FLASHBACK•••
OVER 100 YEARS AGO•••
***
[Ryder]
The year I met Mallory was purely by chance—or at least, that's what I told myself back then. 'Fate' was the word everyone liked to throw around for such meetings, wasn't it? Looking back, I'm not sure if it was fate or some cruel cosmic joke. Either way, she came into my life when I least expected it, and when I was least prepared to handle her.
It was the year of the quadrennial Blue Moon Festival, an event I'd been forced to attend. For wolves like me, newly shifted, it was supposedly an opportunity—a three-day gathering on a remote, enchanted island for single werewolves across the United Kingdom to find their destined mates. Tens of thousands flocked to it with hope in their hearts and longing in their eyes.
I wasn't one of them.
