Perfect Luna, Double Crowned

Chapter 20 – First Night on the Wire

The forest always sounded different when you were waiting to be hunted.

Every creak was a footstep. Every owl call was a signal. Every breath felt too loud.

I walked the creek path anyway.

Same time as before. Same boots, same coat. Same stupid healer with a pack of supplies and a knife tucked into her sleeve. I made sure to grumble under my breath and kick a stone in exactly the way anyone watching from the dark would expect.

Predictable bait. That was the point.

The silver tang of the cut snares still clung to the air, ghost‑thin. We’d cleared the worst of them this afternoon. I’d “missed” one charm on purpose, leaving it hanging from a low branch like a promise.

It glinted ahead of me now, three teeth and wire silhouetted against the dim sky.

Behind me, I could feel them—not the trappers, not yet, but my own ghosts.

Caelan was somewhere high on the right ridge, Moonfang scouts fanned along the slope. Rylan mirrored him on the left with Stormclaw. Taryn, Kade, Liora, Jace, Finn—staggered in the shadows, close enough to hear if I screamed, far enough that anyone watching would see only one figure on the trail.

I shouldn’t have been able to tell them apart.

I did anyway. The bonds threaded through the trees, their shapes outlined in some sixth sense. Caelan, a warm, steady weight. Rylan, a cold, sharp edge. The others, quieter sparks.

“Talk to me,” I murmured, more to keep from listening too hard to my own heartbeat.

“You’re off tempo,” Caelan’s voice came soft in my ear, courtesy of the tiny rune‑marked stone tucked into my collar. Rowan’s one concession to “new tricks.”

“Excuse me?”

“You always stop to look at the second bend before the charm,” he said. “You didn’t.”

“Stalker,” I muttered, pausing a beat to stare at the water. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” he said dryly.

Rylan’s voice slid in next, lower. “Wind’s shifting. Scent’s going to carry. Keep moving.”

“Smell anything worth worrying about?” I asked.

“Besides your terror?” he said. “Not yet.”

I rolled my eyes at the empty air and stepped under the charm.

Up close, I could see the subtle differences: the wire a shade brighter, the teeth polished instead of worn. New‑made, copying old patterns.

I reached up with deliberate care and clipped it free.

“Bored yet?” I said, addressing whoever was out there and pretending I was only talking to myself. “Because this is what the next week looks like if you don’t show up, you know.”

Nothing answered but the creek.

“Loose ground ahead,” Taryn’s murmur came through the stone. “Watch your right.”

I adjusted my step just before a patch of leaves slid under my boot. Someone had scraped the topsoil away, like they’d been setting up a pit trap and got interrupted.

We’d missed that.

My pulse kicked.

They were adjusting too.

Good.

I made it to the old deer salt lick without dying—small victories. This was where we’d found the pup‑sized snare, the scrap of Stormclaw blue. Tonight the ground looked ordinary. Too ordinary.

I knelt anyway, fingers brushing the dirt.

There. The faintest ridge of wire, buried just deep enough that only a misstep would find it.

“You seeing this?” I breathed.

“Left fork anchors to the oak,” Rylan said. “Right runs under the rock. They’re learning.”

“So are we,” Caelan said.

I slid my knife into the earth, feeling for tension. The wire sang under the blade—a barely‑there vibration.

“Don’t cut it yet,” Rylan said.

“Planning to leave it attached to my foot?” I hissed.

“Planning to see which way they pull from,” he said. “They can’t spring it without touching the line. Let it sing.”

The idea made my skin crawl. It also made sense.

“Fine,” I muttered. “But if I lose a toe, I’m billing you.”

I eased the knife out, leaving the wire intact. Then I did the least natural thing in the world: I stood up and stepped back onto the trail as if I hadn’t seen it.

The line hummed under the ground, faint, a metal nerve waiting to be plucked.

I walked on.

Ten paces. Fifteen.

The forest held its breath.

Then—a tiny, nearly inaudible tremor through the soles of my boots.

Someone tugged the line.

Not hard. A test pull.

“South‑east ridge,” Caelan’s voice snapped. “Movement in the brush. Two‑legged, light.”

“North bank too,” Rylan said. “Mirror position. They’re running pairs.”

My heart slammed against my ribs.

“Eyes only,” I whispered. “No one moves until I say.”

I stopped at the next bend and pretended to adjust my boot.

Leaves rustled where no deer walked. A shadow detached itself from the undergrowth up‑trail—a human‑shaped outline, hood low, steps careful. Another answered on the opposite bank.

Too smooth. Too quiet.

They thought they were the hunters.

I lowered my gaze, let my shoulders sag, made myself small.

“Whoever you are,” I said under my breath, “you picked the wrong rock to kick.”

The wire hummed again, harder this time.

“Now,” I said.

The bonds snapped tight as bowstrings.

Wolves poured out of the dark.