The Silent Luna’s Rejection

Chapter 9

The Blackwood Forest was not a place for the weak, and today, the forest decided to test if I was truly a Shadow Walker or just a girl playing with ink.

Ryker had left me alone near the Ravine of Sighs with nothing but a rusted hunting knife and a command: "Find your own dinner, or starve." It sounded cruel, but in the three days I had been here, I learned that Ryker’s cruelty was a form of honesty. The world was cruel. Silas was cruel. If I couldn't handle the woods, I stood no chance against a King.

I moved through the underbrush, my feet surprisingly light. My internal wolf, once a shivering thing that stayed curled in a ball, was starting to uncoil. She didn't howl; she hissed. She liked the dark.

A snap of a twig behind me made my heart lurch. I didn't turn around immediately. I held my breath, expanding my senses the way Ryker had taught me. I didn't look with my eyes; I looked with my shadow.

There. Fifty yards back. A rogue.

He was a mangy, massive beast, a wolf who had lost his humanity long ago. His scent was rancid, smelling of wet fur and decay. He wasn't hunting for food; he was hunting for sport. He thought I was easy prey. An Omega girl lost in the woods.

I felt a flash of that familiar, cold anger. Am I always to be prey?

The rogue lunged, a blur of grey fur and yellowed fangs. I didn't run. I dropped low, and for the first time, I didn't ask the shadows for help, I commanded them.

"Rise," I whispered.

The shadows beneath the ancient oaks didn't just move; they solidified. As the rogue reached the apex of his jump, three jagged pillars of darkness shot up from the forest floor. They didn't hit him; they formed a cage, trapping him in mid-air.

The beast whimpered, his claws scratching uselessly against the ethereal bars. I stood up, smoothing my tunic. My heart was hammering, but my hands were steady. I walked right up to the snarling face of the wolf.

"I am not your dinner," I said, my voice sounding deeper, echoing with a power that wasn't entirely mine. "And I am no longer an Omega."

I flicked my wrist, and the cage vanished, slamming the rogue into the dirt. He didn't stay to fight. He sensed the "Void" in me, the thing that was older and hungrier than any wolf. He tucked his tail and vanished into the fog.

I slumped against a tree, my breathing ragged. Using the power felt like pulling lightning through my veins. It was exhilarating, but it left me hollow.

“Ivy…”

I froze. The voice wasn't in the forest. It was in my head. It was the low, gravelly baritone of the bond I thought I had broken.

“Ivy, where are you?” Silas’s voice was filled with a desperate, frantic energy.

I clutched my chest, the phantom pain of the rejection searing through me. He was searching. The Alpha King was finally looking for the girl he threw away.

I closed my eyes and pushed back through the bond. I didn't send him a location. I didn't send him a plea for help. I sent him a single image: the image of the scorched earth and the dead grass. I sent him the coldness of my new heart.

“Stay in your palace, Silas,” I thought, my mind as sharp as a blade. “The shadows are coming for you.”

I turned my back on the direction of the Silver-Moon Pack and headed deeper into the dark. I had a hunt to finish.