The Luna’s Possessive Lovers

The Final Hunt

Chapter 1 The Final Hunt

Abigail’s POV

The moon looks physically ill tonight. It is swollen and hanging low in the sky, pouring a ghostly, freezing silver light across the white snow like a wound is bleeding in the heavens.

I am crouched low in the biting frost. My breath comes out in thick clouds of fog as I stare at the deep tracks cutting through the winter landscape. The trail belongs to one rogue wolf. A male. He is a massive, hulking beast, but clearly starving. The scent coming off his trail makes my nose wrinkle in disgust; it is the smell of rotting meat, old blood, and a frantic desperation that makes my skin itch with discomfort. This is the same foul odor that has been lingering around our borders for weeks, creeping closer with every passing sunset. He is testing our strength, probing for a weakness. At this point, I recognize his scent better than I know the smell of my own skin.

Behind me, the village is wrapped in a heavy, uneasy silence. There are only forty-three wolves left in our pack. That means forty-three empty, aching stomachs. It means forty-three pairs of tired eyes that look at me and see nothing but a young girl playing a game of dress-up while wearing her dead father’s crown. I can feel their heavy judgment even now, watching me through the thin wooden walls of their huts and through the thick darkness of the night. Nobody has the courage to say it to my face anymore, but I hear the unspoken words vibrating in the air anyway Why can’t she fix this mess? Why is she failing to save us?

I am tired of waiting. To hell with being patient.

The tracks lead toward the edge of the river. I follow them, making sure my heavy boots stay silent on the hard-packed snow. My hand is already gripped tightly around my dagger. It has a handle made of dark ironwood and a blade forged from pure silver. It was my father’s final gift to me before the "accident" that claimed his life and forced me to become the Luna at only nineteen years old. The metal feels strangely warm in my palm. I move my thumb over the ancient symbols he carved into the grip. For the pack. For the blood. For the moon. They are beautiful, poetic words, but they feel empty now. The moon hasn’t given us an answer or a blessing in many years.

The wind shifts suddenly. The rogue’s scent hits me with full force the smell of damp fur, stale blood, and something sharp and metallic. I drop flat against the ground, my heart thumping like a hammer against my ribs. My white cloak helps me blend into the snow, but I am not foolish enough to rely on camouflage alone. Rogues do not stay alive by being stupid. They survive because they are hungry enough to take deadly risks.

Then, he steps out into the clear moonlight. His ribs are poking sharply through his matted, sickly fur. His eyes glow with a wild, yellow fire. He sniffs the air once, then twice, and then his gaze locks onto mine. I watch him make a silent choice. There is no trace of fear in him. There is no doubt. There is only the drive of pure hunger.

I stand up slowly, keeping my dagger raised and ready. "This is Silverthorn territory," I say, my voice steady. "Turn around and leave."

My voice does not tremble. I have practiced very hard to make sure of that. I had to. I have buried my fear along with everything else I’ve lost the sound of my mother screaming when the sickness took her, the sound of my father’s final breath as the cliff edge broke away, and the way the pack elders stared at me during my ceremony as if they were watching another funeral instead of a crowning.

The rogue lets out a wet snarl. White foam drips from his yellow, broken teeth. He is clearly sick. Perhaps he has rabies, or perhaps he has simply lost his mind to the isolation. It doesn't really matter.

He lunges at me.

I spin to the side, twisting my body. My blade slices through his leg tendon instead of his throat. It is a deep, clean cut. He lets out a terrible, high-pitched yelp and trips over his own paws. Blood that looks almost black in the moonlight splashes onto the white snow. He scrambled back up, limping heavily, and bolts toward the border. I decide to let him run. If you kill one rogue, ten more usually show up to take his place. That is simply how the world works these days.

I clean the blood off my blade using the edge of my cloak and look toward the dark, menacing trees on the other side of the river. That is Ironfang land. We do not go there. Ever. Just thinking the name causes a cold shiver to run down my spine.

Ironfang. They are the pack that never suffers a loss. They never have to beg for help. They are ruled by the famous Blackthorn twins, Elijah and Alexander. By now, they are more like myths than men. People say Elijah can organize an entire war while he is sleeping. They say Alexander once killed a full-grown grizzly bear using nothing but his bare hands. They say that anyone who wanders onto their land never comes back—at least not in one piece.

I have never met them in person, and I never had any desire to. But sometimes the wind carries their scent across the water—a sharp, wild smell like pine needles and burnt gunpowder. Their flags are colored black and silver, which matches the dark scars their soldiers wear. They aren't known for being helpful or kind. They are known for taking whatever they want.

Tomorrow, I am going to cross that river.

Tomorrow, I am going to walk straight into their home with nothing to protect me but my family name and a desperate prayer.

Tomorrow, I am going to offer to trade whatever they demand—my pride, my physical body, or my very blood—just to get the resources and strength needed to keep my pack from dying out.

By all logic, I should be terrified. But I feel strangely numb.

I turn around and head back toward the village. The snow crunches loudly under my boots. The small wooden houses are all dark, except for a single flickering lantern inside the elder’s meeting hall. They are staying up, waiting for me. Elder Thorne will be in there, using his smooth, annoying voice to talk about "staying strong" and how the moon goddess will eventually provide for us. He will probably say that going to the Ironfang pack is a sin against our traditions.

He is completely wrong.

I walk past the central fire pit. It has been cold and gray for weeks because we have no wood or energy to keep it burning. The piles of ash look like the ghostly faces of the children who used to play here when things were better. I stop at the edge of the village square and look up at the moon once more.

You took everything from me, I think bitterly. You took my mother and father. You took my pack's safety. You stole my entire childhood. You left me with this rotting, broken mess. I clench my jaw. Fine. I will stop asking for help and make my own deal.

I show my teeth to the sky in a silent challenge.

Watch me kneel to them. And then watch me stand back up.

The heavy door to the hall creaks open. Thorne steps out into the cold. He is hunched over with age, but his eyes are still sharp and observant. "Abigail," he calls out.

I don't stop walking. "Not tonight, Thorne."

"You cannot keep going out to hunt by yourself," he says, his voice full of worry. "You are going to get yourself killed out there."

"I am still breathing, aren't I?"

"For how much longer?" His voice cracks with emotion. "The rogues are becoming more aggressive. We have no food left. The children..."

"I know!" I spin around to face him, letting all my anger show. "I know exactly how many children cried because they were hungry tonight. I know how many old people are too weak to even change into their wolf forms. I know the water in the river is bad, the deer have all fled, and our border markers are falling apart. I know everything."

He flinches back as if I had struck him.

"I am going to Ironfang," I state clearly. The words feel like blood in my mouth. "I am leaving at sunrise."

His face turns pale white. "They will murder you the moment they see you."

"Maybe they will," I say, stepping closer to him. "But if I stay here and do nothing, we all die anyway. It will just be slower and more painful. And you will still be sitting here talking about being patient while the very last of us starves to death."

He opens his mouth to argue, then closes it. He has nothing left to say.

I walk past him and enter my small hut. The door is hard to move because it warped during the floods last spring. The inside of my home is almost empty. There is a simple bed, a storage trunk, and one single photograph hanging on the wall. It shows me when I was ten years old, standing proudly between my parents. My mother is smiling beautifully. My father’s hand is resting on my shoulder, feeling heavy and protective.

I touch the glass over the photo. "I am so sorry," I whisper into the quiet room. "I tried to lead the way you taught me. It wasn't enough."

The old trunk makes a loud creaking sound when I open it. Inside, I see my mother’s old cloak, which has been repaired so many times it is mostly patches. I see my father’s journal, with its leather cover cracked and falling apart. And buried at the very bottom, underneath everything else, is the one object I promised myself I would never touch.

It is a heavy token made of black iron. The symbol of the Ironfang pack is stamped into the metal.

I found it years ago, caught in my father’s fishing nets. He never explained why he had it. He never even spoke the name Ironfang out loud. But he kept it hidden. He kept it safe.

I squeeze my hand around the cold metal. The sharp edges press into my skin.

Tomorrow, I cross the river.

Tomorrow, I meet the Blackthorn twins.

Tomorrow, I offer them everything I have left.

And if they decide to say no?

I feel a dark smile spread across my face.

Then I will find a way to take what I need anyway.

The moon continues to watch me through the cracks in my window.

I pull off my blood-stained cloak and wash my face with freezing water from a bowl. I lie down on my bed without taking off my clothes. I know I won't sleep; I haven't had a good night's rest in weeks. Instead, I close my eyes and let the steps of my plan repeat in my mind.

First I Cross the river and get over the border without being captured by scouts.

Then I reach the main Ironfang fortress before their mountain patrols catch my scent.

Lastly I Kneel down. Beg for mercy. Offer them the one prize that no Alpha male can turn down a Luna who is in her heat cycle, someone who is not yet claimed or bound to any mate, someone who is truly desperate.

My muscles tighten at the thought of it. It isn't exactly fear I feel. It is something deeper and more primal. The biological urge to find a mate has been growing inside me for months. It feels like a low, simmering fire under my skin that gets hotter every time the moon is full. I have spent a long time fighting it and pushing it down. But tomorrow, I am going to use that fire as a weapon.

I roll onto my side, holding the iron token close to my chest. The metal feels warm now, though it might just be the heat of my own blood.

Elijah. Alexander.

I have never whispered their names out loud before. They feel dangerous, like I am casting a dark spell that I don't fully understand yet.

But I will learn. I have to.

I start to drift, not into a deep sleep, but into a memory of my father. I can almost hear his voice, low and calm "True power is never just handed to you, Abigail. You have to take it. And once you finally have it in your hands, you never let it go."

I smile into the darkness of the room.

Just watch me, Dad.

Outside, the moon sinks lower in the sky, painting long silver streaks across my wall.

Tomorrow, the hunt begins again.

But this time, I am not the one being hunted.