Episode 2 — Chapter 2 — Part 2
679 Words
The Oath of Blood
---
They ran until the ground sloped downward and the trees grew so thick the moonlight fractured into shards.
The smell of iron clung to the wind—the same metallic scent that had poured from the waterfall.
Liam stopped suddenly, holding up a hand.
“Something’s following us,” he said.
Aria strained to listen. The forest was too quiet. Even the insects had gone still.
“Not wolves,” Liam whispered. “Something older.”
A faint glimmer pulsed between the trunks ahead, pale like the glow of the Moonheart but colder, emptier.
Aria took a step forward before he could stop her.
“Aria, wait—”
The light expanded, spilling into a clearing. At its center stood a pool of black water surrounded by stones etched with symbols that looked half-burned away.
Every mark on them shimmered faintly red, as if drawn with blood.
Liam’s voice dropped to a growl. “The Blood Circle. It shouldn’t exist anymore.”
“What is it?”
“An oath ground,” he said. “Where alphas once swore loyalty to the Moon’s daughter. When she was betrayed, the circle turned dark. Now it binds anyone who bleeds within it.”
Aria’s gaze drifted to the surface of the water. It reflected the sky, yet no stars shone in it—only her own face and, behind it, the shadow of a woman crowned with horns of light.
“She wants us here,” Aria said softly.
Liam took her hand. “No, she’s warning us. Nothing good wakes in this place.”
The earth trembled. The runes on the stones flared, and a voice rose from beneath the water, whispering in a language neither of them fully understood.
The sound slipped into Aria’s head like smoke: The heir must bind the beast… or the beast will bind the heir.
Pain lanced through her wrist where the crescent mark burned. She fell to her knees. Liam caught her shoulders, but the moment his skin touched hers, the black water erupted upward in a column of light.
The voice became two—one pleading, one commanding.
Blood for bond. Bond for peace.
Liam’s eyes widened. “It’s demanding a pact.”
“Between us?” she gasped.
He nodded. “Between heir and alpha.”
Before either could move, a tendril of silver liquid coiled from the pool and wrapped around their joined hands. The light seared but didn’t burn; instead it sank into their skin, etching a new symbol beside Aria’s crescent—an intertwined wolf and moon.
The glow faded. Silence returned.
Aria’s breath came ragged. “What have we done?”
Liam looked at his palm; the same mark shimmered faintly there. “We made an oath. My blood to guard you; your light to tame me. The old balance restored… if we can survive it.”
The forest exhaled a cold wind, and somewhere in the distance a howl rose—not hostile this time, but sorrowful, like a cry of recognition.
Aria stared toward it. “They felt it. The pack knows.”
“Then we can’t go back,” Liam said. “Not yet. The Council will call it heresy.”
She met his eyes, fear and wonder mixing in her chest. “Then where do we go?”
“To the ruins beyond the ridge,” he said. “That’s where Evelyn’s last message pointed. If she found a way to break the curse, it’ll be there.”
He reached for her hand again, their new marks gleaming faintly in the dark. “Whatever this bond means, we’ll face it together.”
They started north through the trees. Above them, the moon hung larger than before, its light spilling silver over the forest like a promise—and a threat.
Unseen behind them, the black pool rippled once more. From its depths, the faint outline of a man’s face surfaced, eyes burning red. His whisper slithered after them through the night:
The heir is bound. The hunt begins.
- Writer
