They Come Out Flushed on Shaking Legs

There are no unmated males in our pack.

Every she-wolf in Hollowfen is promised to someone when she turns eighteen. We just don't get to know who until we walk into the Choosing Hall.

Girls go in wearing white. They come out flushed, shaking, barely able to stand. Some laugh. Some cry. None of them talk about what happens inside.

My sister Thessaly turned eighteen this spring. Gran told her she couldn't attend the Choosing.

She went anyway. She came back on shaking legs, with blood between her thighs and a smile she couldn't wipe off her face.

Chapter 1

Hollowfen sits deep in the old-growth forest. About sixty of us live here — all women, all she-wolves. We trade herbs and dried plants, but mostly we keep to ourselves. Traders pass through sometimes. They never stay.

"Where are the men?" they ask.

"Working elsewhere," we say. No one asks twice.

I have two older sisters. Thessaly and Calder. I'm the youngest — the last Voss girl. Gran raised all three of us after our mother's mate died. She ran the pack. Decided who did what, who was ready, who was worth showing off. She remembered every girl's favourite tea, every birthmark, every scar. Everyone said she was warm.

No one stood too close to her, either.

Every year after the Choosing, a few girls were gone. Matched, we were told — off to live with their new Alphas. Their beds were stripped by morning, their things cleared before lunch. No one mentioned their names again.

I asked once. I was eight. Emeline had braided my hair the day before, and the next morning her cot was bare.

Gran tucked a strand behind my ear. "She found her match, sweetheart. Be happy for her."

I was happy for her. I didn't ask again.

Gran kept a garden behind the main house — flowers that bloomed year-round, even in deep winter. She said it was the soil. Every year after Choosing, new ones appeared. I counted them once. Dozens.

Thessaly had been counting down to her Choosing since she was fifteen. Every girl in the pack did. It was the only door out of this forest that anyone talked about.

So when Gran told her she wasn't going, Thessaly lost it.

"You can't do this." Thessaly's voice cracked. She was shaking — not with fear. With rage.

Gran didn't raise her voice. She never did. "I've already found someone for you. A pack leader. Old bloodline, very generous. He's offering more than anyone has in years."

"Then let me meet him at the Choosing like everyone else—"

"No." Gran caught Thessaly's wrist before she could turn away. Her grip was gentle. Her knuckles were white. "The Choosing is for girls without prospects, Thessaly. You're worth more than that."

Thessaly went still. Then her expression shifted — the anger melting into something bright and disbelieving. "You found me a private buyer?"

Gran smoothed Thessaly's hair back. Her fingers trailed down the side of her neck, resting on the pulse point a beat too long. "I've been preparing you for years, darling. You're my finest work."

"Gran, your hands are freezing." Thessaly laughed and shrugged her off.

Gran smiled. Said nothing.

I watched from the hallway. The way Gran looked at Thessaly — it wasn't how you look at a granddaughter. It was how she inspected the herb jars before a big shipment. Checking for cracks.

On the day of the Choosing, the girls lined up outside the Hall in white dresses. Old stone building, no ground-floor windows, locked the rest of the year. They went in one at a time.

They came out different. Flushed cheeks. Wobbly legs. Some giggling, some dazed — like waking from a dream they didn't want to leave.

Thessaly grabbed a cousin coming out. "What happens in there? Tell me."

The cousin's face was still pink. She glanced sideways, bit back a grin. "You'd have to find out yourself."

After the ceremony, I watched Gran pull certain girls aside. She'd lean in, whisper something, and whatever light was in their eyes would go quiet. They'd nod. Walk back to their cabins. Start packing.

That night, Thessaly shook me awake.

"Get up. I need you outside the Hall."

"Thess, you can't—"

She grabbed my wrist. Her nails dug in. "If Gran finds out, I'll know it was you."

"Every girl in this pack gets to walk through that door except me." She was already pulling on her boots, jaw set. "I don't care what Gran arranged. I want to know what it feels like."

She climbed through the side window. I crouched against the outer wall, arms around my knees.

Then — a sound from inside. Low. Rhythmic. Coming through the stone.

"Thess?" I pressed my mouth to the gap in the door. "You okay?"

"I — yes — don't come in —"

Her voice hitched. Something between a sob and something else entirely. I couldn't tell which half was louder.

I circled to the window. Too high. I stacked loose stones, pulled myself up, fingers white on the ledge.

Candlelight. Shadows on the floor — Thessaly's, and others. Larger. Moving. More than one.

Her white dress had slipped to her waist. Her bare back rose and fell, steady, arching.

The shadows pressed closer.

Thessaly's voice climbed higher. She wasn't asking anyone to stop.