Beneath the Crescent Mark

The Mark

Beneath the Crescent Mark

Chapter 1

Ravyn Thorne never liked birthdays.

They always felt like endings disguised as celebrations—like something important was slipping away the moment people handed her cake and forced a smile. But this one… this one felt different from the moment she opened her eyes.

For one thing, the air tasted like metal. And for another, the moon hadn’t left the sky.

She stood barefoot in her bedroom, her dark hair falling in soft waves just past her shoulders, eyes fixed on the strange glow seeping through her curtains. Those eyes—bright green like spring leaves catching sunlight—had always been her most striking feature. Her mother often said they looked like they held secrets, even when Ravyn was small.

It was almost morning—she could feel the pull of it—but the moon still hung over the trees, enormous and wrong.

Not full. Not new. Crescent.

And burning blue.

She pressed a palm to the glass, her breath fogging the window. Her heartbeat strangely—off-rhythm, like it was trying to match someone else’s. Something was coming. She could feel it in her skin, like electricity prickling under the surface.

That’s when the pain hit.

A sharp heat bloomed across her collarbone, searing and sudden. She gasped, stumbling back. Her fingers clawed at her skin and met something that hadn’t been there before.

A mark.

Black. Crescent-shaped. Almost glowing against her fair skin.

Downstairs, she could hear her grandmother talking to someone in hushed tones—then silence. The kind of silence that meant something had changed.

This couldn’t be real. Marks didn’t just appear overnight. People didn’t have hushed conversations at dawn. The moon didn’t burn blue and refuse to set.

This had to be a dream. Some weird, stress-induced nightmare brought on by turning eighteen.

She crawled back into bed, pulling the covers over her head, willing herself to wake up properly. When she opened her eyes again, everything would be normal. The mark would be gone. The voices downstairs would be her imagination.

She didn’t know it yet, but her father had arrived. The man who had disappeared before she could remember. The one her family said had walked out because he couldn’t handle being a father.

But that wasn’t the truth.

He had left to protect her. Because Ravyn Thorne was never meant to live a human life. And now, the world she didn’t know she belonged to had come calling.

**The Day Before**

Cassian appeared like he always did—quiet, smooth, and just slightly too perfect.

He met her outside her school, dressed in black as usual, hands in his coat pockets, blue eyes searching hers with that crooked smile that made her stomach flutter. Everything about him seemed carefully composed, from his perfectly tousled dark blond hair to the way he moved with an almost predatory grace. At nineteen, he looked like he’d stepped out of some Gothic romance novel—pale skin that never seemed to tan, sharp cheekbones, and an otherworldly kind of calm that made other guys their age seem clumsy and loud by comparison.

Standing at five-eleven, he had the lean, athletic build of someone who stayed in shape without effort, though Ravyn had never seen him work out. His thin frame was deceptively strong, and there was something about the way he carried himself that suggested coiled power beneath the surface.

“Tomorrow’s the big day,” he said, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. His touch was always cool, always gentle, fingers long and elegant like a pianist’s. “Eighteen. Are you ready?”

Ravyn shifted her backpack on her shoulder, studying his face. Even after two years together, Cassian remained somewhat mysterious to her. He never talked much about his family, always deflecting questions with that charming smile. She knew he was homeschooled, that his family had money, that he seemed older than his years in ways that both intrigued and sometimes unsettled her.

At seventeen, nearly eighteen, Ravyn had the kind of understated beauty that came from an active lifestyle—lean and athletic from years of running track and hiking the trails around town. Her thin frame was deceptively strong, built for endurance rather than show, and she moved with the unconscious grace of someone comfortable in her own skin.

“Ready as anyone can be for another year of existence, I suppose.”

“Come on.” His smile widened, and she caught that flash of something mysterious in his expression that always made her heart skip. “It’s not just another year. It’s the year. The one that changes everything.”

She laughed, but something in his tone made her study his face more carefully. There was an intensity in his blue eyes that felt different today, like he knew something she didn’t.

“You make it sound like some kind of prophecy.”

“Maybe it is.” He took her hand, fingers intertwining with hers. His skin was always cold, she’d noticed, even on warm days. “I was thinking we could celebrate with everyone. Your friends, maybe go to that place by the lake you like. Make it special.”

The way he said it—like her birthday mattered more than she could possibly understand—sent a strange shiver down her spine. But then again, Cassian had always been intense about everything. It was part of what drew her to him.

Two years ago, she’d almost died. A delivery truck had run a red light, and she’d been crossing the street, distracted by her phone. She remembered the screech of brakes, the metallic taste of fear, and then… strong arms pulling her back with inhuman speed and strength. When she’d looked up, breathless and shaking, there had been Cassian. A stranger with blue eyes and an otherworldly kind of calm.

“You okay?” he’d asked, and his voice had been the steadiest thing in her spinning world. She’d noticed then how he didn’t seem winded at all, despite having moved fast enough to save her life.

She’d nodded, unable to speak, and he’d smiled—that same crooked smile that now made her pulse quicken.

“Good,” he’d said with absolute certainty. “Can’t have anything happening to you.”

At the time, she’d thought it was just a sweet thing to say. A coincidence that he’d been there at exactly the right moment. But looking back, she sometimes wondered about the certainty in his voice, the way he’d seemed to know exactly where she’d be, the impossible speed with which he’d moved.

They’d started talking after that. Coffee dates turned into long walks, long walks turned into late-night conversations, and before she knew it, Cassian had become the most important person in her life. Her anchor in a world that often felt too small for the restlessness that lived inside her.

“So?” he asked now, pulling her back to the present. “What do you say? Let me help you celebrate properly.”

She squeezed his hand, feeling the familiar flutter at his touch. “Okay. But nothing too crazy, promise?”

“I promise.” But there was something in his eyes—a flicker of knowledge, of anticipation—that made her wonder what he wasn’t telling her.