Blood Moon Rising

Chapter One: The Last Laugh Ember’s strange dreams and distant relationship with her uncle, Alpha Nolan, which hint at a deeper supernatural lineage kept hidden from her.* --- The nightmare always began the same way. Ember Quinn stood alone in a forest drenched in moonlight. The trees were too tall, too silent, their blackened trunks rising like the spines of ancient beasts. The wind didn't move the leaves, and the stars above blinked red instead of white. Something was watching her — always watching — and no matter how fast she ran, the eyes followed. And then she heard it. A howl — long and low, the kind that rattled the soul. Not a wolf’s howl. Something older. Something is wrong. Ember would turn around in the dream, heart slamming in her chest, expecting to see a monster. But she always saw herself. Silver-eyed, barefoot, blood dripping from her hands. Then she would wake up, gasping, soaked in sweat, her heartbeat thudding like a war drum. --- It was always 3:33 AM. She didn’t know why that mattered, but it did. She’d been waking up at the same time every night for weeks. No matter how late she went to bed or how tired she was, her eyes would snap open at exactly 3:33, and her chest would feel like it had been carved hollow. At first, she thought it was stress. The bullying. The loneliness. Her constant fear of not being enough — not wolf enough, not girl enough, not anything enough. But lately… something had changed. Her senses had sharpened. She could hear things from across the house. Smell things she shouldn’t — like fear, or rage, or something even stranger, like lightning on metal. And the dreams were getting stronger. Last night, the girl with blood on her hands had spoken. “Wake up, Ember. It’s time to remember who you are.” --- “Ember, let’s go!” Her uncle’s voice snapped her out of the memory. She stood in the kitchen of Alpha Nolan Quinn’s estate — a cold, too-clean house perched on a hill above Blackthorn Hollow. It had always felt more like a showroom than a home. No pictures. No warmth. Just the scent of bleach and control. “I’m ready,” Ember called, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. Uncle Nolan was waiting by the door in his usual grey jacket, eyes hard and unreadable. He always looked at her like she was a burden he’d reluctantly agreed to bear. “Don’t forget to keep your head down at school,” he said as they walked to the car. “No one needs another reminder that you haven’t shifted yet.” “I wasn’t planning on howling in the hallway,” Ember muttered. His jaw clenched. “Watch the attitude.” She bit back the rest of her retort. No point in arguing. Alpha Nolan wasn’t cruel, not exactly. But he wasn’t kind either. He ruled the local Blackthorn pack with iron pride — and having a niece who couldn’t shift was a stain on that pride. Especially because her parents had been legends. Her father — Nolan’s younger brother — was a fierce warrior. Her mother had been something rarer: a seer with a silver-marked wolf. People said her howl could stop a fight before it began. But they were gone now. Disappeared in a rogue attack when Ember was seven. Or so she’d been told. Sometimes, she wondered if that was the truth. Sometimes, she wondered if the pack had buried more than just bodies that night. --- On the way to school, Ember watched the trees blur by outside the window. The woods always looked different in the morning — safer somehow. But she knew better. There were things in those woods that didn’t sleep. Sometimes, she heard them whisper when the wind was still. Sometimes, she whispered back. “You’ll be late for homeroom,” Nolan said flatly as he parked near Blackthorn High. “And remember—” “Keep my head down. Blend in. Don’t make waves,” she finished for him. He didn’t answer. Just drove away. Ember stood outside the school gates for a moment, letting the crowd of students swallow her. The usual mixture of laughter, gossip, and predator-slick stares filled the air. No one greeted her. No one ever did. She wasn’t quite one of them. Not wolf enough. Not important enough. Not dangerous enough. They called her Blankblood behind her back — a cruel nickname for a werewolf who hadn’t shifted by seventeen. Sometimes she wondered if they were right. But sometimes, when the dreams came… she felt something else. Something sleeping. Something powerful.