BLESSING LUNA RISING

THE NORTHER WASTES

CHAPTER 3:

The chariot didn't roll. It flew.

The two black lycans pulling us didn't run on the ground — they tore through the shadows themselves. The Sacred Circle, the torches, Kael's shocked face — it all vanished behind a veil of black mist. The air went from the copper taste of old promises to ice. Pure, clean, biting ice that burned my lungs.

I was still in his arms. Or rather, in his furs. Darius had thrown his midnight cloak around me the second the cold hit, and now I was drowning in his scent. Pine, smoke, and something darker — power.

"You're shaking," he said. His voice was low, right against my ear. The chariot was small, built for a King, not for a King and a girl who was still trying to remember how to breathe.

"I'm not cold," I lied. My teeth were chattering so loud I was sure he could hear them.

"No," he agreed, his storm-grey eyes studying my face in the dim light. "You're terrified. There's a difference."

He was right. The silver mark on my wrist — his mark, the crescent that had burned itself into my skin — was pulsing. Not with gentle light anymore. With heat. With hunger. It was syncing with his heartbeat. His slow, brutal heart that I could still hear even over the wind.

"What did you do to me?" I whispered, holding my wrist out. The silver fire was crawling up my veins now, towards my elbow. "What is this?"

Darius took my hand. His fingers were scarred, rough, so much larger than mine. When he touched the mark, the fire flared, and for a second I saw — not my hand — but claws. White claws. Tipped with silver.

"That," he said softly, his thumb stroking over the burning crescent, and the pain instantly dulled to a warm throb, "is a Lycan blessing. Not a werewolf mark. Older. Truer. Your healers told