Blood Marked: The Bone Moon Alphas

Chapter 2 The Kennel

The kennel basement was not for dogs. It was for failed shifts. Wolves who got stuck halfway. The walls were lined with silver-laced stone to keep them calm. It made my skin itch.

My room was a concrete box with a cot. Lira's room, three floors above, had a balcony overlooking the lava pools.

“You're supposed to be grateful,” Lira hissed, throwing her dirty laundry at my face that night. “Do you know what Father paid to get you this pass? You get to breathe the same air as real Alphas.”

I folded her clothes. My hands were raw.

Nocturne classes were not for me, but I was allowed to sit in the back of History of the Packs to take notes for Lira. The professor, an old Beta with one eye, looked at me like I was a stain.

It was there I saw them again.

The four sat at the front, always together, a wall of power. When Kieran entered, the lights dimmed. When Jax was annoyed, the windows rattled. Silas never took notes, he just stared. Rhys healed paper cuts for the girls who pretended to get them.

Halfway through the lecture, the professor talked about the Bone Moon.

“Twenty years ago,” he said, “the moon turned white as bone and cracked. For seven minutes, no wolf could shift. No wolf could hear his mate. Seven minutes later, four Alpha heirs were born screaming with power. It is considered a blessing and a curse. The blessing - power beyond Alpha. The curse -”

He glanced at the four. Kieran's shadow flickered violently.

“The curse is that power eats the vessel. Without balance, they will not live past twenty-five.”

Silence.

My chest hurt. I didn't know why.

After class, I tried to leave fast. I was too slow.

Jax caught my wrist in the hallway. His hand was hot, too hot, sparks dancing over his knuckles.

“You're fast for a pet,” he said. “Lira says you don't eat much. Let's see if you burn.”

The spark jumped from his skin to mine.

It should have burned me. Instead, it vanished. Absorbed.

Jax froze. His eyes went wide. His wolf eyes flashed gold. “What did you do?”

“I didn't -”

He shoved me back. “Stay away from us, wolfless. You smell wrong.”

But he was lying. I saw his nose flare. I smelled wrong because for the first time in my life, I had a smell. Like rain before lightning.

That night, I couldn't sleep. The silver in the walls hummed. And deep, so deep I thought I imagined it, I heard a growl.

Not around me.

Inside me.