Gerald Redfang, Alpha of the Blood Rivers Pack, stood with his back to the flames. His eyes were fixed on the daughter who had always been a storm trapped in human skin.

Valta leaned against the carved doorframe, arms folded beneath her breasts, one boot heel hooked casually against the wood as if she had not just murdered her own brother two nights past. She wore black leathers. Her hair hung loose and wild to her waist. At twenty five, she was already taller than most of the warriors in the pack.

Gerald’s voice was raw. “You will speak of Thorne now, Valta. You will tell me why my firstborn lies cold in the crypt with his throat torn out by his own sister.”

Valta’s pale grey eyes did not blink. “Because he was weak, father and weakness cannot lead this pack through what is coming.”

Gerald took one step forward, fists clenched so hard the knuckles cracked. “He was your brother.”

“He was a liability.” Her tone never rose. “He spent more hours drunk on honey-mead than training, bedded omegas from the lowland packs and bragged about it. He thought the title of alpha was a crown to be worn, not a burden to be carried. I gave him the mercy of a quick death before our enemies could give him a slower one.”

“You gave him nothing…”

Gerald snarled. “You took my son, you took your mother’s heart, you took every oath this pack has ever…”

“I took what was mine by right of strength” Valta cut in.

“The Goddess does not hand the pack to the eldest pup because he happened to crawl from the womb first. She gives it to the one who can hold it, Thorne could not so I held it for him.”

Gerald’s breath shuddered out of him. “And Maelor? Did the Goddess tell you to break your second brother’s spine and ribs until he pissed blood on the challenge ground?”

Valta’s lips curved. “Maelor challenged me the moment the moon rose over Thorne’s grave. He screamed that a female could never be alpha, that I had shamed the Redfang name. I educated him.” She pushed away from the doorframe unfolding to her full height.

“He still breathes, Father. Be grateful for my restraint.”

“Restraint?” Gerald laughed, it was a broken sound. “janet had to throw herself across his body…My mate, your mother, had to beg her own daughter not to murder her last living son in front of half the pack.”

Valta shrugged. “Mother has always been soft where her boys were concerned. Someone had to be hard.”

Gerald stared at her as though she were a stranger wearing his child’s face.

He tried another path, voice dropping to the low rumble he once used to calm frightened pups.

“Valta… little storm… you were not always like this. When you were small you followed Thorne everywhere. You slept curled against his wolf form in the nursery. You cried the first time he shifted and left you behind because you were too young. Do you remember none of that?”

Something flickered across Valta’s face and when she spoke again her voice was quieter.

“I remember being cold, Father...It's always cold. Even in high summer, even pressed between my brothers in front of this very fire. I remember watching the warriors train and knowing that I would be faster, crueler, better. I remember the elders patting my head and saying, ‘Such a pretty little gamma you will make one day, to stand at your brother’s side.’ I remember deciding I would rather die than stand in any one’s shadow.”

She walked forward slowly until she stood an arm’s length from him. Up close, Gerald could see the faint white scar that ran through her left eyebrow, it was Thorne’s claw mark from a play-fight when they were thirteen. She had never let the healers close it properly because She had wanted the reminder.

“I did not kill Thorne because I hated him,” she said. “I killed him because I loved this pack more than I loved being his sister. There is a difference.”

Gerald’s eyes filled, though no tears fell. “And what of love for your father? For your mother? Or are we just more obstacles now?”

Valta studied him for a long moment. Then, to his shock, she reached out and laid two fingers against the pulse in his throat, it was an alpha’s gesture for testing loyalty or testing fear. Her touch was as cold as the river in winter.

“You are my father,” she said simply. “When I take the oath beneath the blood moon, you will still be Alpha until the moment the power passes to me. After that…” She let the silence finish the sentence.

Gerald closed his eyes. “The ceremony is in six nights.”

“Yes.”

“Half the pack whispers that you are a kin-killer. That the Goddess will turn her face from you when you try to claim the ancestral power.”

Valta’s fingers dropped from his throat. “Let them whisper. The Goddess favors those who take not those who wait to be given.”

“And if the power rejects you?” he asked, voice hoarse. “If the goddess finds your heart too black…”

“Then I will carve my own power from the bones of anyone who stands in my way” she answered. “With or without the goddess, Blood Rivers will have the alpha it needs. Not the alpha it deserves.”

She turned to leave, then paused at the door.

“One more thing, Father.”

Her voice was almost gentle now.

“Tell Mother to stop weeping over Maelor, he will walk again; Slowly, in pain...but he will walk and he will remember who spared him. That memory will keep his tongue civil when I sit in your chair.”

Gerald found he had no words left. The daughter he had once carried on his shoulders was gone, replaced by this pale, relentless creature who smelled of blood.

Valta opened the door slowly , the pack was already preparing for the upcoming ceremony.

She did not look back as she stepped into the night.

She made her way to the alpha’s private balcony that overlooked the entire valley, watching her future being built.

The pack members were busy preparing for the alpha ceremony

The great ring of standing stones was being scrubbed clean of moss and old blood. Young females practiced the mourning songs that would become triumph songs the moment her claim was accepted. Warriors who had once sworn to die for Thorne now drilled in new formations

She felt the pack’s fear and fascination against her skin.

Below, near the river that gave the pack its name, she saw her mother. Janet Redfang stood alone cloaked in black

Even from this distance Valta could see her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Let her weep, Valta thought.

Either way, the pack would remember her name.

She lifted her face to the wind and howled once, low and challenging. All across the valley torches stuttered as wolves paused, ears pricked. Some answered. Some did not.

Soon every throat in Blood Rivers will sing for her willingly or with her teeth at their jugular.