Blood Marked: The Bone Moon Alphas

Chapter 4 The Girl With Two Voices

I didn't sleep after the library.

I lay on the concrete cot in the kennel basement and stared at the ceiling, listening to two hearts beating in my chest.

One was mine. Fast, panicked, human.

The other was slower. Deeper. Amused.

You’re loud when you think, the voice said. It wasn't in my ears. It was behind my eyes, in the place where other people had their wolf.

“Who are you?” I mouthed to the dark.

I am you, you i***t. I am Nyx. You locked me in a closet for nineteen years and now you’re surprised I have opinions?

I pressed my palms to my temples. “Wolves don’t talk like this. They feel. They don’t... sass.”

Most wolves are puppies. I am not most wolves. I am bone-born.

Bone-born. The word sent ice down my spine.

I scrambled to the cracked mirror bolted to the wall. My eyes were brown again. My normal, boring brown. But if I looked too long, silver flashed, like light off a knife.

My hands. My nails were still human, but there were faint white lines under the skin, like veins made of moonlight, running from my wrists up. They pulsed in time with the other heart.

Four Alphas had knelt to me. Kieran Blackthorn had knelt to me.

They would kill me before they let anyone know.

A soft knock made me jump. The door opened without waiting.

Rhys Alistair stood there in a black sweater, holding a small medical kit. His soft smile was gone. He looked pale, haunted.

“You left before we could talk,” he said quietly.

“How did you find my room?”

“Your scent. It’s... everywhere now.” He stepped in and closed the door. The tiny room instantly felt smaller. He smelled like snow and copper. “Does it hurt? The first awakening always hurts.”

“Nothing hurts,” I lied. My spine felt like someone had taken it apart and put it back wrong.

He knelt in front of my cot, opening the kit. “Give me your arm. The seal breaking leaves burns.”

“What seal?”

His green eyes flicked up to mine. “So you don’t know. Of course Lucien wouldn’t tell you.”

“Lucien? The Headmaster?”

“Your uncle.”

The air left my lungs.

“What?”

Rhys took my arm gently before I could pull away. His fingers were cold. Where he touched, the silver veins brightened.

“Your mother was Elena Thorne. Lucien’s younger sister. The strongest Vessel in three hundred years. She was supposed to bond with the four Bone Moon boys from the womb. But she ran. She hid in Ashen Hollow, sealed her own wolf, and married no one. Then she had you.”

His thumb traced one glowing line. A jolt went through me, not painful, but intimate.

“Vessel. You keep saying that word.”

“The Bone Moon needs a container,” he whispered. “Our powers - Shadow, Storm, Mind, Blood - they are too big for one body. We are dying, Kaia. Slowly. Kieran coughs up shadows. Jax’s heart stops in storms. Silas can’t sleep because of the voices. My blood is turning black. The prophecy says the Fifth will take the excess. Will balance us. But no Vessel has ever lived past the bonding.”

I yanked my arm back. “So I’m supposed to die for you?”

“No.” His voice cracked. For the first time, the gentle healer looked angry. “I don’t want that. I have been trying to find another way since I was twelve. That’s why I study blood. But the others... Kieran thinks duty is everything.”

He likes you, Nyx purred in my head. His wolf is weeping. And his blood smells yummy. Let him bite you.

“Stop it,” I hissed out loud.

Rhys blinked. “Did I...?”

“Not you. Her. My wolf.”

He stared, fascinated. “You can hear her already? Most wolves take months to speak clearly after first shift. What’s her name?”

“Nyx.”

“Nyx,” he repeated, and my name in his mouth felt like a prayer. He reached out again, slower this time, asking permission. I nodded.

He placed his palm over my sternum, right over my heart. His power was warm honey, trying to soothe.

Instead, my body reacted. Silver light exploded from my chest, throwing him back against the wall. I gasped as a wave of pure power rushed out of me and into him.

Rhys gasped too - but not in pain. His eyes went pure gold. The black veins that had been faint on his neck - I hadn’t noticed them before - receded.

“What did you do?” he breathed.

“I don’t know!”

He stood, looking at his hands. He made a small cut on his palm with a claw. Normally, his blood would be dark. Now it was bright, brilliant red. It healed instantly.

“You balanced me,” he said, voice shaking. “Just by touching. Kaia, no Vessel has ever been able to give back. Only take.”

The door slammed open.

Kieran stood there, shadows pouring off him like smoke. Behind him, Jax and Silas, both looking murderous.

“Get away from her,” Kieran said to Rhys, but his eyes never left me.

Ooooh, Alpha number one is jealous, Nyx sang. He smells like possessive and bad decisions. I like him.

Kieran stalked forward, grabbed my chin, forcing me to look up. His touch was freezing.

“Shift,” he ordered. It was an Alpha command, one that should have forced any lower wolf to its belly.

My spine snapped straight. But I didn’t bow. Nyx snarled.

The shadows around Kieran’s feet recoiled from me.

Kieran’s eyes widened a fraction. “Impossible.”

Silas pushed past him, eyes glowing. “Move, you brute. You’re scaring the only quiet mind in this mountain.” He looked at me, intense. “Did you hear me? Just now? I wasn’t trying to send.”

I frowned. And then I did hear it, faint, like a whisper under water: —beautiful and terrifying and she’s going to ruin us—

I slapped my hands over my ears. “Get out of my head!”

Silas smiled, real and shocked. “She heard me. She heard me without me letting her.”

Jax was last. He didn’t touch me. He just stared at the glowing lines on my arms, his fists clenched, lightning crackling in his hair.

“Fix it,” he said hoarsely to me. “Cover it. If anyone else sees that, they’ll tear you apart to get a piece. Do you understand, wolfless? You’re not a girl anymore. You’re a cure. And every dying Alpha on this continent will want a taste.”

For the first time, I believed him. I wasn’t just different. I was a resource.

Kieran let go of my chin like I’d burned him. “Headmaster wants to see you. Now. All of us.”

As they led me out of the kennel basement, up into the tower where normal wolves lived, I felt every eye on us. Whispers exploding.

And Nyx, in my head, laughed.

Let them stare, little bone. We were invisible for nineteen years. Now let’s be unforgettable.