Rowan's POV
The water swallowed me whole.
Cold. So cold it felt like a thousand knives stabbing into my skin all at once.
I tried to scream but water rushed into my mouth instead. Down my throat. Choking me.
The current was strong. Way stronger than I expected. It grabbed me like a giant hand and yanked me under.
Down, down, down into the darkness.
I kicked my legs. Tried to swim up. But my body wouldn't work right.
Without my wolf, I was weak. Slower. More human than werewolf.
And humans drowned in rivers like this all the time.
My lungs burned. They wanted air. Needed air. But there was only water.
I kept sinking.
Through the murky darkness, I could see light above me getting farther and farther away. The festival lights. The fires. The world I was leaving behind.
Nobody was coming to save me.
Marcus had made sure of that.
My chest felt like it was going to explode. My brain was screaming at me to breathe even though I knew breathing would kill me faster.
This was it. I was really going to die.
Twenty-three years old and I was going to drown in a freezing river because I'd been stupid enough to trust the wrong person.
My mother used to warn me. "Rowan," she'd say, "you have too much faith in people. Not everyone deserves your trust."
She'd been right.
And now I'd never get to tell her she was right. Never get to apologize for being so naive.
My body hit something hard. A rock maybe. Pain shot through my shoulder but I barely felt it.
Everything was going numb. The cold was everywhere now. Inside me. Part of me.
My heart slowed down. Beat... beat... beat...
Getting slower with each thump.
I stopped fighting. Stopped trying to swim. Just let the current carry me wherever it wanted.
What was the point? Even if I made it to the surface, where would I go? Back to Marcus? Back to the pack that had watched him steal my soul and done nothing?
Maybe dying was better.
At least in death, I wouldn't feel this empty anymore. This horrible, wrong emptiness where my wolf used to be.
I closed my eyes.
The darkness behind my eyelids was warmer than the river. Softer.
I could just slip into it. Let go. Stop fighting.
It would be so easy.
My mother's face appeared in my mind. Smiling. Happy. The way she looked before she got sick.
"I'm sorry, Mom," I thought. "I'm sorry I wasn't stronger."
Then my father appeared next to her. Laughing the way he used to when I was little and climbed trees even though he told me not to.
"It's okay, little wolf," he seemed to say. "You can rest now."
Rest. That sounded nice.
I let the last bit of air escape from my lungs in tiny bubbles. Watched them float up toward the surface I'd never reach.
My heart gave one final, weak beat.
And then
Something exploded inside my chest.
Not pain. Not exactly. More like... lightning made of ice.
My eyes snapped open.
What was happening?
Heat no, not heat, the opposite of heatflooded through my body. Starting from deep in my chest and spreading outward like wildfire.
Except fire didn't feel cold. Didn't make everything around it freeze.
The water near my skin started turning solid. Ice crystals formed in beautiful, spiraling patterns.
I should be dead. My heart had stopped. I wasn't breathing.
But something else was keeping me alive.
Something ancient that had been sleeping inside me my entire life.
Marcus had said I carried Frostborn blood. That the Hart family descended from some legendary ice wolf.
I'd thought he was crazy. Making up stories to justify what he did to me.
But what if he was right?
What if that power was real?
The ice spread faster now. Not just around me but from me. Like I was the source. The center of a growing frozen explosion.
My body started changing.
My bones cracked and reformed. Not breaking transforming. Getting bigger. Stronger.
My muscles stretched and grew. Power flooded into them. Real power. Not stolen like Marcus's. This was mine. Had always been mine.
My skin began to glow. Soft white light that pushed back the darkness.
And I could feel it. Deep in what was left of my soul.
A new presence. Not my stolen wolf. Something else entirely.
The Frostborn.
"No," I tried to say, but no sound came out underwater. "This isn't real. This can't be real."
But it was real. Very, very real.
The transformation hurt. Every cell in my body was being rewritten. Remade.
I wanted to scream but I still couldn't breathe.
My hands changed shape. Fingers growing longer. Sharper. Claws made of ice forming at the tips.
My face shifted. Bones moving under my skin. Teeth getting longer and sharper.
I was shifting. But not into a normal wolf.
Into something that hadn't existed in a thousand years.
The ice around me spread in all directions now. The entire river was freezing. The current stopped moving as water turned solid.
And then I breathed.
Not water. Not air. Something in between.
My new lungs didn't need air the way human lungs did. They pulled something else from the frozen water. Energy maybe. Magic.
The pain faded. The fear faded.
What replaced it was rage.
Pure, cold, furious rage at Marcus. At the pack. At everyone who'd let this happen.
They thought they'd killed me. Thought they'd thrown away the weak little wolf who wasn't worth saving.
They'd created a monster instead.
The ice beneath me cracked. Then shattered.
I burst upward through the frozen river like an explosion.
My body was different now. Bigger. Covered in fur that looked like it was made from snow and ice crystals. When I moved, frost formed in the air around me.
I landed on the frozen surface of the river on four paws.
Four massive paws with claws that could tear through steel.
I looked down at my new body and almost didn't believe what I was seeing.
I was huge. At least twice the size of a normal wolf. My fur was pure white and seemed to glow from within. Ice crystals grew and melted constantly across my coat in shifting patterns.
When I breathed out, my breath came out as a freezing mist that turned the air itself to ice.
I was the Frostborn.
The legend Marcus had been so desperate to steal. The ancient power that should have died out generations ago.
Except it hadn't died. It had just been sleeping.
Waiting for someone to awaken it.
And Marcus's betrayal had done exactly that.
I threw my head back and howled.
The sound that came out wasn't a normal wolf howl. It was something older. Deeper. The sound itself seemed to freeze the air, carrying across miles of forest.
Every wolf in the Sun-Stone Pack would hear it. Would feel it in their bones.
Would know something ancient had awakened.
I looked back toward where the festival was still happening. Where Marcus was probably celebrating his victory.
He had no idea what was coming for him.
No idea what he'd created.
Movement in the trees caught my attention. Someone was there. Watching.
I spun around, ice forming on the ground beneath my paws.
A figure stepped out of the shadows. A man. Tall and scarred with eyes that had seen too many battles.
He looked at me without fear. Just... recognition.
"You're real," he said quietly. His voice was rough but not unkind. "The Frostborn. After all these years, you're finally real."
I growled. Warning him to stay back.
But he didn't move. Just studied me with those tired, knowing eyes.
"My name is Thorne," he said. "And I've been waiting for you for a very long time."
Waiting for me? That didn't make any sense.
I tried to speak but only a growl came out. I didn't know how to make words yet. Didn't know how to control this new body.
"You can't talk yet," Thorne observed. "That's normal. The first shift is always the hardest. But you'll learn."
Who was this stranger? How did he know about the Frostborn?
And why was he looking at me like I was the answer to some question he'd been asking his whole life?
"You're going to want revenge," Thorne continued. "Against Marcus. Against everyone who hurt you. I understand that. But if you go back there now, you'll die. You're too new. Too unstable."
I snarled. I didn't care about dying. I cared about making Marcus pay.
"I know." Thorne's voice softened. "Believe me, I know what betrayal feels like. But rushing in without a plan is suicide. And your death would be a waste."
He took a step closer. I should have attacked him. Should have frozen him solid.
But something stopped me. Something about his eyes. They looked as broken as I felt.
"Come with me," he said. "To the Forbidden North. There's a place there where exiles like us can be safe. Where you can learn to control your power."
Exiles. Like us.
"Marcus thinks you're dead," Thorne continued. "Let him keep thinking that. Get stronger. Learn to fight. And then when you're ready when you're powerful enough that he can't possibly win—then you take your revenge."
His words made sense even though I hated admitting it.
I was powerful now. But I didn't know how to use this power. Didn't know how to fight.
If I went back to the pack right now, Marcus would probably find a way to kill me for real this time.
But if I waited. If I trained. If I became the monster he should have been afraid of...
Then I could destroy him properly.
"So what do you say?" Thorne held out his hand. "Will you come with me? Or will you throw your life away on revenge you're not ready for?"
I looked at his hand. Then at the forest behind him where the Forbidden North waited.
Then back toward the festival lights where Marcus was celebrating.
I'd come back for him. Eventually.
But not today.
Today, I would run. I would hide. I would learn.
And when I finally returned, Marcus would wish he'd made sure I was really dead.
I took a step toward Thorne.
And the world behind me erupted in shouts and barking.
Guards. Dozens of them. Crashing through the forest toward the frozen river.
"She's alive!" someone screamed. "The girl survived! Alert the Alpha!"
Thorne cursed. "We need to go. Now."
He shifted into his wolf form. A massive gray wolf with battle scars covering his body.
He was an Alpha. I could tell from his size and presence.
But not like Marcus. There was no cruelty in his eyes. Just grim determination.
"Run," he said. And then he was running. Racing into the dark forest toward the north.
I looked back one more time at the lights. At the pack that had abandoned me.
Then I ran too.
My new body was fast. Incredibly fast. Ice formed beneath my paws with each step, giving me traction normal wolves couldn't have.
Behind us, the guards gave chase. But they couldn't keep up.
We flew through the forest like winter itself had come to life and was running from the sun.
And maybe that's exactly what I was now.
Not Rowan anymore. Not the trusting, naive girl who believed in love.
I was winter. I was ice. I was revenge waiting to happen.
I was the Frostborn.
And Marcus was going to pay for what he'd done.
But first, I had to survive.