Chapter 6
1014 Words
The Hunt Begins
The cold bit at Elara’s cheeks as she stood at the edge of the woods, a borrowed coat wrapped tightly around her. The trees before her stretched like ancient sentinels, their branches clawing at the pale morning sky. Behind her, the others gathered—silent, watchful. Wolves in human skin.
She was the only one trembling.
Cassien handed her a dark leather band. “For your wrist. It bears the Bloodkeeper seal. The others need to see it.”
Elara hesitated. “I don’t want to lead anyone. I can barely keep myself together.”
“You don’t have to lead,” he said. “You only have to survive.” Comforting.
Kael emerged last from the lodge, already in his wolf form.
Large, silver-black fur rippling with each movement, he looked like something born of shadow and moonlight. His golden eyes met hers for a fraction of a second. There was something dangerous there, but also—just barely—a flicker of something softer.
Then he vanished into the woods.
The others followed—some shifting mid-run, others holding the change back, feet crunching through frosted leaves. A blur of motion, of breath and claw.
Elara remained still. Her breath fogged before her. “You’ll be fine,” Cassien said, before disappearing after them.
She took one step forward, then another and crossed the threshold of the trees.
The forest welcomed her with eerie silence. Snow crunched beneath her boots, muffled by the thick canopy above. Strange things moved in her periphery—nothing threatening, just... alive. Her senses were sharper. Every rustle, every scent in the air came at her louder, clearer.
She touched her throat, remembering how it had burned the night she collapsed. That heat was still there, coiled deep inside her chest, waiting.
She didn’t know what the “hunt” truly meant—no one had bothered to explain. Was it a test? A ritual? A way to draw out the monsters that pursued them?
Or something more primal?
A scream broke the silence.
Elara whipped her head around, heart in her mouth. That was no wolf cry—it was human. Young. And terrified.
She ran towards the scream, branches tore at her coat. Her breath burned her lungs. The scream came again, closer. She burst through a thicket into a small clearing—and froze.
A boy, no older than sixteen, was cornered against a rock wall. Two men circled him—no, not men. Wolves. But twisted. Too large. Their forms grotesque, half-changed, muscles bulging with unnatural strength. Their eyes were red.
Red, The Order.
The boy screamed again as one lunged, “Hey!” Elara shouted, without thinking.
The creature turned. It snarled. Her blood turned to ice.
She braced herself to run—then pain exploded in her back as she was tackled from behind, slammed into the snow. The air whooshed from her lungs. Claws dug into her shoulders. She screamed, struggling beneath the weight of the creature pinning her down.
“Get off—!” A growl answered. Then something cracked through the clearing like a whip—followed by silence.
The weight was gone, she rolled over, gasping, to see Kael standing over the crumpled body of the creature. Its throat had been ripped clean. Blood steamed against the snow.
He didn’t look at her. He turned to the others.
Two more wolves—Cassien and a woman with jet-black fur—took down the second attacker in synchronized brutality.
The boy fled, sobbing. It was over in seconds. But Elara’s world had shifted.
She stared at the snow, stained red around her hands. Her breathing came fast, shallow. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Something inside her had awakened—not fear. Not horror.
Rage. Not at the Order. At herself. For being weak again.
Later, Kael stood with her by a frozen stream, silent as always.
She spoke first. “I froze. I couldn’t do anything.” “You distracted them,” he said. “That saved the boy.”
“I almost got killed.” He glanced at her then, something unreadable in his gaze. “You weren’t ready. But you came anyway.”
Elara looked down at her scraped palms. “I don’t want to keep being the girl who gets rescued.”
“Then don’t.” She met his eyes.
That simple. But the way he said it, like a challenge, like a promise—it struck her deep.
She would not stay weak. Not again.
Back at the lodge, Cassien pulled her aside. “You did more than most could under attack.”
“That’s not enough.” He nodded slowly, as if expecting this shift. “Then it’s time you learn what your blood can do.”
She followed him through a hidden door behind the fireplace—down stone steps into a cellar lined with old symbols and carved sigils.
Books. Scrolls. Weapons.
And at the center, a basin filled with silvery liquid that shimmered even without light.
“The heart of the Bloodkeeper’s power,” Cassien said. “The Moon Pool.”
Elara stepped closer. She saw her reflection—but not just her face. A flicker of gold shimmered in her eyes. The faint shape of a wolf behind her.
“I’m not ready,” she whispered. “No,” Cassien agreed. “But you will be.”
She looked up at him. And for the first time since she arrived in Eirenthal, Elara felt something she hadn’t felt in years. Purpose.
But far beyond the lodge, deep in the valley..., A cloaked figure knelt before a fire surrounded by bones.
The woman raised her hands to the flames, chanting in a forgotten tongue.
Behind her, dozens of red-eyed figures stood in silence, their breaths forming clouds of mist.
“She has awakened,” the woman said, eyes glowing faintly.
“She walks
among the wolves.” A voice answered from the shadows.
“Then the time has come.” Whispers of the Blood Moon
- Writer
