his son. An alliance through marriage would protect thousands of our pack members. Your father is asking you to carry some of that weight. Is it so terrible?"
"Then why can’t he let me do that by fighting alongside him?"
I would have continued rambling if not for the sudden screams that tore through the surroundings.
"Amber, wait!"
But I was already tearing the embroidered hem of my dress as I sprinted for the door, and landed straight into chaos.
“Stay inside!!”
Pups were running afraid and I saw an unknown group break through our outer wall, heading straight towards my home while dad and the others were on the other end of the border, waiting to welcome our guests.
We were under attack by rogues!
I grabbed the first thing I could find, a decorative spear from the wall mount beside the great hall entrance and rushed forward.
The next thirty minutes turned into a blur as I tried to fight while the stupid dress kept threatening to tangle my knees, and somewhere in the chaos I got another rogue’s blood across my cheekbone.
I managed to thwart them in the hall itself, not letting them pass inside to hurt my family and other pack members.
The ivory dress was covered in blood and my sweat, the hem ripped apart when I tore a section off to move better.
I smiled triumphantly, thinking that now was the time my father would really understand me.
I was catastrophically wrong.
I turned to face my father who walked in with two ranked warriors with a grim expression.
His eyes moved across the hallway taking in all the carnage before finally landing on me.
"You were told," he said, "to get ready for the alpha’s arrival."
"I saved mom and Jolene…there were pups in the western hall," I reasoned.
"You disobeyed a direct order again!"
"I chose the pups over the order, and I would make the same choice again."
"Enough."
The warriors beside him flinched.
My father looked at me for a long moment, letting his disappointed gaze run over the spear in my hand and at the crumpled, bloodsoaked ivory dress.
"You think," he continued, as if I hadn't spoken, "that because you live in this pack, under my roof and protection, you are ready for real warfare." His eyes were blazing with anger. "You think you understand what it is to be a warrior."
“I…”
"Tonight you fought scared rogues in the hall that were scrambling to run away from our border patrol."
He conveniently ignored that only I was still standing among those rogues.
"You want a warrior's life? Fine."
My hopes rose up before he delivered the ultimatum.
"I am sending you to the Silvercrest Academy to get trained to be one."
My mom gasped behind me and Jolene tugged at my elbow. I wasn’t sure when they had arrived but I could see many more eyes watching us.
Everyone knew that the academy was a place where future pack leaders and warriors were sent to be broken down and rebuilt or get killed. It was not a school but a forge.
"You will attend that academy as an ordinary human, not as an alpha’s daughter," my father continued in the same harsh tone.
"You will survive one year at the academy. And if you manage to do that you can tell me that I was wrong to keep you in dresses."
"Mark, please." My mother’s voice was laced with panic. "I will get her changed in a new dress. She just protected the pups, you cannot simply send her away."
"I have had enough." Dad cut her off.
"I have tolerated her nonsense for years but it's high time she faced the real dangers outside of this pack’s protection. Let her learn. Let the academy teach her what real war costs. If she manages to survive on nothing but what she is, she can become a warrior in this pack."
Not when, if.
There were hardly any female warriors in our pack but I had heard a few had managed to do so in other packs in the entire Zephyron kingdom ruled by five alphas. Though the number was less than ten.
The hallway was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.
“Or she could apologize and promise to never touch a weapon again and we will forget this ever happened.”
My mom looked at me desperately, begging me to bend to his will.
But I would rather die than be presented as a trophy wife again.
I looked at my father, at this man I had spent eighteen years trying to prove myself to, this man who saw me standing in a pool of enemy blood and still looked at me like a problem to be managed and straightened my spine.
"I'll go to the academy," I said again. "As a nobody. I'll survive one year at the academy." I didn’t stutter or fumble like he thought I would. "And when I return, you won't take any decisions in my life."
Not if, when.
My mother dissolved into a fit of sobs, hugging Jolene, who couldn’t understand what was happening.
My father's eyes didn't waver. He searched my face for hesitation and I searched his for just a flicker of affection. Neither of us found what we were looking for.
"Pack her stuff."
He turned and walked away without so much as a final glance at me.