# Chapter 1: The Crimson Moon
The grease wouldn't come off.
Alicia scrubs the cast-iron pot for the third time, her raw knuckles screaming protest as she drags the wire brush across blackened metal. The scalding water turns her hands lobster-red, but she doesn't stop. In the Bloodfang Pack, an Omega who stops working is an Omega who stops eating.
"You missed a spot." Beta cook Maren's boot catches the water bucket, tipping it across the stone floor. Dirty suds spread toward the drainage grate. "Start over."
Alicia keeps her eyes down. "Yes, Beta Maren."
Three years. Three years of this kitchen, this pack, this life. Her wolf whimpers somewhere deep in her chest_hat broken thing that knows its place in the hierarchy. Omega. Lowest of the low. The pack's invisible servant.
Through the kitchen's narrow window, she watches Alpha Jax lead the evening hunt party toward the forest. Twenty warriors in their prime, muscles rippling beneath their shirts as they laugh and shove each other. Jax's dark hair catches the dying sunlight, and the mate bond in Alicia's chest gives a pathetic flutter.
He doesn't look back at the compound. He never does.
Maren dumps another pot in the sink, splattering Alicia's threadbare shirt. "The hunters will want their meal when they return. You've wasted enough time daydreaming about things above your station."
"Yes, Beta Maren."
The words taste like ash. Everything tastes like ash when you're swallowing your pride three times a day. But Alicia learned long ago that fighting back only meant bruises, and bruises meant she couldn't work, and not working meant
The Moon rises over the treeline.
Alicia's hands still in the water. Something's wrong. The Moon shouldn't be visible yet_usk is just beginning. And it shouldn't be that color. That deep, wet crimson, like a wound in the sky.
Maren drops the plate she's holding. It shatters on the stone floor, shards spinning across the drainage grate. "What the"
The first scream comes from the omega quarters.
Then another from the training yard. And another from the main hall. Within seconds, the compound erupts in a chorus of shrieking that makes Alicia's wolf flatten its ears in terror.
A shimmering red mist rolls across the compound yard from the forest edge. It moves wrong_ot like fog, but like something alive, seeking. Where it touches pack members, they collapse. Convulse. Their backs arch at impossible angles.
"Get inside!" Maren bolts toward the main kitchen door, but the mist is faster.
It catches her three steps from safety.
Alicia watches_rozen, useless_s Maren hits the ground. The Beta's fingers claw at the stone. Her mouth opens in a silent scream. Blood vessels burst across her eyes, turning the whites crimson.
Then she stops moving.
Alicia backs toward the cold storage, her survival instincts finally screaming louder than her shock. The compound yard is chaos now. Bodies everywhere. Some still. Some beginning to twitch and rise with movements that are fundamentally wrong.
A young Beta named Garrett staggers to his feet near the omega quarters. His eyes are white, filmed over like a week-old corpse. Blood drips from his mouth. He shouldn't be standing_licia saw him fall, saw him die.
But he's standing anyway.
Garrett's head snaps toward Maren's corpse with inhuman speed. He lunges. The sound of tearing flesh is worse than any of the screaming.
Alicia grabs a kitchen knife_ot consciously, just moving_nd backs into the cold storage room. Her hands shake so badly she nearly drops it twice. Behind her, more of those things pour through the compound gates. They move fast, too fast, their howls pitched somewhere between human and animal and nothing she's ever heard before.
She slips through the heavy door and throws the bolt.
The cold storage is a concrete box lined with meat hooks and ice-stained shelves. No windows. One door. If those things get in, she's trapped.
If she stays out there, she's dead.
Not much of a choice.
Alicia slides down the wall and huddles between two hanging deer carcasses, their frozen blood crusting against her shoulder. Through the thick door, she hears screams. Roars. Wet tearing sounds that make her stomach heave. The mate bond in her chest thrums with distant panic_ax is still alive, somewhere, feeling the same terror she is.
Good. Let him be afraid for once.
The sounds go on for hours. Alicia loses track of time in the darkness, counting her breaths to keep from screaming. Her hands are numb from the cold. Her throat is raw from holding back sobs. The knife sits useless across her knees because what good is a kitchen blade against monsters that don't die when they should?
Eventually, the screams fade. The roars become sporadic. Distant.
The silence that replaces them is somehow worse.
Alicia presses her ear to the door. She hears the slow drag of something heavy across the kitchen tiles. A wet snuffling sound, like a dog searching for a scent. The scrape of claws on stone.
Her breath fogs in the freezing air. Then stops fogging. Dawn must be close_he cold storage's temperature-regulation magic only works at night.
She has two choices: stay here and freeze, or open the door and face whatever's waiting.
Alicia tightens her grip on the knife. She's survived three years in this pack by being invisible, by knowing every hidden corner and forgotten passage that the higher-ranked wolves ignore. If there's a way out, she'll find it.
She has to. Because the alternative is dying here alone, and she's already died a thousand small deaths in this place.
She's not giving them a real one.
Alicia stands, joints screaming protest. She presses her palm against the door and feels vibration_omething moving in the kitchen beyond. Her wolf whimpers and curls tight in her chest.
The door's bolt is slick with ice beneath her fingers.
She takes a breath.
Opens it.
**