Bound by the Blood Moon

Chapter 4 Midnight Escape

The third night of my starvation punishment fell silent over the wolf castle. The dungeon guards had grown careless after hours of quiet, slumping against the stone stair landing and dozing off, their iron spears laid loosely at their sides.

The mate bond’s dull ache still throbbed beneath my ribs, but rage and desperation drowned out every soft pull toward Ronan. I scanned the rusted iron lock on my cell door over and over, my half-wolf night vision sharp enough to spot a loose metal wire sticking out of the crumbling wall beside the bars.

I stretched my thin fingers through the narrow gap, hooking the wire and twisting it back and forth for ten long minutes. A faint click echoed in the dark— the lock snapped open. I held my breath, slowly pushing the heavy cell door inward to avoid scraping noise that would wake the sleeping guards.

Barefoot and wrapped only in my tattered gray cloak, I slipped past the snoring wolves. The stone hallways were empty at midnight, lit only by faint silver moonlight seeping through narrow high windows. I knew every hidden forest path outside the fortress walls from my childhood years hiding in the wilds, and I planned to flee straight to the human town miles away, far beyond Stormfang’s hunting range.

Halfway across the great entrance hall, a low wolf growl rumbled from the shadow of a marble pillar. My blood turned cold. Ronan stood there, half-shifted, black wolf fur shadowing his jaw, golden eyes blazing with a mix of panic and furious heartbreak.

“You planned to run away without a single word?” His voice shook, raw pain leaking through his cold rage. “Even after the blood moon bound our souls together?”

I stepped backward, hands clenched tight, refusing to soften. “You judged me guilty without hearing my side. You locked me away and starved me based on Mia’s fake evidence. I have no reason to stay beside a man who will never trust me.”

He took one heavy step forward, and I flinched, expecting him to grab my wrist and drag me back to the dungeon again. But he froze mid-movement, his wolf whimpering low in his throat. “I saw the cloth, the relic by your cell… I thought you truly wanted to destroy my pack. The curse will kill me if you leave, Layla. Can you not see how trapped I am?”

“I do not care about your curse or your pack’s fate anymore.” I darted past his stunned figure, sprinting toward the open iron castle gate before he could reach out to stop me. Cold night wind whipped my cloak as I vanished into the thick black forest, leaving Ronan standing alone in the empty hall, the mate bond screaming loss inside both of us.