Under The Full Moon

Chapter Six – Teeth in the Dark

They came from the trees like shadows given flesh.

Four of them—tall, lean, feral-eyed. Their forms flickered in the mist between man and beast. Not fully shifted, but not fully human either. The air thickened with the scent of musk and rot. Celeste felt it in her gut: this wasn’t a random attack.

They’d been waiting.

Aiden stepped in front of her, low and tense. “Stay behind me.”

The leader of the rogues snarled, exposing yellowed teeth. “You found the box,” he rasped. “Give it to us, and maybe we’ll leave what’s left of you alive.”

Aiden growled in response—an inhuman, warning sound that rumbled in his chest. “You crossed into sacred ground. You won't leave in one piece.”

One of the rogues lunged.

Aiden met him mid-air.

It was chaos in motion. Claws, teeth, snarls that split the silence. Aiden moved like something ancient, each strike measured, deadly. Blood splattered the moss. Aiden knocked one down, then turned to the next, his silver eyes flashing as his body shifted—bones cracking, stretching—until the man was gone.

In his place stood the silver-eyed wolf Celeste remembered.

Fury and grace.

She clutched the box to her chest and backed toward a nearby crypt. One of the rogues broke from the fight and charged toward her.

She had no weapon.

No magic she could wield.

But the pendant around her neck pulsed.

Celeste grabbed it, held it out in front of her like a shield, instinct guiding her more than thought. “Back off!”

The rogue snarled—but stopped.

Smoke rose from his skin, sizzling as if burned. He howled and staggered back, retreating into the trees.

Celeste blinked. “What the hell—?”

The pendant was glowing faintly now, reacting to the box in her arms. She knelt, laid the box down, and pressed her palm to the lid.

Come on, come on...

The box pulsed beneath her touch. The silver chains uncoiled like snakes and fell away. Inside, wrapped in black velvet, was a dagger.

Not just any dagger.

The blade shimmered like moonlight and shadow. Runes shimmered along its edge. She didn’t recognize the language, but something inside her did.

A memory. A whisper.

“The dagger of the twin moons... it cuts through lies and binds the beast.”

Another rogue lunged at her.

Celeste grabbed the dagger and turned just as the creature landed. The blade met flesh—and light exploded from the metal.

The rogue screamed, falling back as if struck by lightning. Aiden was beside her in a blink, fur matted with blood, his side torn, but still standing.

Celeste looked up at him, trembling. “This… this thing just saved me.”

He shifted, partially, enough to speak.

“That’s what it was made to do.”

The last two rogues retreated into the woods, dragging their wounded. The clearing fell silent but for the sounds of Aiden’s breathing and the distant croak of frogs.

Celeste dropped to her knees, shaking.

Aiden moved toward her, crouching beside her in human form now, blood streaking his arm.

“You okay?” he asked, voice rough with pain.

She looked at him, really looked. His shirt was shredded, his side bleeding, and still—he was watching her like she was the only thing that mattered.

“No,” she said honestly. “But I think I will be.”

He smiled faintly. “That dagger… it only responds to bloodlines.”

“You mean…” She swallowed. “I’m like her. My mother.”

He nodded. “And maybe more.”

She closed the box around the dagger and rose slowly. “I want to know everything. What she was. What I am. What they want from me.”

“You’ll get answers,” Aiden promised. “But we need to move. That fight? It was just a warning.”

Celeste looked around the graveyard—soaked in blood and shadow.

“A warning from who?”

Aiden’s jaw tightened. “The real enemy. The one who made the rogues. The one who killed your mother.”