Waking Up New Moon

Under the Veil

Under the Veil

Two weeks inside enemy territory felt like two years.

The Crescent Moon field team, handpicked warriors, spies, and trackers loyal to the triplets, had slipped into the city under false names and forged documentation. It was a dangerous place, one of shifting allegiances and quiet surveillance. No uniforms. No crests. Just shadows and silence.

At the safehouse, an old converted inn tucked between a butcher’s shop and a weaver’s barn, the air buzzed with tension. Maps were pinned to walls. Notes scrawled on parchment and digital slates. Each agent bore a mark behind the ear, wolf ink that shimmered only when viewed in moonlight, the Crescent’s hidden oath.

Talia, the lead operative, pressed her fingers to her temple and sent a coded mind-link up the chain.

“Update prepared. Transmission secure. Begin.”

Within moments, a private channel opened—direct to the Palace war room.

Rowen responded first. His voice was tight. Tired. “Go ahead.”

Talia didn’t waste time.

“We’ve mapped four critical outposts along the southern quadrant, guard rotations have changed. Less organized. Looks like leadership is fraying. We believe the internal command is shifting hands. The names we keep hearing?”

She paused.

“A rogue, Alpha. Name: Fenric. And a woman... goes by ‘the Vulture.’”

There was a hiss through the link.

Jace. “She was supposed to be dead.”

Talia. “She’s not. And she’s dangerous. She's been organizing something beneath the surface. Recruiting lost wolves, the broken and discarded. She's building a following, whispers call it the Reclaim.”

Luca. “Are they threatening civilians?”

Talia. “Not yet. They’re playing the long game. Setting up supply lines. Disrupting small trade routes. Quiet acts of defiance. But it's growing. Fast.”

She shifted, scanning her own notes.

“More troubling, some of our scouts heard rumours about experimental containment. Suppression of wolf instincts through forced doses of dampening serums. We’ve only confirmed one lab, but it’s deep under the northeast industrial block. Too well guarded to breach without exposing the whole operation.”

There was silence on the link.

Then Rowen again: “What do they want?”

Talia. “Chaos. Collapse of the established bloodlines. They believe the Alphas have become corrupt. They want to tear down every last throne, yours included.”

Jace’s wolf snarled through the link.

Talia. “And Savannah’s name? It’s been spoken. They know she’s absent. They see it as weakness. They may come for her next, not just to harm but to use.”

The silence that followed was different this time. Lethal. Focused.

Then Rowen spoke with cold certainty.

“You keep watching. Report again in three days. If they make a move near the Retreat or the northern border, you call in the elites. We go full lockdown.”

Talia. “Understood. One more thing, there’s a whisper. Just a whisper. Someone inside their movement has doubts. A defector. I’m tracking them. No confirmation yet.”

Luca. “If you find them, bring them in. Alive. We need intel.”

Talia. “Affirmative. Moonlight guide us.”

Rowen, Jace, Luca. “And keep you hidden.”

The link closed.

In the safehouse, Talia exhaled. She looked around at her team, worn, vigilant, and ready.

They weren’t the triplets. They weren’t Savannah.

But they would hold the line until they returned.

Even if the city burned around them.

Talia crouched on the rooftop of an abandoned textile mill, her eyes trained on the alley below. The city moved like a machine, grey, tired, and grinding along in survival mode. But under its surface, something was changing.

Something dangerous.

She touched the edge of her comm rune and whispered, "Unit Three, report."

A flicker of a voice crackled back through the thread. "No movement at the eastern checkpoint. One patrol passed twenty minutes ago. Unarmed. No insignia."

Talia nodded to herself. That was the fifth shift today that moved without full gear. They were slipping. Getting lazy. Or maybe they were growing more confident. That was worse.

Behind her, Bran, her second-in-command and former Crescent enforcer, adjusted the long-range scope on his handheld. “Tali, the Reclaim’s movement has grown again. Third night in a row they’ve held a fire circle near the old courthouse. We’ve marked eighteen new faces.”

She let that settle. Eighteen wolves pulled into this rebellion. No banners. No code. Just fury.

“And there was a name again,” Bran added.

She looked over.

“Savannah.”

Talia’s eyes narrowed. “Context?”

Bran tapped the device, then handed it to her. The audio was faint, crackly, recorded with long-range mic tech stolen from one of the mercenary factions that used to rule these alleys.

A male voice said, “She was supposed to be their salvation. The Luna to bring balance. Now she’s missing, cracked under the pressure.”

A low chorus of snarling laughter followed.

“Doesn’t sound like they respect her,” Bran said. “Sounds like they’re circling.”

Talia’s stomach turned.

“They don’t know where she is,” she said, mostly to herself. “But they know she’s vulnerable.”

That alone was dangerous.

The retreat was shielded, cloaked from maps and memories with deep spellwork and ancestral bloodlines. But magic frayed when spoken about enough. When intentions pressed too hard against it.

Bran crossed his arms. “You think they’ll try to flush her out?”

“I think they’ll bait the Crescent. Make us move. Expose her ourselves.” Talia stood slowly, tucking the scope into her satchel. “That’s the kind of play the Vulture makes.”

Bran cursed. “If that witch comes into this city in full power”

“She won’t.” Talia cut him off. “She’s too smart for brute force. She’s working the shadows.”

They returned to the safehouse before nightfall. Inside, the rest of the Crescent Moon team huddled around updated map layouts, coded notes, and old texts. Quinn was tracking the bloodline splits of defectors. Marnin worked over a hacked console, trying to decode supply movements disguised as shipping ledgers. And Kael, the youngest but sharp as obsidian, had been tailing one of the Reclaim’s lower-tier speakers for three days.

“The defector?” Talia asked Kael.

“Getting close,” Kael replied. “She slipped a note in an old hollow tree near the black market trail. She’s scared. Thinks the Reclaim is turning on itself.”

Talia’s jaw tightened. “The more fractured they get, the more dangerous they become.”

Quinn looked up. “We need confirmation on Savannah’s condition. The palace is keeping it locked down. All we have are whispers.”

Bran spoke low. “She’s not broken.”

Talia met his eyes. “How do you know?”

“Because those three aren’t,” Bran said. “And they’re holding the line like she’s still their centre. If she’d truly lost herself, they’d feel it. They’re connected.”

The room fell quiet.

Talia reached into her pack and withdrew something. A sealed envelope. The parchment was thick, the ink precise and graceful.

“I have a copy,” she said softly. “One of the letters she left for them.”

They all leaned in.

It was a duplicate, one of several copies passed down from a trusted courier weeks ago, and each brother had gotten one. Written in Savannah’s hand. Nothing about strategy or duty. Just her truth.

“I don’t know how to be the Luna you deserve, but I promise I’ll try to become the woman I want to be. I need to learn to breathe again. I hope when I do, it’s your scent I inhale first.”

Bran’s throat bobbed.

Kael looked away.

Quinn whispered, “She’s not broken. She’s healing.”

Talia folded the letter and slid it back into its protective case. “Then we hold the line until she’s ready. We stop the Reclaim from ever reaching her.”

Bran cracked his neck. “Even if the city turns into a war zone?”

Talia’s eyes gleamed with the fire of her wolf. “Especially then.”