Cursed Bonds The Wolfless Luna's Redemption

Destiny

My body was shutting down.

I could feel it happening. The way my thoughts were getting slower, fuzzier. The way my fingers and toes had gone from painful to numb to nothing at all. The way my heartbeat was becoming irregular, stuttering.

Hypothermia.

I was dying.

*Good,* part of me thought. *Let it end. Let it be over.*

What was the point of surviving? I had nothing. No pack. No wolf. No future.

I was wolfless. Broken. Worthless.

The words my uncle had spoken echoed in my mind. *You are no longer one of us.*

He was right. I wasn't one of them. I wasn't one of anyone.

I was nothing.

Tears froze on my cheeks. I couldn't even cry properly anymore.

*I'm sorry,* I thought, though I didn't know who I was apologizing to. My wolf. My parents, dead these ten years. Myself.

*I'm so sorry.*

The binding mark on my wrist flared with sudden, agonizing pain. I gasped, clutching my arm. The symbol burned like it was being carved into me all over again.

*What—*

The pain spread up my arm, into my chest, radiating outward. My blood felt like it was on fire, like something was trying to claw its way out of my skin.

I screamed, but no sound came out.

My vision blurred. The darkness around me seemed to pulse, to breathe.

*I'm hallucinating,* I realized distantly. *This is it. I'm dying.*

But the pain didn't stop. It grew worse, more intense, until I thought I would shatter from it.

Then something shifted.

The air around me changed. Grew heavier. Charged with energy I could almost taste.

Through my blurred vision, I saw light. Silver light, pouring through the gap in the boulders. But it wasn't dawn. This light was wrong, too bright, too focused.

Moonlight.

But the moon had been hidden behind clouds all night.

I tried to move, to see what was happening, but my body wouldn't respond. I was frozen, trapped in my own flesh.

The light grew brighter, filling the gap, spilling over me like liquid silver.

And I felt something.

A presence. Vast and ancient and impossibly powerful.

It wasn't my wolf. This was something else. Something that had always been there, buried deep, waiting.

*What are you?* I tried to ask, but my lips wouldn't move.

The presence didn't answer. But I felt it reaching for me, wrapping around me like a blanket.

Like protection.

Like home.

The moonlight was inside me now. I could feel it in my veins, replacing the ice with liquid fire. It burned, but not painfully. It was warm. Alive.

The binding mark on my wrist pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat. The symbol glowed silver, so bright I had to close my eyes against it.

*What's happening to me?*

Around me, the darkness was moving. Shadows peeled away from the boulders, taking shape, massive, ethereal creatures made of smoke and starlight. Wolves, or something like them.

They circled the gap where I lay trapped, their eyes glowing with the same silver light that filled my veins.

*Guardians,* something whispered in my mind. Not my wolf's voice. Something older. *They've been waiting for you.*

*Waiting for what?*

*For you to awaken.*

I didn't understand. None of this made sense. But the shadow-wolves were real. I could see them, even through my failing vision. They moved with purpose. With intelligence.

Protecting me.

One of them turned its head, looking past the boulders. Its lips, pulled back in a silent snarl.

Something was coming.

I felt it too: a presence approaching through the trees. Powerful. Dangerous.

But not like the wolves. This was something else entirely.

The shadow-wolves tensed, ready to attack.

*No,* the voice in my mind said. *Not an enemy.*

*Then what..*

*Your destiny.*

*My what?*

But I was fading. The cold was winning, pulling me down into darkness despite the warmth of the moonlight.

The last thing I saw was a shape stepping through the boulders, tall, broad-shouldered, moving like something that had never once needed to hurry.

Its eyes found mine.

And they were red.