Moonbound

Chapter Four

I didn’t sleep.

Every creak in the wood, every snap from the fire had me lifting my head, half-expecting to see those silver eyes glowing from the corner of the room. The whisper still clung to my ears, softer than breath but impossible to forget.

By the time the first pale light of dawn spilled through the window, my nerves were frayed raw. I’d wrapped myself in the heavy blanket from the bed, sitting in the armchair near the fire like I could guard the door from whatever might try to slip in.

The lock clicked.

By the time Thorn intervened, I was on my feet. His black shirt was rolled at the sleeves, his forearms were corded with tension, and his hair was damp from the morning air.

In some way, seeing him so early made the space seem smaller, as though the walls had moved in. His eyes scanned my face as if cataloguing every shadow beneath my eyes, but his voice was flat as he said, "You're awake."

"Hardly." I crossed my arms. "A lock on the door makes it difficult to sleep."

He glanced at the window and then back at me. "You don't need the lock. It's for the outdoors.”

I laughed a little, without humour. "Do you really believe that anything in the world is scared of your hair?"

He took a while to respond. Rather, he moved closer until I could feel the heat radiating from him.

"Last night, you noticed something." I looked him in the eye.

"I informed you—" "Don't," he said, his tone less icy this time. It was steady and low, as if he was trying to control something that might be dangerous.

"It will only get worse if you lie." Sharp and vivid was the memory of those eyes, all focused on me.

I pressed my fingers to my sides. "And just what is 'it,' Thorn? The outlaws? Valrik? or something you don't discuss with me?”

His jaw worked, but before he could speak, the door swung open again. One of his lieutenants — the sandy-haired wolf from the night before — stepped in, his expression grim.

“Alpha,” he said, sparing me only a quick glance, “you need to see the tracks at the east wall.”

“What kind of tracks?” Thorn asked.

The lieutenant’s eyes darted to me, then back to him. “Not wolf.”

*******

Thorn's face revealed nothing, but his shoulders tensed at the lieutenant's words. "Show me," he said.

The lieutenant paused. "How about—" He glanced back at me. Without glancing at him, Thorn said, "She's coming."

The words hit me like a tonne of bricks. "I'm not really dressed for going for a walk outside."

Thorn remarked, "You're not strolling," and started to head for the door. "What's watching you is visible to you." I got a little chill when he said, "What's watching you, not who." But I did follow.

The forest beyond the high wall of the pack was a shadowed expanse of green, and the air outside was cool and damp.

The ground was soft from last night's rain as we strolled in silence.

Although they didn't say anything, the guards along the wall gave me wary, inquisitive looks. We followed the lieutenant to the eastern section where the trees were closest to us.

He pointed to the muddy ground at the base of the wall and stopped just short of it. I initially believed I was seeing typical paw prints, big enough and deep enough to be those of a heavy object.

But my breath caught as I took a step closer. They weren't paw prints. Not precisely.

The form was incorrect.

Like a wolf's limb stretched into something half-human, it was long and had an excessive number of joints.

A tiny, flawless crescent, resembling a moon etched into the ground, was located deep within the centre of every print. My fingers ached to touch the mark as I knelt down. I leaned closer and noticed a slight metallic tang in the air, and the mud appeared darker there, almost black.

Blood.

The lieutenant said in a tight voice, "These aren't from last night's rogues." "This is not how they move. And they don't abandon that.”

Thorn’s gaze was fixed on the crescent marks, his jaw clenched hard. He didn’t say a word for several seconds. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t to the lieutenant — it was to me.

“They’re not here for my pack,” he said quietly. “They’re here for you.”

My pulse skipped. “How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve seen these before,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “And the last time I did… the Moonborn prophecy started to come true.”

Like a drop of ink in water, the word Moonborn spread between us and eventually coloured everything.

I brushed my hands on my clothes and slowly straightened. “You keep saying that word like I should know what it means.”

Something changed in Thorn's eyes, a weighing, a calculation, but his face remained the same. "You ought not to. The majority don't. We don't tell this story lightly.”

I said, "I'm not most people." "No longer. Tell me, then.”

He took a while to respond. He looked instead towards the trees, searching the shadows as though they might move. His voice was low when he did speak.

He declared, "The Moonborn is not a person." “It is a force. Depending on who has control, it can be either balanced or unbalanced. The moon marks the birth of a once-in-a-generation person with the power to call the shadow-pack, change time, and tip the scales in an Alpha conflict.”

My breath caught in my throat. Change the time.

My thoughts quickly returned to the scene in the hallway, where my body was moving when it shouldn't have, the air was dense, and the rogue's leap was suspended.

"And you believe I'm—" "I don't think," Thorn interrupted abruptly. "I understand." His voice hardened as he took a step closer.

"It wasn't luck last night. That rogue was frozen in mid-strike by you. I witnessed how the world stooped to accommodate you. That isn't human. That wolf isn't even typical.”

With my heart pounding, I stepped back. "I'm just a weapon you can point at your enemies, so what?"

He squinted his eyes. "I would already be using you if you were a weapon."

"Comfortable," I whispered.

Thorn's jaw tensed, but there was a hint of annoyance in his eyes, not at me, but at the circumstance. “Ravenna, the issue is that the Moonborn poses the same threat to the bearer as it does to anybody else. That kind of power burns. Additionally, it has already burned my pack once.”

The way he said it — quiet, with a shadow in his voice — told me there was more, something personal, something painful. But before I could press, the lieutenant cleared his throat.

“Alpha,” he said, glancing nervously at the trees, “we should move. If they’re close enough to leave these, they’re close enough to be watching us.”

Thorn’s gaze lingered on me for a heartbeat longer, and in that moment I knew two things:

One, he wasn’t going to tell me everything.

Two, whatever was out there wasn’t going to wait for me to be ready.

The damp earth muffled our footsteps as we turned back towards the estate. The guards remained nearby, staring at the trees. I told myself not to look.

Not to examine the shadows where the light became less intense.

However, I sensed it halfway to the gate—the same silent pull I'd experienced at the window the night before, that same icy jolt down my spine.

I looked behind me.

There was silence in the forest. Too motionless. Two silver eyes briefly blinked once before disappearing just beyond the tree line.