The Lycan's Broken Moon

Running away

Seraphina POV

The coffee tray hit the floor with a sound like breaking bones.

I didn't look back. I ran down the hallway, past the portraits of Alphas who had never protected me. I passed the window where I had once watched Logan train and dreamed of a future that was now ash. My feet barely touched the stairs. My heart hammered against my ribs, a trapped bird desperate for escape.

Aurora, I called out silently, hoping, praying. Aurora, please…

Silence.

The emptiness where my wolf had briefly stirred felt like a door slammed shut. I stumbled into my room. The small corner space my father had moved me to after my mother's death. When Lilith decided she needed the larger bedroom for her "growing needs." The walls were bare. The bed was narrow. It had never been mine, not really.

I collapsed against the door, sliding down until I hit the floor, and finally let myself feel it.

They were selling me.

My father, the man who was supposed to protect me, had agreed to trade me to the Lycan King like I was livestock. My sister, who had already taken everything. She took my mother's attention, my place in the pack, my mate. And then, she wanted to watch me be destroyed by some monster in the north. And Logan, my Logan, had stood there and said it would solve things.

I pressed my hands against my mouth to stifle the scream building in my throat. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. Wouldn't let them hear me break.

My mother's voice echoed in my memory, soft and fading. ‘Follow your heart, my little moon. Don't cry for the unworthy.’

I looked at my hands. the same hands Aurora had healed just minutes ago. The skin was smooth, unblemished, impossible. If my wolf was real. If that voice hadn't been grief-induced madness. Then maybe I wasn't as powerless as they believed.

Maybe I could run.

The decision crystallized in my chest, sharp and cold. If they could plan my future without me, I could plan my escape without them.

I had been saving money for years. Coins hidden in a loose floorboard. tips from odd jobs. birthday money from my mother's sister. She lives three territories away and never visited. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get me to the human cities. Where wolves didn't rule and mates didn't betray. And fathers didn't sell their daughters to monsters.

I moved fast. I pulled a worn leather satchel from under my bed and stuffed it with essentials. the hidden money. a change of clothes. my mother's necklace. a photograph of a woman with green eyes like mine and a smile full of love.

I didn't let myself think about what came next. Not about the dangers beyond pack territory. Or about rogues and hunters and the Lycan King who might already be waiting. I just moved, filling the bag, mapping the route in my head.

The window was my best option. The drop was fifteen feet to the garden below, but there was an oak tree with branches that almost touched the sill. I would climbed it a hundred times as a child, sneaking out to meet Logan in the moonlight.

The thought of him sent pain lancing through my chest. I shoved it down. He wasn't worth my tears. None of them were.

I was zipping the bag when I heard footsteps in the hallway. Light, purposeful, accompanied by the familiar rhythm of my sister's humming. some pop song from the human world that Lilith loved and I had always found grating.

"Sera?" Lilith's voice came through the door, syrupy sweet, poison wrapped in honey. "Father wants to see you. He has... news."

I didn't answer. I threw my bag out the window and swung my legs over the sill, fingers finding the rough bark of the oak. The branch creaked under me. I descended quickly, heart in my throat. expecting at any moment to hear Lilith scream, to hear the alarm raised, to feel hands dragging me back.

Instead, I heard her laugh. The bedroom door opened. The humming stopped.

"Gone," Lilith said, loud enough for me to hear from my perch in the tree. "The little mouse ran away. Well, this just got more interesting."

I didn't wait to hear more. I dropped the last six feet, landed hard, and ran for the forest.

The woods were dark and familiar, paths I had walked since childhood now becoming my only hope. I knew the guard rotation. every Shadow Vale wolf learned the patrol routes by age ten. The eastern border would be thinly staffed for another twenty minutes. The guards moved toward the southern ridge for the shift change.

I ran until my lungs burned, branches whipped my face and roots threatened to trip me. until the pack house was nothing but a distant glow behind me.

The moon rose overhead, fat and orange, casting long shadows between the trees. I didn't shift or couldn't shift. Whatever Aurora was, she wasn't a wolf I knew how to call. but I ran with everything I had, human legs carrying me toward freedom.

I almost made it.

The root caught my ankle three hundred yards from the border. I went down hard, palms scraping against pine needles and stone. Pain flared in my left hand, and when I looked down, I saw blood welling from a gash across my palm. The same hand Aurora had healed, reopening as if the miracle had never happened.

No, I thought, staggering up. No, no, no-

I looked between my bleeding hand and the back at where I had run from.

I left a trail. Bright droplets on leaves, smears on bark, the copper scent hanging in the air like a beacon. Wolves could track blood for miles. This means they can easily locate me.

I ran faster, clutching my injured hand to my chest. In an attempt to stop the trail of blood. but I knew. I knew even before I heard the howls behind me, before I saw the torchlight cutting through the trees.

They were coming.