THE MOON'S FORGOTTEN CHILD

CHAPTER 6

If Kaelen's attitude was the spark, and the Shadow Court was the fuel, then the pack itself was the dry tinder waiting to burn.

News of Evangeline's status had spread through every level of the Iron Blood hierarchy like wildfire. The Alpha had rejected her. The Alpha despised her. The Alpha used her as an example of worthlessness. In a pack where social standing was everything, and where safety was found only by aligning oneself with the strongest power, treating Evangeline with cruelty became the fastest, surest way to gain favor.

What started as avoidance and occasional insults quickly escalated into a daily regime of terror. The whispers that followed Evangeline wherever she went turned from words into actions.

It began with the lower-ranking warriors and servants. If she walked past them carrying water buckets, they would deliberately step out and trip her, watching her fall to the stones, watching the water soak her rags, watching her struggle to get up with her broken, sick body. They would laugh and call out, "Clumsy trash!" or "Watch where you walk, ghost!" knowing she dared not speak back.

In the kitchens, where she was sent to scrape the burnt remains from the roasting pans, the cooks—women who should have understood hardship, who were mostly low-ranking omegas themselves—were the worst offenders. They threw hot scraps at her. They spat in the bucket of water she had to drink from. They kicked her under the table while she scrubbed the floor, hard kicks to the ribs or the stomach, places where the bruises wouldn't show immediately.

"Think you're special just 'cause you were meant for the Alpha?" the head cook, a heavy woman named Mara with a face like a bulldog, would sneer, looming over Evangeline while she was on her knees. "Think you get respect just 'cause of some thread the Goddess wove? Not here, girl. Here, respect is earned with muscle and teeth. You got neither. You're less than the pigs we slaughter. At least the pigs taste good. You're just… rot."

Evangeline endured it all. She had learned early that crying only encouraged them. Pain only made them grin. If she showed weakness, they attacked harder. So she perfected the art of disappearing. She made her body smaller. She made her steps silent. She lowered her head so far she looked at nothing but the ground. She became a shadow within the shadows.

But even that was not enough.

The whispers grew darker. Rumors began to circulate, planted carefully by those seeking to impress the upper ranks. They said Evangeline was cursed. They said her sickness was contagious. They said her presence blighted the land and made the hunting bad. They claimed that because she carried the rejected bond, she was a conduit for bad luck, a living stain on the Iron Blood honor.

Soon, it wasn't just about bullying; it was about "purifying" the pack.

One freezing afternoon, Evangeline was sent to the outer yards to collect firewood—a task far too heavy for her condition. She struggled under the weight of a bundle of logs that threatened to snap her spine, dragging herself through the snow and mud. A group of young pups, barely old enough to have shifted, spotted her. They were the sons and daughters of warriors, raised on stories of conquest and dominance. They had been taught exactly what she was.

"Look! It's the cursed thing!" one boy shouted, picking up a clod of frozen earth and hurling it at her. It struck her shoulder, hard as a stone.

"Hit it! Hit the curse!" another yelled.

Suddenly, rocks, ice chunks, and hard-packed snow were flying at her from all directions. Evangeline couldn't run. She couldn't defend herself. She curled into a ball behind her woodpile, covering her head as the projectiles rained down. She felt impacts on her back, her legs, her arms. One sharp piece of ice cut her cheek, and blood trickled down her face, mixing with the melting snow.

"Die, curse! Die, trash!" they chanted, delighted by their own cruelty.

Standing near the barracks, watching the whole thing with folded arms, were several senior guards. They didn't stop the children. They smiled. They nodded approvingly. To them, it was good training. Teaching them to hate weakness was as important as teaching them to hold a sword.

Vance walked past then, returning from a patrol. He saw the children throwing rocks. He saw Evangeline huddled in the snow, bleeding and shivering, looking less like a werewolf and more like a dying animal. He paused for a moment, a flicker of something—disgust? pity? unease?—crossing his face. He knew she hadn't eaten properly in weeks. He knew her organs were failing. He knew the bond inside her was liquefying.

But he was Beta. He was the second hand of the Alpha. And Kaelen had said let her rot.

Vance turned his head away and continued walking. The children were allowed to continue their game.

Evangeline dragged herself and her broken wood back to the fortress as the sun dipped below the ridges, painting the sky in colors of bruised purple and blood-red. Every inch of her body throbbed. She felt like she was made entirely of bruises and broken bones. Her breath came in ragged, wet gasps, and she knew that if she coughed now, she would bring up nothing but blood.

As she passed through the lower corridors, she heard voices echoing from an open doorway—the quarters of some mid-ranking soldiers. She should have kept walking. She should have remained invisible. But she heard his name. She stopped, pressed against the cold stone wall, and listened.

"…Alpha is playing a dangerous game," one voice murmured, low and serious. "Keeping her here… flaunting his rejection… parading the Shadow Court… it's like he's spitting in the Moon Goddess's face."

"Shh! Don't say that!" another hissed. "You want your tongue cut out?"

"Listen to me," the first insisted. "Old tales say that when a mate is rejected and kept in misery, the bond doesn't just die. It changes. It becomes a tether of vengeance. The weaker the vessel, the more the magic twists. She is rotting, yes. But what if the rot is eating away at us? Have you noticed the streams turning brackish downstream? The prey getting scarce? The way the wind sounds like crying at night?"

"Superstition. Kaelen is the strongest Alpha in history. The land bows to him."

"Does it? Or does it fear what he has awakened? They say she coughs silver blood. That is not a sickness of the body. That is a sickness of the stars. Mark my words… that little grey ghost down in the cellars… she is not just dying. She is

"changing."

The voice faded into a murmur, but the words hung in the freezing air like a heavy fog. Evangeline pressed herself tighter against the stone wall, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs—not from fear this time, but from a strange, vibrating resonance deep in her soul. Changing.

The word echoed within her, matching the quiet, ancient hum that had lived beneath her pain for weeks. She didn't understand it fully, but she felt the truth of it in every silver drop of blood she spilled, in every heartbeat that felt less like a human pulse and more like the tidal pull of distant oceans.

She moved away from the doorway, her steps slower, heavier, yet oddly steadier than before. The whispers of the pack no longer stung as sharply. The kicks, the insults, the stones thrown by children—they were all just wind passing over stone. She was beginning to realize that their cruelty was not a sign of her weakness, but a reflection of their own smallness.

They attacked her because she was the only thing lower than them, the only target that couldn't fight back. They were wolves snapping at a dying dog, never suspecting that the dog was already shedding its skin to become something far beyond a wolf's comprehension.