The Lycan's Broken Moon

A stranger, a rogue

Seraphina POV

The ropes fell away, and I stumbled backward, my shoulder blades hitting the rough wall of the cottage.

My savior, if that's what he was, stood before me, naked and unashamed. His chest still heaving from the shift.

The massive black wolf that had shattered the door was gone. It was replaced by a man who looked like he had been carved from war and stubbornness. Scars crisscrossed his torso. Silvery lines that caught the moonlight streaming through the broken doorway. His eyes, those burning amber eyes never left my face.

"Thank you," I said, my voice rough from Lilith's grip on my throat. I cleared it, trying to sound stronger than I felt. "For the rescue. But I can manage from here."

I took a step toward the splintered doorframe. intending to slip past him, to disappear into the night before he could ask questions I didn't want to answer. My ankle had other plans.

The moment I put weight on it, pain shot up my leg like lightning. My knee buckled, and I pitched forward straight into his arms.

He caught me easily. One hand at my waist, the other bracing my back. and suddenly I was pressed against bare skin, still warm from the shift. The smell of pine and smoke and something wild that made my head spin. My cheeks burned. I couldn't remember the last time I had been this close to a man, this intimately held, this-

"You are injured," he said. Not a question. A statement, delivered in that rough voice that seemed to vibrate through my bones.

"It's nothing." I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened. not painful, just firm. Unyielding. "Let me go."

"Your ankle," he persisted, those amber eyes dropping to my feet. "You twisted it. When you ran and fell."

I followed his gaze and saw it for the first time. My left ankle was already swelling, the skin turning an ugly purple where the root had caught me. I must have done more damage than I realized in my panic to escape.

"I need to leave," I said, hating the tremor in my voice. "They are coming. My sister…. she will bring more guards. I can't be here when-"

"Sit."

He didn't ask. He guided me back to the chair. The same chair I had been tied to moments ago. He knelt before me with a grace that seemed impossible for someone so large. His fingers found my ankle, probing gently, and I bit back a gasp at the contact. His hands were warm, calloused, impossibly careful as they examined the damage.

"Not broken," he murmured. "Sprained. You will need to stay off it for-"

His voice cut off. His hands had moved higher, pushing up the leg of my jeans to examine the damage, and he went still. Completely, terrifyingly still.

I looked down and saw what he saw. The bruises. Purple and yellow and green, mottling my calf. my thigh, places where Lilith had grabbed me, where the guards had been rough. And where years of being the pack's invisible daughter had left marks that never quite faded. Some were fresh from tonight. Others were older, layered, a history of violence written on my skin.

"Who did this?" His voice had dropped to something dangerous. Soft as silk and sharp as steel.

I jerked my leg away, yanking my pant leg down to cover the evidence of my weakness. "It's none of your business."

He looked up at me, and I saw the wolf in his gaze. that ancient, predatory thing that had shattered a door to get to me. "You were tied to a chair. Beaten. Your own sister tried to choke you to death. And you say it's none of my business?"

"I don't know you." I tried to stand, ignoring the pain in my ankle, ignoring the way the room spun. "You are a stranger. A rogue, probably, or someone with even less claim to my life than the people who are after me. I thanked you. Now let me go."

I made it one step before he moved.

He was behind me in an instant. one arm sliding around my waist, the other beneath my knees, and then I was in the air. cradled against his chest like I weighed nothing. like I was something precious instead of something broken.

"Put me down!" I thrashed, but his grip only tightened. "What are you doing? Let me go!"

"You can't walk," he said, already moving toward the door. "And you won't accept help. So I will carry you."

"You are insane." I pushed against his chest, but it was like pushing against stone. "Put me down or I will scream."

"Scream, then." He didn't even look at me. "Your Shadow Vale packmates will hear you. They will come running. And they will find you with a naked stranger in the woods, hours after you ran from your pack." He finally glanced down, one dark eyebrow raised. "How do you think that will end, Seraphina?"

I went still. "How do you know my name?"

"I know many things." He stepped over the splintered remains of the door, into the night air. "I know you are trying to run away from your pack." His arms adjusted their hold, pulling me closer against the heat of his body. "And I know that if I set you down right now, you will try to run again on that ruined ankle. and you will hurt yourself worse, and I will have to chase you."

"So you are kidnapping me instead?" I tried to sound defiant, but my voice cracked. "That's better?"

"I am taking you home." He moved through the trees with impossible silence, barely disturbing the undergrowth. "To your pack. If you won't tell me who hurt you, I will ask them myself. Someone there owes me answers."

Panic spiked in my chest. "No. No, you can't- I can't go back there. They're going to-"

"They're going to what?" He stopped, looking down at me with those unreadable amber eyes. "Chase after you? Beat you? Tie you to another chair?" His jaw tightened. "I don't know what kind of pack treats its members like they are disposable, but I intend to find out."

"They will kill you," I whispered. "Or try to. You are one man, and they are-"

"Let them try."

He started walking again, faster now. His long strides eat up the distance between the cottage and the border of Shadow Vale territory. I could see the lights of the pack house in the distance, warm and welcoming and utterly terrifying.

"Please," I begged, my pride crumbling. "Please, don't take me back there. I will tell you anything. I will… I will pay you. I have money hidden, I can-"

"I don't want your money."

"Then what do you want?" I was crying now, hating myself for it, tears tracking down my cheeks. "Why do you care what happens to me? I am nobody... I am-"

I stopped. Because he had stopped.

He stood rigid beneath me, his head snapping toward the darkness, nostrils flaring. I heard it then too. The crack of branches. the whisper of voices. The distant glow of torchlight cutting through the trees.

"Your pack," he murmured, almost to himself. "Coming this way. Fast."

My heart plummeted. "Put me down. I will run. I I will-"

"You will never outrun them." His grip tightened, not cruel, just certain. "Not injured. Not like this."

"Then leave me." The words tasted like ash. "You don't know me. You owe me nothing. Just... put me down and go. They won't follow you. They want me, not-"

He looked down at me, and for the first time, he smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was sharp and knowing and full of secrets I couldn't begin to understand.

"We don't need to go back," he said, his voice dropping to a register that vibrated through my chest. "They are coming to us."

I followed his gaze and saw them. Torchlights bobbing through the trees, growing brighter, closer. I could hear Lilith's voice now, high and commanding, directing the search. I could smell the smoke, the wolves, the fury rolling off them in waves.

They had found me.

And they weren't alone.