The bone was fresh.
Clean, sun-bleached, and split straight down the center like someone had cracked it in anger. It lay on the threshold of Aria’s cabin, balanced atop a square of crimson cloth. No name. No blood. Just intention.
Zara found it first. She swore and stepped back like it had burned her.
“That’s a challenge,” she muttered. “Old code. Alpha-tier.”
Aria didn’t speak at first. She crouched beside the skull, running a finger along the cloth, tracing the careful fold. There were scratch marks on the underside—four claw slashes, slanted deliberately.
“It’s Calder Ashmoor,” she said. “He wants the circle.”
Zara’s voice sharpened. “He wants your rank.”
Aria stood slowly. Her stomach was tight, the baby curling low, as if already sensing the shift in air.
“Then he’ll get me.”
By midday, the word had spread.
The outer ring was already marked. A wide circle carved into the hard-packed earth just beyond SilverCrest’s main gathering hall. Torches lined the boundary. Ash and charcoal were poured in narrow lines at the edges—a tradition as old as the packs themselves.
A duel. Public. Unarmed. Witnessed.
Calder had made it official.
And by custom, she could not refuse.
“Are you sure about this?” Zara asked as she helped Aria tighten the leather braces on her arms. “You could challenge him to postpone. Say you’re not ready, force him to wait until the baby’s born.”
“I’m done waiting.”
“You’re pregnant, Aria.”
“I’m Alpha.” Her voice didn’t rise, but something in it made Zara stop.
This wasn’t pride.
It was survival.
Calder wasn’t just challenging Aria’s right to speak. He was challenging her right to exist as something more than Kael’s discarded mate.
If she didn’t answer this—viscerally, clearly—the others would come.
One by one.
Until they tore her down piece by piece.
The arena was full by nightfall.
Dozens of wolves stood around the ring, their breath steaming in the cold air, eyes darting between Aria and Calder. No one cheered. No one jeered. It wasn’t that kind of gathering.
This was a reckoning.
Calder stood shirtless, scars crisscrossing his torso like war paint. He was broader than Aria, stronger by most standards. But brute strength didn’t win wolf duels.
Conviction did.
Aria stepped into the ring barefoot, cloak shedding behind her like old skin. The crowd murmured as they saw the swell of her stomach beneath her tunic.
“She’s still carrying,” someone whispered.
“She shouldn’t be fighting,” said another.
“She shouldn’t have to,” a third voice said—quiet, but full of weight.
The Elder officiant raised his staff.
“This is a challenge under old law,” he announced. “No weapons. No interference. Speak now, and be bound by blood.”
“I challenge her claim to lead,” Calder said, stepping forward. “She carries a bastard heir, no mate beside her, no council recognition. She weakens us.”
“I accept,” Aria said, “and I’ll do worse to you than weakness.”
A hush fell.
Then the staff struck the ground.
“Begin.”
Calder lunged first, as expected—straight, aggressive, a brawler’s charge.
Aria sidestepped. Let his momentum carry him just far enough past her before she turned and landed a sharp elbow to the back of his ribs.
He grunted, stumbled, recovered. Swung again.
This time she caught his arm, twisted low, and dragged him sideways into the dirt. He rolled, snarling, and came up with a swipe meant for her face.
She ducked under it, stepped inside, and slammed her forehead into his jaw.
The crack echoed like firewood snapping.
Blood spattered the dirt.
But Calder only grinned, lip torn open.
“You fight like a rogue.”
“I learned from one,” she growled.
He came again—faster now, fury lacing his strikes. Aria dodged most of them. Absorbed a few. She felt the bruise forming under her ribs, the sting in her shoulder, but she didn’t stop moving.
This wasn’t about winning.
This was about proving.
Halfway through, he managed to grab her.
He hauled her up and tried to slam her down—into the frozen earth, into submission, into silence.
But Aria twisted in the air, landed hard on one knee, and bit him.
Her teeth sank into the muscle of his forearm, tearing enough to make him roar and stumble back, clutching the wound.
The crowd recoiled. Then surged forward—not with anger, but with hunger.
They wanted blood.
They wanted a queen.
She didn’t wait for him to recover.
She charged.
Not like a warrior.
Like a wolf.
One step, two—and then she was on him, driving him down, knees on his shoulders, fists raining against his chest, until he was gasping, bloody, and still.
“Yield,” she hissed, panting, hair clinging to her face.
He said nothing.
So she struck again—once, twice, sharp and brutal.
“Yield!”
His lip curled. His eyes flickered.
Then the word came out like a whimper.
“…Yield.”
Silence.
Then the elder raised the staff again.
“Aria Vale has won her challenge.”
She stood slowly, blood on her hands, her stomach aching but intact.
Zara pushed through the ring first. Others followed—young wolves, old ones, even two former council guards. No one spoke, but their faces said everything.
This wasn’t pity.
It wasn’t awe.
It was recognition.
They weren’t seeing Kael’s former Luna.
They were seeing Alpha Aria Vale.
Later, as the fire was lit and Calder was carried off, Zara pressed a warm cloth into her bruised hands.
“You scared me,” she said.
Aria looked at her, exhaustion settling into her bones. “Good.”
“Why?”
“Because fear is the first step to respect.”
Zara smiled faintly. “And what’s the second?”
Aria stared out over the crowd now settling into quiet conversation. “The second,” she whispered, “is loyalty.”
That night, no one placed a challenge bone at her door.
And for the first time in weeks, the wind did not howl.
It bowed.
