Trinity's gray wolf body bounded through the forest, a blur of silver and muscle. She leapt over fallen trees and laughed at the cold spray of the stream, her paws splashing in the water. For once, she felt free, completely at ease, and fully herself. She came to a stop, her body resting on its haunches, and closed her eyes. The forest's symphony enveloped her: the chirping of birds, the rush of the river, the rustling of leaves in the breeze. She fully attuned herself to her wolf's primal self, trying to tether the line between pure beast instinct and her human intellect.
The sudden, jarring sounds of howls and grunts shattered the peaceful moment. Her eyes shot open, and she was on her paws in an instant, running without a second thought toward the source of the commotion. She burst into a clearing to see her pack, her family, surrounded by eight wolves cloaked in deep red. Their faces were hidden, and their mouths were set in tight, grim lines that felt like the precursor to trouble.
One of the cloaked figures turned, their gaze as sharp as a blade. It landed directly on her, and a shiver of fear snaked down her spine.
The urge to flee, to put more distance between herself and the stranger, was overwhelming. But her Alpha's growl, clipped and to the point as always, kept her rooted in place.
"Don't!" he commanded. "Shift."
She obeyed, and her body transformed, her skin stretching and pulling back into her human form. But it was not the body she remembered. She was taller, much taller, and her black hair was gone, replaced by a shock of blonde that stopped just below her chin.
"Give me thy hand," a cloaked woman named Ingrid said, her voice ancient and unyielding as she waited patiently.
Trinity, still fearing what would happen next, held out her hand. In one swift, unforgiving motion, the woman sliced her palm deep.
Blood welled in the center of her hand, but the woman's grip held firm, refusing to let her pull away. As the red liquid swirled, a shimmer of gold appeared within it, divinity mixing with humanity. In a flash of insight that wasn't hers, Trinity knew what it meant. She was the next Queen.
"But my hair be the color of the sun, and my eyes as dark as the earth. I cannot be the next Queen," a voice that was not her own left Trinity's lips, an old-world speech that didn't belong to her or her time.
"Thou art our Queen. We found thee early," another cloaked figure spoke, stepping forward with clear and unrelenting words.
"We share in thy dreams, child. Our eyes see as thine do."
"It is time. Say thy goodbyes to thy pack and kin. Thou art the Queen, and a Queen hath no pack. She must leave her family behind."
Tears streamed down Trinity's face as she clung to her mother's neck, not wanting to let go. But her mother's eyes held a glazed edge, a hollowness that chilled Trinity to the bone. The line between wolf and human had blurred, leaving her mother empty, barely able to recognize her own daughter. She did not want to leave. She did not want to be alone.
"Mama, don't let 'em take me, please! I beg thee!"
"Papa, please!" Her father's eyes darted between his mate and his daughter, a slow dawning of horror on his face. He processed that something was terribly wrong.
"Run," her father said, the word slow and unsure, his head tilted as if he didn't fully understand, but wanted his daughter to get away.
Trinity turned, her instincts screaming. She tapped into her pack's special ability, a gift she'd never fully accessed before. She pushed her human mind to its limit, forcing her wolf's power into her human body. She moved, but not in the way humans moved. It was a single, explosive motion that devoured space. With each step, the world became a smear of green and brown, the trees and brush a single, continuous blur. Her legs pumped, but it felt like a ghost running, the ground barely touching her feet. The air was a thick, rushing current against her face as she wove through the forest, each twist and turn an impossible, fluid motion. She felt the gnawing sensation of her human senses fighting her wolf's perspective. The narrow, focused tunnel vision of the wolf warred with her wider human view. Colors became muted, and the world flattened into a two-dimensional plane of smells and textures. Her mind fractured under the strain, the line between human and wolf shattering.
The council, cloaked in red, were on her tail, but they could not keep up. They were fast, but she was a force of nature, a living whirlwind. She sped into the woods she had known her entire life, her mind slipping further and further away.
Trinity felt herself wander, lost and unable to remember who she was or where she was going. Every thought that surfaced would slip away the moment she tried to hold on to it. She felt herself wandering for years, her destination a complete mystery.
Before long, she was in her wolf form, forgetting completely that she had ever been able to transform into a human. She was lost not just in the forest, but in her own mind. She lived as a beast, completely unaware that she had once been a Queen who never sat on a throne.
Trinity woke in her room, confused and unsure of what she had just dreamed. It felt real. Less of a dream and more of a memory. Even in the waking world, the dream felt no less vivid. It was as if the movements she made in the dream were a part of her now.
Slowly, she crept out of bed and opened her door, closing it silently behind her. At the end of the hall was a large window that could be easily pushed open. She looked around, making sure the coast was clear before jumping down and landing on the soft grass below.
Kale opened his door, smelling Trinity in the hall. He and three other wolves took turns sleeping, ready to act at a moment's notice. Kale was in the room next to hers, while Ian patrolled the main floors, Skip was outside keeping an ear open, and Mitchell was supposed to be in the hall. Kale could smell Trinity, but Mitchell's scent had lessened, a sign something was wrong.
Stepping out of his room, he followed her scent to the large window. He looked down and saw Trinity for just a second before she disappeared as if she had never been there at all. He jumped down from the window, alarmed, as Skip ran over, also having witnessed Trinity's sudden disappearance.
"Where did she go?" Kale asked.
"I didn't realize she was so fast," Skip said, looking toward the forest. "She's in the forest." The two men moved stealthily, hanging back once they found her to watch from a distance.
Unlike in her dream, Trinity didn't have to chase the feeling of being in wolf form and follow it through her body. The feeling of losing her human mind to her feral wolf self didn't come. But she felt as if she could move as she had in the dream. With a deep breath, she took a step—not just a simple step, but one completely infused with her wolf's sensations. With only a single step, she went from beside the house to deep in the woods.
Looking around, she felt both delighted and confused by how she had moved so fast and so far with just one step.
She waited to see if that mental fog, that blurring of the lines between human and wolf instinct, would take over. Would it affect her negatively? But nothing happened. She felt exactly the same. A slow smile spread across her face. She could move like a ghost, completely unseen and unheard. It was magnificent.
Trinity wandered and disappeared throughout the forest. Was what she saw real? Was she experiencing the Queen's dream? Why was she seeing previous Queens life?
Skip sent Kale a mental message. Should we tell the beta? He wasn't sure if this was something they needed to report.