It began two days ago.
The air shifted—not in fog, not in scent, but in pressure. As if the forest was holding its breath. As if the trees themselves were waiting. Even the wind had stilled.
And then the night began to bleed.
Not in metaphor. Not poetically.
Literally.
The horizon did not darken. It smoldered. The twilight sky caught fire in shades of rust and garnet and every wolf in the territory—
Rael’s pack, their rivals, even the rogues on the outskirts—howled before the first red sliver of the moon cleared the trees.
Rael said it hadn’t come in generations.
That the last Blood Moon ended in slaughter.
Packs rose in power or were extinguished. Mating bonds were formed in a frenzy and snapped just as quickly. Elders went mad.
Magic pulsed through every leyline and ritual sit
