Chapter Seven: Blood Oath
2257 Words
Rain drummed down like war drums over the rogue camp.
Martha stood in the center of the clearing, soaked to the skin, surrounded by the fiercest wolves left behind by the world. He held a blade, and her palm cut clean and red.
Tonight wasn’t about revenge.
It was about rebirth.
“Step forward if you’re ready to be bound to this cause,” she said, voice hard as steel.
C was the first to step into the circle, baring his forearm. “To the death.”
Cina came next, her eyes glowing faintly. “To the truth.”
One by one, the others followed—Dov, the mute tracker with haunted eyes; Sera and Kellan, twin siblings who once served in the Riverfang Pack; and even Arkyn, the cynical former palace guard.
Martha sliced each palm carefully and let their blood mix in the silver bowl at the center of the fire. Then she added her own.
When the flames turned silver-blue, the air around them stilled.
Cina’s lips parted. “It’s reacting…”
The bowl hissed. Then cracked.
A brilliant flash of light surged into the sky, forming the faint outline of a crescent moon.
The Blood Oath was accepted.
And the Moon Goddess had heard them.
The next morning, Martha woke from a dream drenched in sweat and shadow.
She had seen a temple.
Not made of stone, but of bone. Deep underground. Moonlight had poured through cracks in the rock, and someone, no, something had been calling her name in a voice made of whispers.
She told Cina, who grew pale.
“There are rumors about places like that,” Cina said. “Temples buried before the Great War. Sealed away because they held dangerous truths. Forbidden rites. Ancient bloodlines.”
“And what if I was one of them?” Martha asked. “What if Rochelle wasn’t who she thought she was?”
Cina didn’t have an answer.
But Cassian did.
“You’re not going to like what I found,” he said that evening, returning from the north.
He laid out a scroll, much older than the others. It smelled of ash and salt.
It was a family tree.
Of the original bloodline of Luna wolves.
Cassian pointed to a name at the bottom.
“Rochelle of Moonclaw,” he read. “Daughter of Maia, who was cast out.”
Martha blinked. “My mother died giving birth. That’s what I was told.”
“That’s what you were fed,” Cassian said. “But Maia was once an alpha too. Not of Moonclaw, but of the forgotten pack: Silvergrove.”
Martha looked closer. There, in faint script:
Maia of Silvergrove, banished for bearing the blood of the seers.
Cina swore softly. “That’s why you survived the poison. You’re not just chosen. You’re descended from the ones who wrote the prophecy.”
Martha staggered back, pulse roaring in her ears.
The betrayal had never been about love.
Or even power.
It had been about blood.
The wrong bloodline in the right position. A Luna who was never meant to live long enough to awaken the truth.
And they had killed her to stop that from happening.
That night, Cassian approached her tent.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m furious,” Martha said.
He watched her. “You still want Pearce dead?”
She hesitated.
“No,” she said finally. “I want the ones who knew the truth and hid it. Thane. Morgana. The ones who tried to erase me.”
“And if Pearce gets in the way?”
She didn’t answer.
Meanwhile, in Moonclaw territory, Morgana paced the Grand Hall, her hands trembling despite the fire blazing in the hearth.
“Are you certain?” she asked the Elder beside her.
Thane didn’t flinch. “She’s alive. Or at least, something is walking in her skin.”
Morgana clenched her jaw. “I killed her. I saw her fall. I poured that potion with my own hands.”
Thane’s eyes glittered like coal. “You killed Rochelle. Not the soul inside her.”
She swallowed hard. “If she returns…”
“She won’t,” Thane said coldly. “Not if we act first.”
Back at the rogue camp, the effects of the Blood Oath had started to ripple.
Martha’s strength was increasing. Her vision had sharpened. She could hear thoughts not words, but emotions. And her dreams were no longer dreams. They were messages.
In one, she saw herself standing in the bone temple again. But this time, she wasn’t alone.
A cloaked figure stood across from her.
“You are the second moon,” the figure whispered. “The one who returns.”
“Who are you?” Martha asked.
The figure removed the hood.
It was Maia.
Her mother.
“You must reclaim the name I gave you.”
Martha woke up gasping.
Two days later, Cassian led a small team to ambush a Moonclaw supply caravan.
Martha went with them.
The mission was simple: intercept the convoy, take their food and weapons, leave a warning.
But the moment they attacked, everything changed.
One of the guards. A scarred veteran locked eyes with Martha.
He froze.
Then dropped his weapon.
“My Luna,” he whispered. “By the Goddess…”
Before anyone could react, he dropped to one knee.
Gasps spread.
Cassian grabbed Martha’s arm. “We have to go.”
They fled, taking the supplies but leaving behind a truth that couldn’t be unspoken.
Rochelle had returned.
And someone had seen her.
Word reached Morgana in less than a day.
The scout was trembling as he delivered the news. “The rogue… she looks exactly like the late Luna. The guard swears he saw her eyes. He says she even smelled like her.”
Morgana dismissed him and locked herself in her chamber.
She looked into the mirror, and for the first time in years, she saw fear.
She went into the woods.
Past the outer ring. Deeper than anyone dared.
To the place Thane had warned her never to go.
There, in the heart of the cursed forest, she knelt at the base of a black tree twisted like a serpent.
“I need power,” she whispered. “Real power.”
The wind howled. Shadows shifted.
And something ancient stirred beneath the roots.
“You dare disturb me?” the voice hissed from the darkness.
“I want to kill the twice-born.”
A moment passed.
Then the roots split open like jaws.
“Then you will carry me inside you.”
Black tendrils wrapped around her throat. Crawled into her mouth. Her eyes rolled back.
And when she rose, her body was her own but her soul was no longer alone.
Her eyes turned black.
And a voice not her own echoed in her mind.
“Bring me the child of Maia.”
Back at the rogue camp, Martha stood over the map Cassian had drawn.
The time for shadows was ending.
She touched her sword hilt.
“No more hiding. No more running.”
Cassian looked at her. “Then what comes next?”
She looked up, her voice calm.
“We start with Thane.”
The others looked up.
She smiled faintly, a flicker of Rochelle beneath the warrior’s mask.
“Let’s burn the Council from the inside.”
The blood oath had bound them.
But it was truth that would set them on fire.
And the fire was only just beginning.
- Writer
