Too Late Alpha Marcus, (The Last White Wolf)

~Verila Crawford~

I had just walked into the Great Hall when my sister Selene tipped a full goblet of red wine over my head.

The wine was cold and sticky, and it soaked through the only nice dress I owned. Four hundred wolves saw it happen, and they all burst out laughing.

"Oh no, Verila, I'm so sorry," Selene said sweetly, covering her mouth with her hand. "I tripped."

She didn't trip. She did it on purpose, and everyone knew it.

My name is Verila Crawford, and I am the Beta's eldest daughter. I turn twenty tonight, and I am the only wolf in the Ironclaw Pack who has never shifted, so the whole pack calls me wolfless.

"Look at her," someone whispered. "Wolfless and pathetic."

"It's fine," I said quietly, though my hands were shaking.

"Of course it's fine," my brother Damien said with a smirk. "You could wear gold and you'd still be the girl with no wolf."

I looked at the high table, hoping my mother would say something. Lady Evelyn saw everything, but she turned her face away, the way she always did.

My father, Beta Richard, walked over to me, and the laughter faded. He did not ask whether I was hurt. He leaned close and whispered in a cold voice.

"Go and clean yourself. You are embarrassing this family on the Alpha's welcome night. And remember what the council said. If you still have no wolf at midnight, you will be thrown out of Ironclaw."

My stomach dropped.

I had been trying not to think about it all day. In this pack, a Crawford with no wolf at twenty loses her name, her home, and her place in the pack, and my twentieth birthday would begin in less than two hours.

I lowered my head, because arguing with my father had never worked. Then I walked out of the hall with every eye on my back. I did not run, because running would have meant they had won.

In the east washroom, I locked the door and finally let myself breathe.

My silver hair had turned pink from the wine, and my grey eyes looked too big in my thin face. I stared at the girl in the cracked mirror and whispered to her.

"Twenty years old, and you're still hiding in a bathroom."

Every wolf has a second soul inside them, a wolf who speaks to them and fights beside them. My brother heard his wolf at nine, and my sister heard hers at ten, but I have never heard mine. There has only ever been silence.

Because of that silence, my father looks at me like I am dirt, and my mother can barely say my name without frowning. They gave all their love to Selene instead, and I grew up watching it from the outside.

I used to cry about it, but I stopped a long time ago. Crying only made the bullying last longer.

The clock above the door said 11:52 p.m. I had only eight minutes left.

There was still one small hope. In our world, a wolf finds their fated mate at the exact moment they turn twenty, when the Moon Goddess calls the two of them together. And no pack can banish a wolf who has found a mate.

I had never believed it could happen to me, because who would choose a wolfless girl? But every night, when the loneliness hurt too much, I whispered the same prayer into my pillow.

*Please, Moon Goddess. Just let one person in this world see me.*

I wiped my face, unlocked the door, and went back to the hall.

I slipped in through the servants' entrance wearing a plain grey tunic I had borrowed from the laundry maid. I planned to stand in the shadows and wait for midnight to pass.

The music had stopped, and the wolves had gathered in a wide circle in the middle of the hall. In the center stood Alpha Marcus Hale, our new Alpha, who had come home today after three years abroad. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark brown hair and amber eyes, and every wolf leaned toward him when he spoke.

My father stood at his right side. Selene stood at his left in a gold gown, laughing at everything he said and touching his arm. Everyone in the pack knew she wanted to be his Luna, because she had talked about nothing else for weeks.

I didn't care. I only watched the clock.

With five minutes left, my skin began to prickle. With four minutes left, a strange heat crept up my spine, and my fingers started to tremble.

Then a scent drifted across the hall. It smelled like pine trees after a storm, wild and smoky and warm, and somehow it felt like it belonged to me. I grabbed the edge of a table so I wouldn't fall.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought the whole hall could hear it. Everything blurred except that scent.

Then a voice spoke inside my head.

*Mate.*

I froze. It was not my own voice. It was deep, low, and ancient, and I had never heard it before in my life.

It was my wolf. After twenty years of silence, she was finally speaking to me.

At the stroke of midnight, every candle in the hall flickered, and the wolves gasped. Across the room, Alpha Marcus slowly turned around, and his amber eyes searched the crowd until they stopped on me.

He walked straight toward me, and the wolves moved out of his way like water. He stopped so close that I could feel the heat of his body, and I saw his eyes widen as my scent reached him too.

"You," he said in a rough voice. Then he said it louder, so the whole hall could hear.

"Mine."

The room exploded. My mother's glass slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor. Damien's mouth fell open, and my father went white.

Alpha Marcus Hale, the most powerful man in Ironclaw, was my fated mate, which meant the council could no longer throw me out. I was saved, and I almost cried with relief, because for the first time in my life someone had chosen me.

Then I looked past his shoulder, and my blood ran cold.

Selene was staring at me with her green eyes full of hatred. She smiled slowly, and I knew exactly what that smile meant.

My sister had just decided to take my mate away from me.