Chapter 1 The Girl Who Died

Kerensa's POV

The private charter bus gleamed under the morning sun, its polished surface reflecting my nervous expression back at me. I adjusted the cap on my head, pulling it lower to shadow my face as I stepped aboard. The scent of leather and new carpet filled the air, a stark contrast to the familiar earthy smells of home. I swallowed hard, forcing my shoulders back, reminding myself that hesitation now would ruin everything I'd worked for.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out, my fingers trembling slightly.

The first message came from Mom: "Be careful, Rhys. Please remember who you are. I love you."

My chest tightened at her words. She'd fought so hard to accept this, to call me by the name I'd chosen, and I could still hear the effort in every text.

I typed back quickly, my thumbs flying across the screen. "I'll be fine, Mom. Don't worry about me. Love you too."

A second message appeared immediately after, this one from Alpha Julian: "Remember your purpose. The pack stands with you."

The words settled heavy in my stomach, a reminder of everything riding on the next few weeks.

My reply was shorter this time. "I won't forget."

I slid the phone back into my pocket and made my way to the very last row of the bus, sinking into the window seat. Somewhere behind that door lay a version of myself I'd spent years burying, and I intended to keep it that way. Outside, trees blurred past as the engine rumbled to life.

Seven years.

Seven years since I'd last seen my father, since Rhys had...

I shook my head, pushing the memories away. My hands found each other in my lap, fingers lacing together in a grip tight enough to steady the tremor threatening to spread through my whole body.

That wasn't helpful right now.

The bus began to move, and I leaned my head against the cool glass, watching my new life start in motion.

The Hockey Tournament, my chance to change everything. If I could just make the team, if I could win, maybe I could finally outrun the girl I used to be.

A boy slid into the seat beside me, bringing with him the scent of mint and clean laundry. I flinched, pulling away instinctively, my heart hammering against my ribs before I could remind myself that strangers weren't automatically threats.

"Sorry," he said, his voice smooth and friendly. "Didn't mean to startle you."

I just nodded, keeping my eyes fixed on the window. Conversation wasn't part of the plan. The less people noticed me, the better. I willed him silently to look away, to find someone else to talk to, anyone but me.

"Heading to the Academy too?" he asked, undeterred by my silence. "Tryouts are brutal, but I hear the training is top-notch."

I shrugged, still not looking at him. Maybe he'd get the hint. My pulse refused to slow, each word from him another small threat to the careful walls I'd built.

"You know," he continued, leaning closer, "you look really familiar to me. Have we met before?"

My muscles tensed. Familiar was dangerous. Familiar meant recognition, and recognition meant questions. Questions I couldn't answer. My mind raced through a dozen excuses, each one flimsier than the last.

"I don't think so," I mumbled, keeping my voice low.

"Really?" He tilted his head, studying my profile. "I'm almost sure I know you from somewhere. Maybe back home? What pack are you from?"

"None of your business," I snapped, then immediately regretted it.

Too aggressive. Rhys wouldn't have said that. He had been charming, confident, everything I wasn't, or at least everything I'd never truly felt like beneath the surface.

The boy chuckled, completely unfazed by my rudeness. "Feisty. I like that. Seriously though, I can't shake this feeling that I know you."

I risked a quick glance at him. Clean-cut, handsome, with kind eyes and a smile that probably made most girls weak in the knees. Not my type. Not that I had a type anymore, not since becoming someone who couldn't afford to want anything at all.

"Look," I said, turning to face him fully. "I'm just here for the tryouts. I don't want to make friends or chat about old times. So if you could just..."

My voice trailed off as his smile widened with recognition.

"Wait a minute. I know who you are. You're Kerensa."

The name hit me like a physical blow. My breath caught in my throat, and my hands clenched into fists in my lap. The world seemed to narrow to the sound of that single word, sharp and unwelcome, dragging up everything I'd tried to drown.

Kerensa.

The name I hadn't heard spoken aloud in seven years.

The name that belonged to a dead girl.

The name that belonged to the girl Xavier and Hunter had tormented throughout her childhood, the girl whose father sat rotting in a prison cell because of their mother, Luna Celeste.

I could still see her that night, storming into our home with a pack of followers at her back, her finger pointed accusingly at my father, her voice ringing through the house as she declared him a murderer, claimed he'd killed a female Omega in cold blood.

I could still hear the silence that followed, thick and suffocating, the moment before everything I knew fell apart.

No trial worth the name, no chance to prove his innocence, just her word against his, and hers had carried the weight of the Luna title. They'd dragged my father away within the week. Life imprisonment, they called it, as though a single phrase could contain everything it had stolen from us.

This tournament was the reason I'd come.

A brutal, unprecedented cold wave had devastated the Northern Kingdom, degrading its land and drastically depleting local game populations. Desperate for territory and resources, the Northern Kingdom had launched raid after raid along the Southern border, sparking bloody skirmishes between the two sides.

To avoid a mutually destructive war that would leave both kingdoms vulnerable to outside invasion, the realms had struck a binding agreement: they would settle the dispute through ice hockey, the traditional sport of their werewolf kind. If the Southern Kingdom won, the North would cease hostilities for a hundred years. If the South lost, it would cede its border territories.

The Alpha King had announced the tournament, a nationwide tryout to assemble the strongest team possible. Regional qualifiers, continental playoffs, national championship. Round after round of elimination until only the best remained, forged through pressure into something unbreakable.

And the prize?

The winning team would represent the Southern Kingdom in the international match, with the chance to make one wish. Any wish, granted by the Alpha King himself.

News of the tournament had reached mom and me while we lived under Alpha Julian's protection, sheltered within his small pack in the Southern Kingdom.

Seven years ago, my brother Rhys had died trying to protect what remained of us. And I had taken his name to survive. Seven years of binding my chest, lowering my voice, learning to walk like a boy, talk like a boy, be a boy. Seven years of swallowing grief and fear until they became as familiar as breathing.

All for this moment.

Now, driven by the desperate hope of freeing my father and uncovering the truth buried with that old case, I had resolved to compete.

"You're wrong," I managed to say, my voice shaking slightly, betraying the panic clawing its way up my throat. "My name is Rhys."