The footsteps ceased.
Silence settled over the forest.
Luna did not move.
Her wolf had already risen beneath her skin, sharpening every scent and sound.
Wet pine.
Smoke from distant campfires.
Fresh sap where the symbol had been carved into the oak.
And...
Someone else.
Close.
Watching.
“Darius?” Luna called again.
No response.
A branch shifted high above.
Not from wind.
From weight.
Luna looked up.
A dark figure dropped from the tree.
She twisted aside just as a knife struck the ground where she had been standing.
The stranger did not hesitate.
They landed lightly, retrieved the blade, and fled between the trees with unnatural speed, vanishing into the dark like they had never been there at all.
“Luna!”
Darius’s voice echoed through the forest, closer now, urgency cu
