Bloodline secrets
1115 Words
The attic room felt colder that night.
Aria lay awake on her thin mattress, staring at the wooden beams above her as moonlight seeped through the small window. Her heart still hadn’t settled since the moment in the garden — Kai’s gaze, the strange pull she felt, the way Liana had practically dragged her away like she was something shameful.
She pressed a hand over her chest.
That warmth again.
A pulse, soft but steady, like a heartbeat beneath her own.
She didn’t understand it.
Why would the future Alpha look at me like that?
Why did he say my scent was unique?
And why do I feel… connected to him somehow?
Questions spun through her head, refusing to quiet.
Downstairs, she could hear the muffled voices of her stepfamily. Mira bragging about how Kai had “obviously” noticed her beauty. Damon scoffing that Kai didn’t “care about girls like Aria.” Liana making plans for Mira’s dress for the Crescent Moon Ceremony.
Aria curled tightly on her side.
She wasn’t allowed to attend the ceremony. She wasn’t allowed to shift. She wasn’t even allowed to speak unless spoken to. Her entire world felt like a cage.
Finally, she sat up.
She needed air.
She grabbed her cloak — a faded thing with ripped seams — and climbed silently out the window, down the sturdy vine-covered wall she’d used since childhood. With practiced movements, she dropped lightly to the ground.
The forest welcomed her with cool darkness.
Aria moved deeper into the woods, her footsteps soft on the fallen leaves. The moon hung high above, full and bright. Her wolf — the wolf she’d never met — stirred inside her chest, almost restless.
She reached the old training clearing. Broken logs, claw marks, and old training dummies scattered around, remnants of warriors who once practiced here. Aria had found this place years ago and claimed it as her secret sanctuary.
Here, she could pretend she was strong.
She took a steadying breath and began moving through the basic combat forms she’d memorized from watching warriors train from afar. Her body flowed with surprising precision — as if her muscles remembered something her mind did not.
After a few minutes, she struck the dummy with a sharper force than she intended.
It snapped in half.
Aria stared, stunned.
“That shouldn’t be possible…” she whispered.
She wasn’t supposed to be strong. Liana always told her she was frail, weak-blooded, unfit to be a warrior. But the strength she felt wasn’t normal. It wasn’t accidental.
It was growing.
She looked down at her hands. For a brief moment, they trembled—and her nails sharpened into small, curved claws before fading back.
Aria gasped.
Her wolf was trying to break through.
She backed away, chest pounding. Panic crawled up her throat.
“No… no, please not now…”
She tried to breathe, but emotion surged inside her like a tidal wave. Her vision blurred—and suddenly, a sharp pain shot through her bones. She fell to her knees, clutching her ribs.
Her body trembled violently.
Something was happening.
Something she’d dreamed of and feared her whole life.
Her first shift.
She gritted her teeth as heat surged along her spine, her bones reshaping, her senses exploding—
Then, just as suddenly as it began, the pain stopped.
Aria collapsed forward, panting.
When she opened her eyes… everything looked different.
Brighter. Sharper. Alive.
She staggered to her feet and looked down.
Her breath hitched.
Silver fur.
Not gray.
Not white.
Not the dull brown of most wolves.
Pure, glowing, moonlit silver covered her body.
Her wolf form was magnificent — elegant, powerful, and unlike any she had ever seen before. She moved, and her muscles rippled with strength. The wind brushed her fur, and it shimmered like liquid light. As she took a glance at her wolf in a poodle of water in a little pothole in front of her.
Aria’s eyes widened with wonder.
“Is this… me?” ,She thought
She ran forward instinctively, faster than she’d ever moved in her life. The forest blurred around her. Her senses sharpened — she could smell every leaf, hear every insect, feel every shift of air.
She was alive.
Truly alive.
And for the first time ever… free.
She ran until she reached the riverbank and took another look at her reflection in the water
Her wolf stared back with luminous silver eyes — the same eyes Liana hated in her human form.
Aria breathed out a soft huff.
But then she noticed something strange.
A faint glowing mark on her shoulder, shaped like a crescent moon.
She stepped closer to the water, heart pounding.
She had never seen this mark. It hadn’t been there before.
A symbol.
A sign.
Her wolf lifted its head proudly. A soft, ancient memory tugged at her heart — something deep in her bloodline awakening.
“Moon’s child ,” a voice whispered in her mind.
Or maybe it was just the wind.
Aria shifted back with trembling limbs. Her body ached, but her mind spun with revelation.
Why had Liana kept this from her?
Why had she been told she was weak?
Why forbid her from shifting?
Is there something liana isn’t telling her?
Because someone knew.
Aria took a shaky breath.
She needed answers.
When she returned home, she crept toward the storage room where Liana kept old documents. Her fingers trembled as she rummaged through dusty boxes.
Then she found it.
A leather folder marked with her father’s name.
Her throat tightened as she opened it.
Inside were papers describing her parents’ ranks.
Both had been elite warriors with royal lineage. Her father had been offered the position of Alpha successor years ago. They were powerful — respected — not weak deserters like Liana had claimed.
And then she found the last page.
A symbol.
The same crescent moon somewhere on her wolf’s shoulder. Under it, the title:
“Lunar Crest — Mark of the Silver Bloodline.”
Aria’s hands shook uncontrollably.
She wasn’t weak.
She wasn’t an outcast.
She wasn’t a mistake.
She was something rare.
Something important.
And someone had killed her parents because of it.
A sharp creak sounded in the hallway.
Aria froze.
Liana’s voice drifted through the dark:
“Aria… what are you doing up here?”
Aria hid the papers behind her quickly.
Her stepmother stepped into the doorway with cold eyes.
And for the first time, Aria didn’t feel fear.
She felt anger.
Burning, rising, powerful anger.
Liana stiffened.
Almost as if she smelled the shift inside Aria—
a shift that meant everything was about to change.
- Writer
