Blood remembered

Chapter 6: The Quiet Before Teeth

The fog in Gray Ridge didn’t lift. It settled. Like it was watching us. We stopped about 20 feet past the border line. Not because we were safe. Because I couldn’t take another step without falling over. The pain in my throat was gone. That should’ve been a relief. It wasn’t. Pain meant the mark was reacting. Silence meant it was waiting.Sarah sank to her knees in the snow. I followed. For a long time we didn’t talk. Just breathed. Her breath was shaky. Mine wasn’t much better. Through the bond, I felt it. The adrenaline crashing. The fear catching up.

And underneath it all, exhaustion so deep it scared me.

“You’re bleeding again,”

she whispered.

“Not mine,”

I lied. She reached out anyway. Her fingers were freezing when they brushed my throat. She didn’t pull back from the mark. Didn’t flinch. Just traced the broken crescent with one trembling finger.

“It looks like mine,”

she said quietly. I caught her wrist. Not hard.

“Don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it hurts me when you touch it.”

That was a lie too. It didn’t hurt. It felt like coming home and getting punched in the gut at the same time. She dropped her hand.

“The creature called us the Marked.”

“Yeah.”

“And said we’re the key.”

“Yeah.”

Sarah pulled her knees up, resting her forehead on them.

“Ryan. I’m tired of not knowing things.”

I wanted to tell her I knew everything. That’s what Alphas do. But the truth was stuck in my throat.

“I don’t know what the key opens,”

I said finally.

“I don’t know why the moon split. I don’t know why my father made deals with witches 20 years ago.”

Her head snapped up.

“What?”

Damn it. The words were out before I could stop them. The bond was making me reckless.

“My father,”

I said, voice low.

“He went to the Mire Witches before I was born. Begged them to make sure the moon chose a ‘pure’ Luna for me. No omegas. No weak blood.”

Sarah went very still.

“You think... you think the moon got mad?”

“I think the moon did what it wanted.”

I dragged a hand through my hair.

“And now we’re what’s left.”

The fog shifted. Somewhere far off, an owl screamed. Sarah was quiet for a long time. Then:

“When I was little, my grandma told me stories. About the first moon. Before it broke. She said it had two faces. One for love. One for war.”

I stared at her.

“That’s not in any of our books.”

“Grandma said the Crescent Pack burned those books.”

She looked at me. Eyes dark in the fog.

“She said the moon split once before. And two wolves with broken marks ended a war.”

My blood went cold.

They will end the line, or save it.

The prophecy.

“Don’t,”

I said.

“Don’t say it.”

“Why not?”

“Because if we’re that story...”

I couldn’t finish. If we were that story, then someone had to die for it to end right. Sarah reached over and took my hand. No hesitation. Her fingers were still cold. Mine were worse.

“I don’t want to end anything,”

she said.

“I just want it to stop hurting.”

I squeezed back. I didn’t let go. For 27 years I’d been told to be strong. To not need anyone. To be the Alpha. Right now, with her hand in mine and the broken moon above us, I didn’t care. We sat like that. Two cursed wolves in enemy territory.

No guards. No pack. No moon watching over us. Just us. And the quiet. Then the quiet broke. Footsteps. Not wolves. Boots.

Multiple. Circling us in the fog. A voice called out, rough and Gray Ridge accented.

“Hands where I can see them. Slow.”

I stood, pulling Sarah up with me. Put myself between her and the voices. Six men stepped out of the fog. Gray Ridge warriors. Spears. Crossbows.

And in the middle of them, a woman.

Older. Scar across her face. Eyes like flint. She looked at our throats. At the broken marks.

Her expression didn’t change.

“Well,”

she said.

“The rumors were true.”

She looked right at me.

“Alpha King Varga wants to see the Marked.”

My jaw clenched.

“And if we say no?”

The woman smiled. It wasn’t kind.

“Then we drag you.”

Sarah’s hand found mine again. Tighter this time. I looked at the border behind us. At Crescent territory. At the howls that were still out there. Then I looked at the woman. At Gray Ridge. At the unknown.

“Fine,”

I said.

“We’ll come.”

But I wasn’t going as a prisoner. I was going as whatever the moon made us. Even if I didn’t know what that was yet.