Beneath Blood Moons

The blood moon hung low in the sky, swollen and red like an open wound, casting a cursed light across the top of the trees. The forest breathed around me—heavy, wet, and watching. I hadn't meant to enter Moon fall territory. My kind didn't survive long here. But hunger had eaten its way through my belly until instinct took over and exhaustion clouded my sense. Now I was paying the price. They had caught my scent along the north ridge. At first, it was just a whisper of movement—twigs snapping, paws scraping through leaves. Then the growls, booming through the forest like thunder, rumbling and famished. The pack. I could feel them circling, herding me like prey. I ran. Barefooted. Bleeding. Feral. Shifting had cost me more than it had given. My ribs were sore from a fight days before, deep purple bruises enveloping my side like a brand. Every breath felt like a broken glass. Still, I struggled on, my heart pounding against bone, feet slicing through thorns. The forest edge gave way to a cliff, the moonlight casting silver over the jagged rock. I skidded to a halt, chest pumping, and cursed under my breath. There was nowhere left to run, and I was exhausted. And then the air shifted. The growling stopped. There was an unnatural, heavy silence. I crept around, the hair on my arms lifting. One of them had stepped forward, but he was different from the others. He was alone. Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark leather and shadows draped across his frame. Golden eyes burning in the darkness like twin embers, fixed on me without so much as a blink. Not like a predator. Not even like a hunter. Like he knew me. Like he saw everything. The mate bond was struck with violent force. My knees buckled under me before I could catch myself, my hands grasping the edge of the cliff for balance. My wolf stirred, wild and frenzied, yanking against the wall I had spent years building. That pull—it coiled around my chest like rope, weighted with something ancient and primal. Something that made my blood sing and scream at the same time. No. This was impossible. Not with a Moonfall wolf. He didn’t say a word. He just stood there, as if a storm raged inside of him. As if every time he approached too quickly, he might reduce the world to rubble. And still his gaze never left mine. Fiery. Breathtaking. Infuriating. I hated how my body reacted. How my skin tingled where his eyes moved. How the pain in my side dulled just by being near him. How my wolf—the part of me I’d sworn to chain—growled not in warning, but in recognition. He took one slow step forward. I bared my teeth. “Stay back.” His lips parted, but he still didn’t utter a word. That golden gaze swept down my body, not with lust, but with knowledge. He saw the limp in my right leg, the dried blood on my arm, the scars I didn't even bother to hide. And still, he came closer. I backed away by instinct—heels scrabbling the edge of the cliff, the wind curling around my shoulders like ghostly fingers. "Don't," I warned again, my voice rough and low. His brows pulled together in a tight crease, and in a voice that struck harder than it should have, he said, "You're hurt." That voice. A gravelled whisper. Rough silk. It slid down my spine like flame, like an unspoken danger. "I'm fine," I snapped at him. "You're not." His concern was not soft—it was edged with something hard, something restrained. He was restraining himself. Himself, or maybe his wolf. My throat tightened. I didn't need this. I didn't need him. The bond was an illusion—some comic joke the moon goddess played on broken things. I turned, ready to run again. "Wait—" he called after me, and for a moment, my name echoed on the wind. Except… he didn't know my name. Did he? I glanced over my shoulder, eyes meeting his once more. That glance—golden and raw—caught me like a snare. My heart stuttered. My breath caught. And then I tore free. Free of it. Free of him. I ran. I didn't look back, not even when I could hear the others behind him start to shift, not even when the wind bore his voice once more—low, almost shattered. "Don't go." But I was already gone. Running from the cliff, from the pull in my chest, from the way his eyes had blazed like flames gnawing at my frosty heart. Running from the truth. Running from him. Branches tore at my skin as I pushed against the bush, the trees becoming green and black lines. Every breath a jagged blade in my ribs. Every heartbeat a war drum in my chest. I didn't stop—I couldn't stop. Not until the sound of pursuit faded far behind me. Not until his scent no longer hung in the back of my throat like smoke and pine and something darker. I collapsed behind a fallen tree, heaving chest, trembling hands. What in the world just happened? I gritted my teeth and dug my fingernails deep into the earth, grounding myself in dirt and rot and cold air. The mate bond was not supposed to feel like that. Not so sudden. Not so violent. Not so. real. It was not possible. A rogue like me didn’t get mates. We did not get second chances, sacred bonds, or burning gold-eyed strangers who looked at us as if we were a missing half of their soul. But when he looked at me—my skin had burned. Not out of shame or fear, but from the way he looked at me. Like he wasn’t seeing a rogue, or a threat, or an intruder. He saw me. I hated it. A twig snapped to my left.