This is my first pack run ever, and my first as their Luna, a title that once felt so far out of my reach it’s hard to believe it’s really mine now.
Before we started, while we waited for stragglers to arrive, I stood beside Rennick and braced for that familiar drop in my stomach. The quiet certainty that I didn’t belong, but it never came.
I was welcomed into the pack ritual without hesitation, their excitement bright and open. The years I spent with my wolf caged, I taught myself to stop longing for nights like this, to stop imagining what it would be like to belong so easily within a pack, instead of being without one completely or hovering on the edges of something I was never fully part of. Somewhere along the way, pack runs joined the quiet list of things I convinced myself I would never get to have. Tonight proved me wrong in ways that will stick with me for years to come.
I keep running, holding to the brutal pace, and faces start to surface anyway. The people who showed up tonight. Some of them surprised me, in the best way.
Elio, tucked between his two alphas, newly mated and practically glowing, his shy smile catching mine. Hattie at the edge of the group with her friends, laughter spilling free. Zora and Yrsa standing apart from the pack, heads bent together in quiet conversation.
Rook surprised me too. I thought he’d left for Seattle that morning, that his pack Alpha—his dad—had summoned him home.
And then there were the absences. Seren, with her aversion to packs and pack activities, staying home with Ivey and Siggy. And then there’s Canaan. His absence sits wrong, a hollow in the ranks that hasn’t just been there tonight. He’s been pulling away for weeks now, and I still haven’t figured out how to reach him without pushing him away.
We’d taken off as one, noise and motion braided into a single living thing. Howls and yips cut through the cold, playful and wild, echoing through the thunder of paws. For the first time in eight years, I felt it settle deep in my bones. I was part of a pack. This wasmypack.
Rennick crossed my path a heartbeat later, too close to ignore, and I nipped at his flank without thinking.
That growl wasn’t a real warning. It carried teeth and sound, but underneath it was something else entirely. A challenge. Enough to spark a restless hunger in my wolf, something eager to push, to provoke, to see how long it would take for him to turn on me again
So, I did the only logical thing. I caught the scruff of his neck between my teeth, my snarl a taunt in its own right, and then I broke away. Veering hard for the tree line, I cut in the adjacent direction from the rest of the pack and just…ran.
I didn’t look back, because I didn’t have to. I knew he’d follow. Knew he’d catch me. And I knew exactly how much I’d enjoy it when he did.
Now, through the bond, his presence presses closer, a steady heat at my back that sends my pulse skidding. Satisfaction rolls through him, rich and unchecked, and it bleeds into me before I can brace for it. My stride falters for half a beat as anticipation sparks hot in my chest.
He’s enjoying this. So am I.
I hook around a group of firs and leap over a downed log half buried in snow. The landing rattles my shoulder but I drive forward anyway, angling for tighter turns and narrower paths to trip Rennick up. I hear the sudden change in his stride when his restraint disappears and truly commits.
The forest goes still then, like it knows what comes next.
I whip around a thick trunk, knowing his larger frame won’t clear it as cleanly. It buys me seconds. Not many, but enough.His irritation streaks through the bond, and my wolf delights in it, taunting him to close the distance again.
He does.
Impact steals the world. His body hits mine and we tumble through the snow, limbs tangling as everything spins. I’m still searching for my new north but he’s already there, weight pressing down, trying to pin me. Trying to make me yield.
I have no chance of winning this, but I fight him anyway. My claws swipe, but don’t make any real contact, and I twist my body beneath his, pushing back just to feel his power used against me. Just to make him earn it.
I open the link between our minds and his growl hits me full force instantly.
Submit.
The word settles in my chest and stays there, warm pleasure rising in my veins in response. It coaxes me toward complete and willing surrender even as I make myself wait a few heartbeats longer. Just long enough for his jaw to close around my throat in a final show of dominance. He applies enough pressure to still me, to stop the thrashing, but not enough to break skin.
His dominance surges through the bond, stronger now, and impossible to ignore.
Submit, little mate.
I let myself go slack beneath him, my head tipping to the side as much as I can with his teeth still pressed there in silent warning.
His praise washes through me next, sinking under my skin until my limbs go loose and heavy one by one.
Good girl.
It’s followed by a command, his voice in my head dripping with his calm authority.
Shift back.
