MoonBound: A Blood Oath

Moonbound: A Blood Oath

The Prophecy

When the moon bleeds red and shadows claim the hills,

Two hearts divided by hatred shall bind by fate’s will.

The cursed and the chosen, with claws bared to fight,

Shall either end the world… or set the darkness alight.

Chapter 1 – The Ashwood Heir

The forest always whispered.

To outsiders it was wind through branches, owls calling, foxes crying in the underbrush. But to Elara Veyne, the whispers were words. They called her cursed. Witch. Outcast.

She tightened the cloak around her shoulders as she climbed the slope toward the ruins of Ashwood Keep. She should not have been here — her mother’s warnings still burned in her ears. Stay away from the old bloodlands, Elara. That place belongs to them.

Them. The wolves.

Legends said the Ashwood bloodline had been the first to carry the curse — half-man, half-beast. Their line had long ago split into rival packs, tearing kingdoms apart. And yet, as Elara’s boots crunched against brittle leaves, she felt it — the pulse in the ground, like the heartbeat of something not quite dead.

At the shattered archway, a figure stepped from the shadows. Broad-shouldered, moonlight striking off pale eyes. A man, but not.

“Little witch,” he said, voice low and sharp. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Elara froze. Her pulse thundered, but her chin lifted all the same. “And yet I am.”

The man’s mouth curved into something between a smirk and a snarl. “Do you even know whose land you trespass on?”

She swallowed. “Ashwood’s.”

At that, his smirk hardened into something dangerous. “Then you know you stand in my ruin.”