Sealed by the Goddess
Flashback iv – 14 Years Ago
For six agonizing days, Alpha Atlas O’Hara had not slept.
His daughter was gone.
They had combed every inch of the surrounding woods. Tracking teams followed Scarlett’s faint scent only for it to vanish like smoke on the wind, then reappear miles away in the wrong direction. It was as if the forest itself was playing cruel games with them.
Atlas sat at the head of the long oak table in the war room, eyes bloodshot, face gaunt. Maps were spread before him, marked with red ink where her scent had last been detected. His Beta warriors and senior Alphas stood in tense silence around the table.
“We move in teams of eight,” Atlas rasped, voice hoarse from shouting orders and sleepless nights. “Cover every ravine, every cave, every riverbank. If you pick up even a trace of her scent, you follow it until it disappears, then widen the circle. She is alive. Do you understand me?”
One of the older Alphas, a man who had served Atlas for decades, hesitated. “Alpha… it has been six days. A child her age in those woods…”
Atlas slammed his fist on the table so hard the wood cracked. “She is alive! My daughter is alive, and we will bring her home. Anyone who says otherwise will answer to me.”
The room fell deathly silent.
Deep down, guilt gnawed at Atlas like a living thing.
He had waved Assunta off that first day, telling her Scarlett was probably just playing in the mud pits again.
He had been too busy, too angry, too lost in his own grief to listen.
Now his little girl was missing, and the only person he could punish was the Omega caretaker chained in the dungeons.
He saw Diana’s face every time he closed his eyes, his late mate crying, asking where their daughter was. In his dreams, he promised her he would find Scarlett and finally love her the way he should have from the beginning.
“Move out,” he ordered.
The search party plunged into the woods once more. Sunlight filtered through the thick canopy in golden shafts as they moved, wolves sniffing the ground, warriors calling Scarlett’s name until their voices grew raw.
Hours passed.
Then they heard it.
Distant growls. Yelps of pain. The wet, sickening sounds of flesh being torn and blood hitting the ground.
Scarlett’s scent hit them like a wave mixed with something foreign, something ancient and powerful that didn’t belong to any shifter they knew.
“Forward!” Atlas roared.
They burst into a small clearing.
What they saw stopped even the hardest warriors in their tracks.
A small boy no older than six or seven stood in the middle of the carnage, covered head to toe in blood.
Around him lay the broken bodies of a pack of rogue coyote nonshifters.
The boy moved with terrifying speed and precision, claws ripping through fur and bone like they were nothing.
Heads rolled. Limbs were severed. The air was thick with the copper stench of death.
Then the boy turned.
Relief crashed over Atlas like a tidal wave when he saw Scarlett—alive, trembling, covered in dirt, but unharmed.
Then he saw the tears.
And the relief shattered in the next heartbeat.
Scarlett screamed and stumbled backward, but the blood-soaked boy lunged after her, grabbing her and dragging her against him like a shield.
Atlas's heart broke.
He raised his silver-loaded pistol with a steady hand and fired.
The bullet tore through the boy's chest.
Kaiden gasped, blood spraying from his mouth as he collapsed to his knees, still clutching Scarlett tightly.
“My Scarlett…” he choked out, eyes locked on hers with desperate love.
Scarlett screamed, a raw, heart-wrenching sound that echoed through the trees. “Kaiden! Kaiden!”
Warriors rushed forward, trying to rip her from the dying boy’s weakening grip. But Kaiden held on with surprising strength, blood pouring from his mouth and chest.
Atlas stepped closer, face cold, and fired again.
The second silver bullet struck Kaiden in the chest.
He fell.
Scarlett’s scream tore through the forest, broken, shattered, final.
She fainted in the arms of a Beta warrior.
Atlas grabbed her from the man, holding her limp body against his chest, shaking her gently.
“Scarlett… Scarlett, wake up!”
But she didn’t.
Five Days Later
Alpha Atlas sat beside Scarlett’s bed for the fifth night in a row.
His eyes were red-rimmed and sunken, his face gaunt with exhaustion and guilt. Scarlett lay unnaturally still, her small chest barely rising and falling. The healers could find nothing physically wrong with her, no broken bones, no poison, no visible wounds that should have caused this.
Yet she would not wake.
Her heart beat faintly. No pulse they could feel. She was practically dead, yet her body refused to let go completely.
Atlas hadn’t left her side. He held her tiny hand, whispering promises he should have made years ago.
“I’m sorry, my daughter… I’m so sorry…”
The door creaked open.
A woman stepped inside, tall, elegant, with silver-streaked dark hair and eyes that seemed to hold centuries of knowledge. She wore simple traveling robes marked with ancient runes. She had arrived at the pack house only an hour ago, summoned by one of Atlas’s most trusted contacts.
“She has arrived,” the guard announced quietly.
The woman, High Priestess Elara of the Veil Coven, approached the bed without a word. She looked Scarlett over with careful, pitying eyes.
“What happened?” she asked softly.
Atlas explained everything in a broken voice, the disappearance, the search, the bloody boy in the clearing, the silver bullets.
Elara’s expression darkened. “You made a fatal mistake, Alpha. That child did not want to hurt her. He was protecting her.”
Atlas’s hands trembled. “But… but he…”
She silenced him with a raised hand. “They formed a bond. An ancient soul bond, rarely seen, almost impossible to create unless two spirits are true complements, destined to guard and complete each other across lifetimes.”
Atlas’s face crumpled. “No… no, I can’t lose her. Diana will never forgive me…”
Elara looked at the unconscious child with deep pity. “Her soul is not fully gone. It clings to fragments of the boy’s memories. We can entreat the Goddess to lock those memories away. It may save her.”
Atlas nodded desperately. “Do it. Please.”
Elara brought out a small crystal vial filled with shimmering silver liquid. She rubbed a drop onto Scarlett’s forehead, chanting softly in an ancient tongue. The room filled with soft, pulsing light.
“It is done,” she said finally, stepping back. “The memories of those days are sealed. But there is a cost.”
Atlas’s voice cracked. “What cost?”
“Her wolf… is lost. It may never fully emerge. The bond’s backlash suppressed it to protect what remained of her spirit.”
Atlas stared at his daughter, eyes filled with fresh pain. “A shifter without her wolf…”
Elara looked at him with quiet disgust. “Her life matters more than her wolf, Alpha.”
He nodded slowly.
“It is left to the Goddess now.”
She left the room quietly.
On the seventh day, Scarlett woke up.
A breath of fresh air filled her lungs. Her green eyes snapped open.
For the briefest moment, a flash of red glowed in them then vanished.
She blinked, looking around the familiar room with confusion.
“A..s..sunta…?” she whispered softly.