KIERAN
The full moon always brought with it a storm. Not just the ache in my body, the desperate pull to give in to the wolf—but the voices.
Every time I went feral, they came. Whispers from ghosts long dead. Some were the alphas Lucian and I had crushed in battle—bitter, mocking murmurs that gnawed at my mind. Others were crueler still. The voices of my parents, cold and disappointed, looping endlessly in my head. They never shouted. Didn’t need to. My mother’s voice was always quiet, cutting deeper than any scream: “You were too soft. That’s why we died.” And then my father’s: “One mistake, and everything burned.”
I was only ten. Too young to fight. Too young to lead. But old enough to know I’d failed.
I’d let a rogue slip into our territory. A lone wolf who begged for food and shelt
