CHAPTER 3:THE FORBIDDEN NAME
1264 Words
Selene didn’t stop running until her lungs burned and her legs gave out beneath her. She collapsed beside a stream, its icy current whispering through the rocks. Her heart pounded—not just from the exertion, but from the bond that had formed like a noose around her soul.
Lucian Draven.
Of all the wolves in the Crescent Moon Pack, the Fates had tied her to the Alpha’s son.
A hunter.
A killer.
And now, her mate.
Selene curled into herself on the cold ground, arms wrapped around her ribs, trying to still the tremors that wracked her frame. The bond pulsed under her skin, alive and hungry. It tugged at her, whispering to her bones, calling her back to him.
She wanted to scream.
Not because she didn’t feel it—but because she did.
Every beat of her heart echoed his. Every breath she took carried his scent. And that terrified her more than anything.
She was rogue-blood. Marked from birth. The daughter of a bloodline purged from the history books. Her kind were hunted like dogs. No council would ever accept their mating.
If Lucian claimed her, it would destroy him.
And if he rejected her…
It would destroy her.
---
Back in the woods where their eyes had first met, Lucian stood unmoving. The clearing was still. Empty. The snow around his feet was only just beginning to cover her footprints, and his wolf growled at him for letting her go.
“Selene,” he whispered.
He didn’t know her name—not officially—but it tasted right.
The moment he’d scented her, he knew. His wolf had surged to the surface so fast he barely managed to stay on two legs. His soul had recognized hers.
But she’d looked at him like he was her executioner.
And then she vanished.
Lucian turned his face skyward. The moon, nearly full, glowed like a watchful eye. The legends about the mate bond were many, but one truth stood above all:
A mate never forgets.
He couldn’t leave her out here alone.
Even if it meant disobeying his father’s law.
---
Selene moved again by dusk, keeping to the shadows. She knew these woods better than any pack wolf. Her mother had taught her the hidden paths between old roots and stone, the safe hollows where the Crescent Moon patrols never went.
Still, it was risky.
Too close to the border. Too close to discovery.
But she needed answers.
The bond had awakened something in her—not just desire, but memory. Flashes of old lessons. Her mother’s voice in the dark, whispering names and warnings.
“If you ever feel the pull, you must run. You are Moonborn, child. And your fate is not your own.”
Moonborn. The word sent a shiver down her spine.
Her kind had once walked in daylight beside Alphas and Seers. Now they were burned as witches. Her mother had lived long enough to pass on the old stories—barely.
Selene came upon an abandoned cabin at the edge of the ridge. It leaned slightly to one side, covered in moss and snow. She hesitated only briefly before pushing the door open.
Inside, it was dark and cold, but dry.
She lit a candle with shaking hands, unpacked a bit of dried meat, and forced herself to eat.
Tomorrow she would travel further east—toward Hollow Root, the ancient forest where the witches once gathered. There, she might find someone who could explain what was happening to her.
Because something was changing.
Her senses were sharper. Her skin tingled beneath the moonlight. And sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she could hear Lucian’s heartbeat like it was her own.
The bond was awakening more than instinct.
It was awakening power.
---
Lucian returned to the Crescent Moon compound under cover of night. He climbed the outer wall instead of walking through the gates, avoiding the guards, the questions. He wasn’t ready to tell them anything. Not until he understood what he was dealing with.
He paced his quarters like a caged beast. Every instinct in him screamed to go back out there. To find her.
But that would mean war.
His father had made it very clear: no tolerance for rogues. No room for weakness. And the mate bond was a vulnerability the Alpha would exploit—or sever.
Lucian sat at his desk and pulled out the old maps of the forest. There were rumors of rogue enclaves in the eastern ridges. Places even Crescent Moon warriors refused to enter.
If she was heading there, she was desperate.
And if she was desperate… then she was hiding something far bigger than her status.
Lucian’s hand hovered over a name burned into the oldest section of the map.
Hollow Root.
A forbidden place. A cursed forest said to shelter remnants of bloodlines long thought extinct.
Lucian’s breath quickened.
The Council had erased names from the archives generations ago. Names like Moonborn. Names that carried too much power to control.
But the name still whispered to those who dared remember.
And suddenly, he knew.
Selene wasn’t just rogue-blood.
She was Moonborn.
---
Selene slept in fits, haunted by dreams of wolves wrapped in fire and bone, of silver eyes watching her from beyond the veil. She woke before dawn, heart racing, the candle burned to nothing.
As she left the cabin, the first rays of sunlight filtered through the trees, painting the snow in gold and crimson.
And there, standing between her and the path—
Was Lucian.
She froze.
So did he.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then he took a step forward.
She stepped back.
“Don’t,” she warned.
“Selene,” he said softly, finally speaking the name he’d only guessed before.
She stiffened.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“I had to see you again.”
“You followed me.”
“I felt you,” he corrected. “Every breath. Every thought. I can’t ignore it anymore.”
Selene shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what you feel. This bond—it’s wrong.”
“No,” he said firmly. “It’s rare. It’s real. And it chose us.”
“You don’t know who I am,” she snapped.
“Then tell me.”
She looked away, jaw clenched. “You won’t believe me.”
Lucian took another step forward. “Try me.”
Silence.
Then she whispered, “I’m Moonborn.”
The words hung between them like a storm.
Lucian didn’t flinch. “I know.”
Selene blinked.
“And you’re not afraid?” she asked.
“I’m furious,” he said. “That they lied to us. That they tried to erase you.”
“I’m hunted,” she said. “If they find out, they’ll kill me—and you.”
Lucian’s voice dropped. “Then let them come.”
She stared at him, chest rising and falling. “Why? Why risk everything?”
“Because I already belong to you,” he said simply. “And I think… part of you wants to belong to me too.”
Selene’s eyes glistened. “I can’t promise anything.”
“You don’t have to,” he said. “Just don’t run.”
A long pause.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
And for the first time since the bond awoke, the pull between them stopped hurting.
For a moment—it felt like home.
But the forest around them was watching.
And fate wasn’t done with them yet.
---
- Writer
