Chapter2 : The Missing Bloodline
Night had fallen by the time Ivy finished her chores.
The air clung thick with pine and wet earth as she walked towards the Omega cottages, the little, rundown cottages located at the edge of the pack lands—remote enough that no one significantly ever saw them.
Her fingers ached with scrubbing floors. Her legs trembled with exhaustion. She wasn't unfamiliar with it, however.
Pain was predictable.
It was the one constant in her life, one that did not ever change, and one that she could rely on. She no longer questioned if life could ever possibly become any different. Different represented hope, and hope represented danger.
A wolf with no power could not indulge in hope.
The trees loomed in front of her, dark forms moving in silhouette against the inky sky. She took a deep breath and breathed in pine, cool and pungent in her lungs. It was quiet here, apart from the warriors, training field, and full life-filled packhouse she could not ever become a part of.
A rustling sound forced her to stop.
She stilled, her heart skipping.
The night throbbed with life the hum of insects, a distant owl's soft hoot—but not with this one. Purposeful and near.
Slowly, she whirled around, her eyes scanning the shadows. Behind her, woods reached out forever, trees curving in a slow, supple motion in the wind.
Then she saw it.
A shadow.
Just beyond the trees, a transformation took place. Faster than a gust of wind, too silky to have been a trick of sunlight. Ivy's breath caught in her throat.
Is someone present?
She clenched her hands into a fist, preparing to move. It must have been a hunter who'd sneaked in late, or one of the guard patrols out at the borders. Nothing to worry about.
And yet goosebumps appeared on her arms.
She was being monitored.
She picked up her pace, her boots softly crunching through the woodland floor. Cottages came in sight, and soon she could lock the cottage and shut out the world.
But the whisper repressed her.
Soft, insistent, blown on the wind.
"Ivy."
Her breath hitched.
She spun around, her heart thudding in her head.
Nothing.
The forest was quiet, its trees subtly moving, its branches whispering under the weight of the wind. Shadows were in position, undisturbed.
Just the wind.
Just exhaustion.
And yet something deep in her heart moved.
A strange, unfamiliar, and unsettling sensation curved in her chest. It wasn't fright, at least not altogether. It was something else. Something deeper.
A memory flashed, unbidden.
When she was a little one, when she hadn't yet understood what it took to be Omega, her mother sat down with her and told her a legend.
"The Cursed One."
A wolf with bloodlines older than any, too powerful ever to submit to taming. Gods hid its power deep in the ground, in an Omega's shape. Weak flesh for an untroubled force.
The legend frightened her at all times.
Because it simply couldn't work. An Omega with a talent? A wolf with a purpose?
No. That was not the world she lived in.
She forced a breath in.
It's just fiction.
Turning on her heel, she hurried towards the cottages, opening the door at once when she reached her small room.
Inside, the room was not even big enough for both the dresser and the single bed she'd inherited when she took over for the Omega in her will. There was a single lit candle in one corner, its flame flickering and casting long, twisted shadows onto the walls.
Ivy bolted the door shut, bracing it with her shoulder.
She didn't know why she felt that she had to.
No one bothered to follow her, no one in the pack deemed her significant enough to follow.
So why did she have a feeling that she wasn't alone?
The Echo of the Past
Sleep did not come easily.
She lay awake, staring at the ceiling, her mind locked in a constant circle of shadows and whisperings. She assured herself it was nothing. That she was hallucinating.
But deep down, something wasn't correct.
The Cursed One.
The name kept weighing in her mind.
Why had the elders been afraid of that legend? How they whispered about it, with a voice lowered, in case even thinking about it scared them—what if it wasn't a myth?
Her fingers creased into the thin cover.
What if it actually happened?
A chill ran through her. She'd never fit in. Never been able to adapt, not like them. Never been seen, not even by her mate.
What if she wasn't frail at all?
The candle flickered, its flame trembling for a moment.
And in that moment—
A knock at the door sounded out.
Ivy shot up, her heart slamming against her ribs.
The Omegas saw no visitors. Not at such an early morning. Not ever.
The silence that followed was deafening.
She swung her legs over the bed, feet barely touching the ground before another knock came. Louder.
More insistent.
Ivy's breath shuddered.
Then
The whisper re-emerged.
Not from outside.
Not from the wind.
From within.
"Ivy."
She clapped a hand over her mouth, repressing a gasp.
The candlelight waned, shadows creeping in unnatural folds over the walls.
And for the first time in her life, a stirring in her heart took place in Ivy.
Something woke up.
Cliffhanger & Thematic Depth
This chapter continues with a deeper theme of inner fortitude and identity concealed in weakness. Ivy's gradual realization that she might actually be capable of accomplishing more than she's ever been instructed creates a rich level of character development for her. Foreboding tension, with the legend of The Cursed One, creates a stage for the supernatural transformation soon to transpire.