Chapter 1 What Fate Has Planned

(Lyra)

I thought turning eighteen would feel different. Not dramatic, or life-altering… just different. A little heavier in the chest, maybe. A little more important. But right now? I mostly feel tired. I’m tangled in blankets, basically dead asleep, when my bedroom door slams open hard enough to send all five of my sun-catchers clinking violently against the window.

“LYRA!”

My mother’s voice is the first explosion of the morning; bright, thrilled, and absolutely too loud for any reasonable human being. “Happy birthday! Eighteen! Up, up, up!”

I groan without lifting my head. “No.”

The mattress dips as she sits beside me, her hand finding the middle of my back and patting rapidly, like she’s checking to make sure I haven’t died in the night. “Absolutely not. No sleeping in. Not today.”

“Why not today?” I mumble into the pillow.

“Because,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the universe, “you’re shifting. We have a full day of plans and celebrations!”

“I could shift later.”

“No. You cannot shift later.”

She flicks me behind the knee, her classic mother move that looks gentle but somehow hurts like a personal betrayal. I jerk upright with a gasp.

“There she is!” Mum beams. “Oh my goddess, look at you. My baby. My—”

“Mum,” I warn. “Please don’t cry this early. You know it stresses me out.”

But she’s already cupping my cheek, thumb brushing under my eye in the way she always does when she’s proud or emotional or both. “You look just like me at your age.”

“Traumatic,” I say with a cringe.

“I meant beautiful.”

“Still traumatic.”

She laughs and stands, heading toward the doorway. “Your brothers are up already.”

As if summoned by prophecy, three groans echo down the hallway. “We are NOT up!” Dorian shouts, followed by a massive thud that definitely sounds like he rolled straight off his bed.

Dad Xavier’s calm voice follows. “Well, you are now.”

Dad Haiden chimes in, already too energetic. “Rise and shine, pups!”

“We’re eighteen,” Felix growls. “Stop calling us pups.”

“You’ll always be pups to me,” Dad Haiden sings.

Dad Noah sighs loudly, dry and unimpressed. “Haiden, for the love of the moon, stop antagonising them.”

“I’m not antagonising,” Haiden protests. “I’m encouraging.”

Dad Levi adds softly, “You’re encouraging chaos.”

“Chaos builds character,” Haiden fires back, “and possibly hellhounds too.”

I cover my face with my hands. “Please stop saying hellhound on my birthday.”

Mum whips around like she’s been personally offended. “Exactly! Thank you, Lyra.”

The three boys groan again, loudly, like they’re being tortured by joy itself, and I drag myself to the doorframe and lean against it, rubbing sleep from my eyes. The hallway is pure pandemonium.

Kieran is wrapped like a burrito in his blanket while Dad Xavier tries to unwrap him. Felix is hanging half out of his doorway, hair an actual disaster. Dorian is arguing with Dad Noah about whether the lights are “aggressively bright.”

“I agree with him,” I announce. “There’s no need for the big lights. Ever.”

Dad Noah gestures toward me as if I’ve just confirmed his point. “See? Lyra agrees.”

“Lyra will agree with anything that lets her go back to bed,” Felix mutters.

He’s not wrong. I glance beside me to see Mum has both hands on her hips, already at war with Dad Haiden.

“You do NOT mention hellhounds on shifting day,” she scolds, pointing at him. “We are manifesting wolves.”

Haiden grins like a man who has never taken anything seriously in his life, which, honestly, might be accurate. “I’m just saying… if one of them gets a hellhound, it’ll make pack training exciting again.”

“Wolves,” Mum snaps. “We’re getting wolves. Nice, normal alpha wolves.”

Dad Noah steps fully out of Kieran’s room, rubbing half-awake eyes. “Nothing in this house is normal.”

Mum whirls on him, poking a finger into the centre of his chest. “Not helping, Noah.”

Dad Levi hides a smile behind his hand. Haiden doesn’t even bother hiding his, and then Dad Xavier looks up and notices me. His whole face softens. “Oh. She’s awake.”

Haiden puts a hand to his forehead like he’s performing at a theatre. “The moon has risen!”

“Oh my goddess,” I mutter. “Dad Haiden, please stop.”

He sweeps me into a hug anyway, warm and crushing and annoyingly perfect. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

Dad Levi follows, kissing the top of my head. “We’re proud of you.”

Dad Noah ruffles my hair. “Ready for the big shift?”

Felix snorts. “She was born ready.”

Dorian stretches like he hasn’t slept in days. “Can we eat now? My stomach is digesting itself.”

“Yes,” Mum declares, clapping her hands. “Breakfast! And then decorating the training grounds. And then your grandmother arrives and—”

All three boys freeze mid-step. “Grandma?” they echo in horror.

“She wants to see the shift,” Mum says sweetly.

Dorian groans. “She terrifies me.”

Felix mutters, “She terrifies everyone.”

“She’s not that bad,” Kieran says, yawning so widely his jaw pops. “Plus, she gives the best gifts.”

“That’s because she feels guilty for scaring you,” Felix fires back.

“Both of you hush,” Mum says. “And don’t be rude. My mother has missed many important things in her lifetime, and she does not want to miss this. So be nice.”

The boys all know when the right time to shut up is. It took them a few years... a lot of years, actually, but they're finally getting it now.

Dad Xavier guides the boys toward the stairs. “Come on. Let Lyra get dressed.”

As the chaos flows downstairs, I linger in the doorway, watching my family. They're loud, messy, divine, overwhelming...but perfectly imperfect. All of them. If I had to be born into a different sort of chaos, I'm not sure I'd survive, but this one? This one is mine, and I can't help but love it just the way it is. Tonight, everything changes. We get our wolves, maybe we meet our mates, who knows? It's another step into whatever destiny has in store for us. But right now, I’m just Lyra. Eighteen years old. Barefoot. Hair a disaster. Heart thrumming like a hummingbird. I'm nervous, excited, curious, a whole whirlwind of emotions. I close my door and breathe in.

Tonight, I meet my wolf. Tonight, I become someone new. Whatever fate has planned for me… I hope I’m ready.