Pregnant with the Amnesiac Alpha’s Heir

The ceremony may have ended, but the whispers never stopped.

They followed Lyra like shadows soft and slithering. In the training grounds, behind the elder hall, at the shared meals at the pack house and late-night patrol rotations. Eyes slid away when she passed, but she always felt them. Conversations slowed when she entered a room. Even laughter around her seemed strained, tight-lipped, forced.

"Still hasn't shifted."

"I heard the Moon Goddess turned her back on her."

"An Alpha's daughter with no wolf? What kind of omen is that?" Some didn't even bother to whisper.

"She's cursed," someone had muttered once, loud enough for her to hear.

Lyra didn't respond. She never did. If she let every insult sink into her skin, she'd have no flesh left. Still, the weight of it built slowly, a pressure between her shoulder, like her heart was bruised from constantly holding itself upright but in the storm of judgment, her family remained as her strength.

Her father never looked at her with disappointment, only concern. His powerful presence was softer with her now, more hands on her shoulder, more lingering glances when she wasn't speaking. He didn't say it aloud, but she could tell he was trying to understand.

Her mother watched her closely too, always with quiet stared. Sometimes Lyra caught her whispering near the garden under moonlight prayers, probably. A mother begging the Goddess to reconsider.

And Rynn her brother, was exactly the same as always overprotective, nosy, and annoyingly sweet.

But it was Rynn's mate, Elira, who gave Lyra space to breathe.

"Are you going to cry, or are you going to punch the next person who stares at you like you're about to break?" Elira said, arms crossed as she leaned in Lyra's doorway the morning after the ceremony.

Lyra blinked at her from the bed, eyes puffy and hair still tangled.

"I'm... debating both," she muttered.

Elira chuckled and entered into the room. "Good. We love a balanced approach."

She dropped a bundle of warm bread wrapped in soft linen on the bed

"You're not broken, you know," she added more gently. "You're still you."

Lyra sighed and stared at her hands.

"I don't feel like me. I feel like an empty space. Like everyone's expectations were living inside me, and now they're... gone."

Elira sat beside her."Just because people expect something from you that doesn't mean it's right—or that you owe it to them."

Then, with a grin, she elbowed Lyra. "Also, i am pretty sure you're not empty. Unless that glow-from-your-palms thing last night was just the moon playing tricks?"

Lyra blinked. "You saw that?"

"Hard to miss when you wander back in glowing like moonfire," Elira said. "I didn't say anything in front of Rynn, but seriously what was that?"

Lyra hesitated, she hadn't told anyone not even to her parents. 

She wasn't sure but "I healed something," she said softly. "A fox small, wounded. It was dying, and I didn't know what to do. I just... touched it and then my hands started to glow. The light came from me, like it had been waiting all along. And the wound closed."

Elira's eyes widened. "Lyra, that's... that's not normal healing."

"I know," she said. "I think... I think it was her. The Moon Goddess. I dreamt of her afterward. She said I was hers."

Silence stretched between them.

Then Elira smiled soft and real. "Maybe you weren't meant to shift into a wolf. Maybe you're meant to be for something else entirely."

The days that followed were quiet but not idle.

Lyra stayed out of the pack's inner circle as much as she could, walking the edge of the forest, pretending to gather herbs while she learned to control the strange warmth in her hands. She started with small things scratches on rabbits caught in brambles, a bird with a bent wing. 

When she focused, the glow returned gentle and steady, like a stream of moonlight. She could guide it now, shape it with intention.

Her body didn't change, but something deep inside her was clearly shifting.

And word started to spread again this time in different tones.

"She healed a pup's fever overnight."

"I heard she closed a wound without even touching it."

"She's not wolfless. She's... something else."

Some gossiped with awe now. Others with fear. A few with envy.

Lyra ignored it all.

She didn't do it for them.

She did it for the little creatures she saved, for the quiet peace blooming in her chest, and for the deep, unspoken promise in her bones that her path was different, not lesser. 

Still, the ache lingered.

At night, when the halls of the Alpha House were quiet, she sat by her window and stared at the stars. She still ached for the connection others spoke of the second voice in their minds, the wild joy of running on four legs, the feeling of truly belonging.

But inside her, there was no howl. 

Only silence.

Warm. Deep. Powerful.

And somehow… divine.

Maybe that was enough. 

Maybe one day, it would become something more.