THE ESCAPE
Chapter 1
POV – Diva George
The night pressed down on me like a weight I couldn’t shake, like the sky itself wanted to crush me into the earth. Every shadow in the forest seemed alive—twisting shapes stretching into claws, reaching out to drag me back into the nightmare I’d just torn myself out of.
I ran.
I didn’t think. I couldn’t. My body moved faster than my mind, instincts carrying me forward. The ground beneath me barely registered—just the sting of branches whipping my arms, the bite of thorns tearing at my bare legs, and the raw fire in my lungs as I sucked in air that never seemed enough.
The forest stank of damp earth and copper. My copper. Blood ran in thin rivulets down my skin, trickling from the cuts I hadn’t even felt being made. Every drop reminded me of the dungeon. Every drop reminded me of what would happen if they caught me.
Behind me, the sound came again—paws hitting the soil in heavy rhythm. Too steady. Too practiced. These weren’t wolves running for hunger or sport. They were warriors hunting prey. Hunting me.
Twigs cracked. A snarl split the silence.
I didn’t dare look back. Looking back meant slowing down. Slowing down meant—death.
“Don’t let her get away!” The voice boomed through the trees, thick with command.
My legs nearly buckled at the sound. My chest seized up, air caught in my throat. Too close. They were too close.
I stumbled once, caught myself, then tripped harder the second time. The ground rose up and slammed me into itself, a brutal embrace that drove the breath from my lungs. Dirt scraped across my cheek, sharp grit grinding between my teeth. For a heartbeat, I just lay there, face pressed into the soil, the ache of my body heavier than the will to move.
Part of me wanted to give in. To let the forest swallow me whole. To let it be over.
But then I heard them again—the rhythm of paws, the snap of branches breaking under their weight. Closer. Closer.
“No…” The word tore from me, weak, almost a sob. Then I whispered, hoarse and shaking: “Get up, Diva. Get up.”
Fear shoved me to my feet before reason could argue. My body screamed, my knees threatening to buckle, but I forced them to hold. I ran again.
Every step was agony, but I pushed harder, faster, as if the air itself wanted to drag me backward. I could almost feel claws scraping against my spine, teeth sinking into the back of my neck. I would rather die here, in the open forest, than go back to the dungeon. Back to the chains.
The memory struck me like another blow:
Cold stone pressing against my cheek. The sting of iron cuffs digging into my wrists until skin broke. The drip of water echoing endlessly in the dark. My own breath, shallow, ragged, echoing in a cell that reeked of mold and despair.
And the whispers. Always the whispers.
She’s cursed.
She’s ungrateful.
She rejected him.
All of it because I said one word.
“No.”
No to the Alpha who thought claiming me would make me his prize.
No to the bond that chained me instead of setting me free.
No to a future that wasn’t mine.
They called it betrayal. They called me traitor, cursed, unfit.
I called it survival.
The dungeon broke my body, but it sharpened my mind. Days turned to weeks, time blurring in darkness, but I counted. I listened. I memorized the footsteps of guards, the shift of locks, the hours when silence stretched thin. I waited. And when the chance came, I took it.
Now, every ragged breath, every bloodied step was fueled by that one word. No.
The forest began to thin. I didn’t trust it at first—the way the trees spread apart, the way moonlight spilled wider across the ground. My legs shook so hard I thought they’d give out, my chest burning as if fire lived beneath my ribs. But I pushed forward.
Then, suddenly, the trees ended.
I stumbled, blinking against the light ahead. My body lurched out of the darkness of the forest into something I couldn’t make sense of.
Buildings. Tall and rigid, scraping the night sky. Lights spilling from windows, sharp and unnatural compared to moonlight. People walking freely, their voices carrying in laughter and idle talk as if monsters didn’t exist in the world at all.
The scents hit me next—so strange, so sharp. Food. Smoke. Oil. Human. No pack I knew carried this smell.
“This… this isn’t Blood Moon,” I whispered, voice raw, breath catching in my throat. My head turned wildly, desperate, searching for a landmark, anything familiar. “Where… where am I?”
Stone scraped my raw feet as I staggered forward. My clothes clung to me, torn and filthy, my hair a tangled mess. Eyes followed me, whispers spreading like wildfire.
“Homeless.”
“Lost.”
“Filthy.”
Shame scorched beneath my skin, but I refused to bow my head. Let them look. Let them whisper. They didn’t know the nights I’d survived, the chains I’d broken.
Still… something in the air felt wrong.
It wasn’t the humans staring. It was heavier than that, thicker. An invisible weight pressing down on my chest, almost suffocating. My instincts screamed. This wasn’t safety.
The sound reached me before the realization did.
A growl.
Low. Deep. It rumbled through the air, crawling inside my bones until my breath froze in my throat. It wasn’t just heard—it was felt, vibrating through my chest like a warning drumbeat.
I froze.
The forest behind me had gone silent. The Blood Moon warriors—gone. They’d stopped their chase.
But something else hadn’t.
The growl came again, closer this time. The humans didn’t react; they couldn’t hear what I heard. They didn’t know that death had followed me out of the forest.
A shadow shifted in the corner of my vision. My body locked tight, every instinct screaming to run, but my legs refused. I was too weak, too wrung out.
I knew then—I hadn’t escaped at all. I had only stumbled into another danger.
I hadn’t realized it yet, but I had crossed a border. Another territory. Another Alpha’s land.
And the Shadow Pack… had already found me.
