His Moon Her Bane

|c.2|

A rustle snapped through the underbrush behind her. Her ears flicked back. Muscles tensed, low and coiled like a bowstring. She turned in one smooth motion, eyes narrowing.

A dark-furred wolf stepped out of the shadows, golden eyes catching the moonlight.

Logan.

The Beta's second son and her personal guard. The only wolf who had ever spoken to her with gentleness instead of disdain. The one who had bandaged her hands after sparring matches, who had snuck her rare books about the old legends, who had seen her—not the weapon, not the stain on Aurex’s honor—but the girl beneath.

He shifted, bones cracking and reforming under the silver gaze of the moon until he stood tall and bare, mist curling around his feet. His face was sharp with tension, concern lining every feature.

“Nyrielle,” he said quietly, like her name might shatter if spoken too loud.

She didn’t respond. Her eyes locked on his, daring him to say what she already knew he would.

“You need to come back,” he said, stepping forward. His voice was low, pleading.

She scoffed and took a step back, the air around her shimmering with barely-contained power. “Back?” Her voice trembled with something dangerous as she spoke through their pack link. “To what? A cage?”

Logan ran a hand through his dark hair, the strain evident in his posture. “Your father is trying to hold things together. You shifting… and attacking Laura—”

“She provoked me. You hear the venom she spews,” Nyrielle hissed. “She saw what I could've become if I were to be acknowledged, and she panicked. You know she’s always hated me.”

“I know.” Logan’s voice was quieter now. “But there are politics at play now, Nyri. The other Alphas… they’re already being called to gather. They want to see you for themselves.”

Of course they did, Nyrielle thought.

A Moon Wolf hadn’t walked the packs of Lupus Glen in centuries. Nyrielle would be dissected by their stares, measured, compared, bargained over like a sacred relic.

She could run. Disappear. She had the skill, the power. And no one could catch her now.

But something inside her whispered: Not yet.

Her time to leave would come, but not before she made them see what she truly was.

With a deep breath, she let her shift take her, skin stretching and bones cracking as she shed the wolf. The cold air kissed her bare skin, but she stood unflinching. Her hair, once the soft grey color of Aurex's, now flowed like a river of molten silver down her back. Her eyes, those strange now blue-silver mirrors, glinted and glowed with an unspoken promise.

Logan stared, awe flickering in his gaze. “You look like—”

“Like what they fear,” she finished for him.

She stepped past him, each stride silent, sure.

“Take me to them,” she said. “Let’s see what the Alphas have to say.”

And as she walked beneath the Moon’s glow, her shoulders squared and head held high, Nyrielle knew one truth above all else:

She would no longer be the forgotten daughter.

She was the Moon’s chosen.

And she would never bow again or be hidden again.

*

Logan tried—truly tried—not to stare. But the moment Nyrielle shifted back, her transformation complete beneath the silver cascade of moonlight, his resolve faltered. He had always known she was striking, even when cloaked in the shadows of her father’s neglect and her step-mother's scorn, even when smeared in dirt and bruises from training. But this… this was something altogether different. Something untouchable. She was... Divine.

Her hair, once gray hair resembling Alpha Aurex and his generations, now poured down her back in shimmering silver, glowing faintly as if each strand carried a thread of the moon itself. Her bare skin, flushed from the change, gleamed like polished marble kissed by moonlight. There was no hiding what she was now. And her eyes—gods, her eyes—once steel-gray, now burned with an eerie luminescence, blue laced with liquid silver, like starlight trapped beneath ice.

They pinned him, unmanned him to the point that he forgot to breathe.

Nyrielle shifted her weight, the forest breeze rustling through the leaves like whispered secrets. She crossed her arms, raising one brow. “Logan.”

The sound of her voice—sharp, melodic, undeniably alluring —jolted him like a cold plunge into the stream. He cursed under his breath, cheeks darkening as he turned his face away. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Didn’t mean to—” He yanked his ruined shirt from his pocket and tossed it in her direction. “Here.”

She caught it effortlessly, her fingers nimble despite the lingering tremble from the shift. She held it up, eyes narrowing as she examined the tattered, fur-covered cloth.

“Really?” Her smirk was crooked, familiar. “This is the best you could do?”

Logan gave a half-hearted chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’re welcome, princess.”

“Don’t call me that,” she muttered, pulling the shirt over her head. It hung loosely around her toned frame, reaching just above her knees. The neckline sagged, one shoulder slipping free, but she didn’t care. Modesty had never been a luxury in her life—not when every day was a fight to be seen, to be heard, to survive.

Nyrielle didn’t get the dresses and court dances other Alpha daughters were given. Her place wasn’t among silks and braids but within the training rings, sparring with wolves twice her size. Her father—or his mate rather—had deemed her unfit for show, too unruly, too fierce. And so she was shaped into a weapon. Not because they valued her skill, but because it kept her out of sight.

She turned toward Logan now, eyes fierce beneath the glint of the moon. “Let’s get this over with.”

They walked side by side beneath the canopy of ancient pines, branches creaking above them in the night breeze. The ground beneath their feet was soft with moss and fallen needles, the scent of damp earth thick in the air. Shadows shifted with every movement, the forest alive with the breath of night creatures. Still, the silence between them was louder.

Finally, Logan broke it.

“How are you so calm about this?”

Nyrielle didn’t answer right away. She kept walking, toes sinking into the forest floor with every step. “About what?”

He gestured at her with a breathless, frustrated laugh. “This. You. That shift.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You just turned into a bloody Moon Wolf, Nyrielle. The only one seen in living memory. You’re a goddess incarnate, and you’re acting like this is just another sparring match.”

She slowed, her gaze distant, voice quiet. “Maybe because it’s not the first time I’ve had to become something else to survive.”

That silenced him.

She paused beside a gnarled old oak, fingers brushing its bark, grounding herself in its strength. “You think this scares me? No, Logan. You know what scared me? Being ten years old, left in the ring with wolves twice my size, told to fight or be forgotten. Being told by my father that I was lucky to be trained at all, because pretty wasn’t an option for me.”

Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. “Laura didn’t want me at his side. She wanted me gone, so she whispered in his ear until I disappeared from the halls. No titles. No duties. Just bruises, battle scars and silence.”

Logan’s heart twisted. “I remember.”

Nyrielle nodded, chin high. “So no, I’m not afraid of glowing eyes and silver fur. I’ve been something to fear for years now. The only difference is the rest of them will finally see it.”

They resumed walking, the hush between them heavier now. But it was no longer empty. It was filled with truth.

Logan exhaled, voice rough. “There’s more to the Moon Wolves than stories, Nyrielle. I thought they were just myths, too. Until tonight.” He glanced sideways at her. “But my grandfather—he used to talk about them. Said they weren’t just gifted. They were cursed. Hunted. The power they carried—it wasn’t free. It always came with a cost.”

Nyrielle stopped in her tracks, brows drawn. “What kind of cost?”

Logan shook his head. “He never said. Only that the Moon chooses carefully, and that those she touches rarely survive long.”

Nyrielle absorbed that in silence, her fingers curling into fists at her sides. “Then let her try to break me,” she whispered. “She’ll find I’ve been forged for war.”

Logan stared at her, and for a moment, he saw the girl he remembered—the one who never cried in the ring, who trained until her hands bled, who smiled through gritted teeth just to prove she could.

But he also saw something else.

The glow of divinity. The weight of destiny.

He reached out, gently gripping her wrist. “You don’t have to carry it alone, you know.”

She looked at him—truly looked. The vulnerability in his voice caught her off guard.

“I’ve always been alone,” she replied softly. “It’s how I survive.”

Logan’s hand stayed on hers, warm and solid. “Maybe it’s time you did more than survive.”

Nyrielle didn’t answer. But she didn’t pull away either.

And when she finally turned her face toward the looming compound in the distance—its towers lit like torches in the dark, its halls echoing with the stir of news spreading fast—she did so with fire in her veins.

She wasn’t just Nyrielle anymore.

She was a Moon Wolf.

And this time, the world would not look away.