Cursed Luna: Claimed by two

“Run!” Mira’s scream cut through the trees a half second before the arrow did. I dropped flat into the mud, felt the wind of it pass an inch over my shoulder, and rolled behind a fallen log as a second arrow buried itself where my head had just been. “Rogues!” someone shouted further back. “Rogues in the west woods, get the Alpha!” I army-crawled through wet leaves toward Mira, who’d taken cover behind a boulder with her knife already drawn and shaking in her grip. “How many?” I whispered. “I counted four. Maybe more.” “You’re wolfless too; you know that includes both of us dying out here.” “Not helping, Rhea.” Something crashed through the brush ten feet to our left. I grabbed a fist-sized rock, the only weapon a girl with no wolf and no training worth mentioning actually had, and waited, heart slamming against my ribs. A wolf the size of a small horse burst from the tree line, fur matted with blood that wasn’t its own, eyes wild in the particular way rogue wolves got when they’d been running feral too long to remember what pack law even meant. It saw us. It smiled, if a wolf’s mouth could smile, and started walking, slow, unhurried, the way predators walked when they already knew they’d won. “Mira, go left on three.” “Rhea” “One.” The rogue lunged. I didn’t move left. I threw the rock as hard as I could at its eyes, more instinct than plan, and in the half second it flinched, a second shape came out of nowhere and slammed into the rogue’s side with enough force to send both of them crashing through a stand of saplings. I scrambled up, pulling Mira with me, in time to see a huge black wolf pin the rogue to the ground, jaws locked around its throat, before the rogue went still for good. The black wolf lifted its head. Blood dripped from its muzzle onto the leaves. And then, right there in front of us, it began to shift, fur receding into skin, until a man knelt where the wolf had been, breathing hard, dark hair stuck to his forehead with sweat and rain. He looked up. Found my eyes. The pull hit me so hard I actually staggered, a hook sinking straight through my ribs and yanking tight, and across the clearing I watched him go rigid the same way, one hand flying to his own chest like something had struck him there too. “No,” he said, before I’d said a single word. “No, that’s not possible.” “Excuse me?” He stood, and even covered in a rogue’s blood, even breathing hard from a fight that had nearly gotten us both killed, something was commanding about the way he crossed the clearing toward me, jaw tight, eyes doing the math I could see him doing. “You’re wolfless,” he said. Not a question. “You’re welcome, by the way. For not dying.” “I asked you a question.” “You didn’t. You made an observation and said it like an insult.” My chest still ached where the bond sat tangled and raw, and some reckless, humiliated part of me refused to let him see how badly my legs wanted to close the distance between us instead of running. “Who are you?” “Kian Ashwood.” He said it like a title, which it was. “Alpha of Ashwood territory. And you just became the single worst timed complication of my entire year.” “I didn’t ask to be your complication.” “No.” His eyes swept over me, the mud, the torn sleeve, the knife I didn’t know how to use still shaking in Mira’s hand a few feet away. “But the bond doesn’t care what either of us asked for, does it?” Mira grabbed my arm. “Rhea, we should get back before more of them come.” “She’s right,” Kian said. “Move. Now.” We ran, the three of us, back through the trees toward the territory line, and it wasn’t until we broke into the clearing near the border, guards already rushing toward us with torches and shouting, that Kian finally slowed, turned, and looked at me like he was seeing the whole shape of a problem he hadn’t asked for and didn’t want. “You’re going to tell your Alpha what happened out there,” he said. “Rogues attacked. You saved us. That’s the whole story.” “That’s not the whole story, and you know it.” “The bond,” I said it flatly, refusing to let my voice shake even though everything in me wanted to. “You felt it too. I saw your face.” Something closed behind his eyes, a door shutting on whatever had almost softened there in the woods when he’d looked at me and, for one unguarded second, hadn’t looked away. “I felt something,” he said carefully. “It doesn’t mean anything.” “Doesn’t it?” “A wolfless omega isn’t a mate, Rhea.” My name sounded strange in his mouth, like he hadn’t meant to learn it yet. “It’s a mistake the goddess is going to have to explain to me, because I did not survive eight years of pack politics to end up bonded to a woman who can’t even shift.” The words landed exactly like the arrow had, precise, aimed, meant to draw blood. “Then explain it to her,” I said. “Not me.” Guards reached us before he could answer, my own Alpha shoving through the crowd demanding to know what happened, and Kian Ashwood turned away from me mid-breath, already composing his face into something diplomatic, already deciding, I could tell, exactly how he planned to make this entire encounter disappear. He didn’t get the chance. “Alpha Kian.” One of his own wolves came sprinting from the tree line, pale, out of breath, blood on his hands that wasn’t from the fight we’d just survived. “It’s your brother. He’s been found. He’s alive.” Kian went utterly still. “That’s not possible,” he said. “My brother died six years ago.” “Not according to the man we just pulled out of the rogue camp.” For a long moment nobody moved. Rain kept falling, soft against the torches, and Kian stood frozen in the mud like the words hadn’t finished reaching him yet. “Say that again,” he said. “Your brother, Alpha. Ronan. He’s alive. He was with the rogues.” The wolf swallowed hard, glancing at me like he wasn’t sure I was supposed to be hearing any of this. “He says he’s been running with them for two years. Says he has proof of who put him there.” “Who,” Kian said, voice gone low and dangerous, “put him there?” The wolf hesitated. “Say it.” “He says it was you.” The clearing went dead silent except for the rain and the distant crackle of torches. I watched something break loose behind Kian’s eyes, disbelief and fury tangled together so fast I couldn’t tell which one would win. “That’s a lie,” Kian said. “I mourned him. I buried an empty casket for him.” “He’s asking for you, Alpha. He’s asking by name.” Kian didn’t move for one more second, chest rising too fast, and then he turned, fixing me with a look I couldn’t read at all, something between warning and apology. “This isn’t over,” he said, low enough that only I could hear it. “Whatever that was in the woods. We’re not finished.” “You already told me it doesn’t mean anything.” “I lied.” He said it flat, almost angry at himself for admitting it, and then he was gone, striding back into the trees after his wolf, leaving me standing in the mud with my chest still aching and my full understanding of what had just happened cracking wide open. Mira grabbed my hand. “Rhea. What just happened?” I didn’t answer her. I was still staring at the tree line where Kian had disappeared, his brother’s name hanging in the wet air like something that was about to burn this whole territory down, and underneath the ache in my chest, underneath the humiliation of being called a mistake twice in one conversation, a colder thought was already taking root. Whatever Ronan Ashwood had to say about his own brother, I had a feeling it was going to matter to me too. I just didn’t know yet how much.