The night was already tense when the scouts stumbled back into the camp, scratched, bruised, half-shifted, and wide-eyed.

Riven stood by the firepit, sharpening a hunting knife. The moment he caught their scent—fear and blood—he turned.

“What happened?” he asked, voice low.

Three of them—Kael, Lirin, and Bo—approached with hurried steps. Kael held his ribs; Lirin had claw marks down her shoulder.

“We were patrolling the northern ridge,” Kael started, breath ragged. “Saw a wolf. Huge. Way beyond normal size.”

Riven’s brow twitched. “A bear?”

“No,” Lirin said, eyes sharp. “A wolf. Solid white. Like snow. Bigger than anything we’ve seen. Strong. Fast.”

“Too strong,” Bo added, wiping dried blood from his jaw. “We thought it was a rogue half-blood. Told it to back off. It didn’t.”

“You spoke to it?” Riven asked.

Kael shook his head. “Tried to. It didn’t answer. Just stared like it was studying us. And then it struck.”

His jaw tensed. “Anyone dead?”

“No. It didn’t go for kill shots,” Lirin said. “Just enough to put us down. We barely escaped. It didn’t follow.”

Riven’s thoughts churned. A wolf that size? Pure white? Silent?

“Did it shift?”

“No,” Kael said. “Never turned. Stayed in wolf form the whole time. Didn’t feel like one of us. Didn’t smell human either.”

Bo’s voice dropped. “We think it’s a male. A full werewolf. Maybe pureblood.”

Lirin scoffed. “Those are extinct.”

“Maybe not,” Bo murmured.

Riven didn’t speak. He only looked past them into the darkness, eyes flickering amber under the firelight.

No one in the pack knew about his father. They thought Riven was just the first of them. The strongest. Born cursed, like the rest. But he wasn’t. He was born from a pureblood wolf—an ancient predator that had taken his mother in the forest. A father he never saw in human form. A father he hated.

But that white wolf… if what they described was true… it shouldn’t exist.

For five nights, Riven hunted.

Each time under the moon, he let the shift take him, his body breaking and reshaping into the towering dark-brown wolf he was known for. Each time he ventured deeper into the wilderness, silent as smoke.

Nothing.

On the sixth night, the wind changed.

He caught it—faint and cool. A scent he didn’t recognize. Neither human, nor half-blood, nor beast. Cold, clean, unnatural.

He followed it.

Through undergrowth, over roots slick with moss, and into a ravine cloaked in mist and moonlight.

And then he saw it.

Standing atop a rise, half-shrouded in fog—massive, statuesque, and white as bone. The wolf.

It turned slowly, like it had been waiting. Eyes like ice met his golden ones, unafraid, unreadable. They stared across the distance.

Riven stepped forward, low and wary. His paws made no sound. His breath hung in the air.

The white wolf didn’t move. It tilted its head, watching him, still as stone.

Not hostile.

Not submissive either.

He expected a growl, a charge. Instead, silence. Calculating silence.

And then, to his shock, the wolf shifted.

The form unraveled like threads in moonlight—bones reshaping, fur melting away into pale, porcelain skin. Long silver hair flowed over a slender frame. Silver and crystal-laced cloth clung to her figure. Armor-like lace shimmered at her arms and waist. No ears. No claws. No traces of a beast remained.

A woman.

Riven’s mind stilled. A female werewolf?

No. More than that.

Pureblood.

He stepped back.

Such a thing shouldn’t exist. Female purebloods were rarer than myths. His own father—the last known pureblood—was male. And Riven had always been told the bloodline ended with him.

But this woman—this creature of winter and moonlight—stood before him as proof.

And she looked just as surprised as he was.

She studied him the way her wolf form had. Calm. Reserved. Not afraid. Not challenging either.

Finally, she spoke. “You’re not full-blooded.”