The Scarred One
880 Words
“You’ve been playing protector. But you were chosen to destroy.”
The woman’s voice echoed like prophecy. Like a curse wrapped in silk.
Auren didn’t move. Her glowing hands dimmed slowly as she stared into eyes that felt too much like her own.
“You’re lying,” Auren whispered.
The woman stepped closer. “Then explain the mark on your spine. The silver that bleeds from your fingers when you’re angry. The dreams that aren’t yours.”
“How do you know about—”
“Because I had them too. Until I stopped running.”
Auren narrowed her eyes. “What do you want from me?”
“Nothing,” the woman said with a slow, wild smile. “I want you to wake up.”
Her name was Serai.
Auren followed her—stupid, maybe, but something inside told her this woman had answers Kael never would.
They stood in the clearing now, a fire between them. The forest around them thrummed with tension.
“The Moon doesn’t choose wolves,” Serai said. “She uses them.”
Auren flinched.
“You were born with her mark because your bloodline carries the Seed of Undoing. A weapon buried inside you since before your mother ever cried your name.”
“I’m not a weapon.”
Serai c****d her head. “Then why do your hands glow when you’re angry? Why do your bones sing under the full moon?”
Auren shook her head. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you better than anyone. Because I was you.”
Serai pushed down her sleeve.
The same crescent scar burned on her skin.
“You’re saying I’m not special,” Auren said, the words falling flat. “Just another piece in the Moon’s game.”
Serai nodded slowly. “But you could break the board.”
Auren’s throat tightened. “What happens if I do?”
“Everything burns,” Serai said calmly. “And the Moon will scream.”
By the time Auren made it back to Ebonveil, the sky was a fading bruise. She didn’t speak to anyone. Not even Elira, who met her at the gate with worry and relief splashed across her face.
“Did you find anything?” Elira asked.
“Not yet.”
But her mind was a battlefield of new truths and old loyalties. And Kael… Kael was the problem she couldn’t walk away from.
He was waiting for her in the old Alpha’s office.
“You disappeared.”
“I needed answers.”
His jaw ticked. “You didn’t tell me.”
“You didn’t tell me your father slaughtered his own bloodline trying to suppress this curse.”
Silence.
His head lowered. “You found the archives.”
“No,” she said quietly. “I found Serai.”
Kael looked up sharply. “Serai’s dead.”
“She’s very much alive. And very much like me.”
His hands clenched. “She was dangerous.”
“She was truthful.”
Kael came around the desk, eyes storming. “What did she say to you?”
“She said I’m not a mate. I’m a weapon.”
Kael took her hands—gently, reverently, like they might shatter between his fingers.
“You’re more than what she told you. You always have been.”
She looked up, eyes glimmering with the hurt he gave her. “Then why didn’t you fight for me?”
He blinked.
“I didn’t need a protector, Kael. I needed a reason to believe I wasn’t born broken. You could’ve been that.”
“I thought rejecting you would save you.”
“You saved yourself.”
She pulled her hands back.
Kael swallowed. “So what happens now?”
Auren turned toward the window, toward the moon that never stopped watching.
“I stop waiting to be saved.”
The next morning, a scout came back bloodied.
“They took another village,” he gasped. “But it wasn’t rogues.”
“Then who?” Auren asked.
The scout trembled. “The Moon’s Guard.”
Gasps rippled through the council.
Kael paled. “That’s impossible. They serve the divine order—”
“No,” Auren said quietly. “They serve whoever controls the Moon’s will.”
And right now… that might not be the goddess at all.
Later that night, Kael found her in the training yard.
She didn’t stop practicing.
Sweat slicked her brow. Her blade glinted in the moonlight as she struck the air like it had betrayed her.
Kael watched, quiet.
“I see you now,” he said finally.
She paused. “Too late.”
“I know.”
Auren turned.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said, voice low. “Something I remembered after you left.”
She raised a brow.
Kael hesitated. “The night you were born… your name was whispered in my father’s visions. Before either of us had shifted. Before we knew what it meant.”
Auren froze.
“What are you saying?”
Kael took a step closer.
“You weren’t just marked by the Moon. You were promised.”
“To who?”
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“To the Hollow Howl.”
- Writer
