Chapter1
1210 Words
Aria Valehart
I always thought the woods were safe.
The scent of pine and moss. The hush of wind moving through the branches like a lullaby. For as long as I could remember, the forest beyond Silvergrove had been my escape—my sanctuary.
Tonight, it wanted blood.
I don’t know why I came here. Something pulled me. Something deep and ancient, buried under my skin and stitched into my bones. I’d felt it all day—this strange, electric tension under my skin, like I was waiting for something to happen and didn’t know what.
It wasn’t nerves. Not exactly. But it didn’t feel human either.
The sky above was a bruise of deep indigo, the moon swollen and silver, glowing unnaturally low in the sky. Too bright. Too full. Like it was watching me.
I should’ve been home.
Most girls got parties on their eighteenth birthday. Cake. Candles. Presents. I got a note from Aunt Marla saying she’d be “staying late at the clinic” and leftovers in the fridge.
So I did what I always did when the walls of that empty house felt like they were closing in—I ran into the trees.
But this time, the trees didn’t welcome me.
I stopped in a clearing I’d known my whole life—old oaks tangled together, their roots reaching like fingers under the earth. I stood in the center, letting the silence settle around me.
Except it wasn’t silent.
The wind moved strange tonight. Sharp. Cold. Carrying scents I couldn’t quite name—burnt wood, wildflowers, something earthy and raw... and something else.
Something feral.
My boots cracked over a bed of dry leaves. I turned in place, heart thudding. The night pressed in like a weight on my chest.
That’s when I heard it. A whisper, barely audible, not spoken with words but felt deep in the marrow of my bones.
Come.
My breath caught. “Hello?” I called out, voice small in the open dark. “Is someone there?”
No answer. Just that overwhelming feeling. Something inside me tugging—pulling me deeper.
And then the pain hit.
It started in my spine. A lightning bolt of fire that ripped straight down my back. I screamed and dropped to my knees, clutching the ground. My fingers curled involuntarily, bones shifting beneath skin.
It felt like my body was being turned inside out.
“Stop—” I sobbed, but the word came out warped. My jaw ached, my teeth elongated. Muscles stretched, snapped, reformed. My vision blurred, sharpened, fractured. Every sound, every scent exploded in clarity. The rustling of leaves became thunder in my ears. The scent of my own sweat turned pungent and sharp.
I clawed at the ground, howling now—not human, not yet wolf.
Then suddenly, clarity.
The pain ebbed into something else. Power.
And I saw her—not with my eyes, but from inside.
A wolf.
She was enormous. Silver-coated, eyes like starlight. She stared back at me from the deepest part of my soul. Not hostile. Not afraid. She had been waiting.
Waiting for me to be ready.
Then I wasn’t me anymore—I was her. Wind rushing past fur. Four legs instead of two. The forest burst to life around me, senses heightened to something almost holy. I could smell everything—the dirt beneath my paws, the tiny drop of blood in the air from where I’d bitten my tongue. Every tree, every movement, every sound pulsed with meaning.
I ran.
Not out of fear. Out of instinct.
The feeling of motion, of speed, was exhilarating. I crashed through the trees like a whisper, my silver pelt glowing in the moonlight. For the first time in my life, I felt whole.
Alive.
But the freedom didn’t last.
They found me. I heard them before I saw them—paws pounding like war drums through the night. The scent of other wolves filled the air. Strong. Male. Dominant.
Predators.
I turned sharply, my body shifting with ease I shouldn’t have had—but they were too fast. Shapes flickered between the trees. Eyes gleamed gold and amber and ice blue.
They circled.
I skidded to a halt in another clearing, my heart hammering in my chest. They didn’t speak, didn’t growl. They just watched. Their bodies were larger than mine, sleek and disciplined, each step calculated.
Then he emerged.
Not in wolf form. No, he came out of the woods like he owned the entire forest.
Tall. Powerfully built. Jet-black hair slicked back. His jaw was sharp, his cheekbones carved like sculpture. But it was his eyes that rooted me to the ground—molten gold, glowing with a light that wasn’t natural.
He looked like a god who had crawled up from the underworld.
And when he met my gaze, the air left my lungs.
Mate.
The word slammed into me with the force of a tidal wave. My wolf surged toward him, unbidden. Every nerve in my body strained to move, to touch, to go to him. My very soul screamed that he was mine.
I shifted back without thinking, pain rushing through me again, leaving me gasping and bare in the moonlight. I barely registered the shredded remnants of my clothes clinging to me.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
He approached slowly, each step heavy with command. The wolves around us stood back, unmoving. Submissive. Waiting.
His expression was unreadable.
“You,” he said, voice deep and rough, “must be the rogue they’ve been whispering about.”
His tone wasn’t curious. It wasn’t kind. It was disdainful. Dismissive.
I opened my mouth, still dazed, still trying to speak through the chaos in my chest. “Who—”
But he cut me off.
“I felt the bond.” He spoke like it disgusted him. “But you’re nothing I expected. Weak. Unclaimed. A stray pretending to be a queen.”
I flinched. “I don’t even know what’s happening—”
He stepped closer, towering over me now. His golden eyes flicked down my body and back up again. My skin burned where his gaze landed, not with desire—but shame.
And then, with no warning, he said the words that would fracture my soul.
“I reject you.”
The world tilted.
“I, Kade Blackthorn, Alpha of the Blackfang Pack, reject you as my mate.”
Time stopped.
Pain detonated in my chest like a bomb. Not just emotional. Physical. Real. As though a bond had snapped taut inside me and then ripped in two. I couldn’t breathe. My legs gave out. I crumpled to the ground, choking on sobs I couldn’t voice.
It wasn’t just heartbreak.
It was obliteration.
He didn’t even blink.
“You’re not worthy of being Luna. Not to me. Not to this pack.”
I wanted to scream, to fight, to demand why—but my voice was gone. Everything was gone.
He turned his back to me.
“Let her go,” he ordered the wolves. “She’s no one.”
And just like that—he walked away.
Leaving me broken, n***d, and utterly alone under the gaze of a cold, silver moon.
- Writer
