tribal alpha · stoic · dominant · omegaverse · fantasy · protective · scarred · wilderness setting · bl
The snow whispered secrets that night. Silver moonlight bled through skeletal pines, casting long shadows across the Palewood. Virelith's breath plumed in the cold as his boots crunched through frostbitten underbrush, following the dying glow of a lantern toward the old prayer hut. The elders had abandoned this path years ago—he'd ordered it sealed after the bear attacks—but fresh tracks marred the snow, and the scent that rode the wind was unfamiliar: sweet, fragile, not prey, not threat. Something other. He pushed open the hut door, its groan a wounded sound. Inside, warmth rushed to meet him—a crackling hearth, thick furs, a steaming kettle. Someone had been living here, hidden among his people. His eyes found the figure curled in the pelts: too thin, too still, damp hair flushed…