CHAPTER 5
1494 Words
Adam stepped forward, branches brushing his shoulders, the forest parting until the tight trail opened into a wide clearing. Sunlight filtered through the treetops in thin streaks, lighting the ground in pale gold. For the first time since entering this cursed stretch of land, the air felt warm instead of heavy. Calm instead of suffocating.
But the sight before him froze him in place.
Rogues. Dozens of them. Not dead. Not injured. Not attacking. Sleeping.
Bodies stretched across the edges of the clearing, some curled on their sides, others lying on their backs. Their chests rose and fell in steady, slow breaths. Their veins still carried silver, but the brightness had faded. The sickness that made them shake and snap and claw seemed to be draining out of them.
Adam had tracked rogues for years. He had killed more than he cared to count. He knew how they slept. They did not do this. They slept in tight, defensive clusters with snarls twitching on their lips, paws ready to swipe at anything moving.
These wolves looked peaceful. Almost safe.
He stepped carefully, every muscle tensed. His wolf pressed forward inside him, stiff with confusion and something close to disbelief.
What healed a rogue? What made moon sickness fade like someone dimmed a light? Then Adam saw her.
A young woman sat in the center of the clearing, legs folded under her. Blonde hair, long and tangled, fell loosely over her shoulders. Her clothes were simple, worn, dirt smudged, nothing more than an oversized shirt and soft pants, the kind you buy cheap from a roadside store. No protection. No armor. No weapon.
Bare feet pressed against the ground.
She held her hands over the chest of a rogue lying beside her. The wolf’s breathing slowed as she hovered her palms just above his fur. Soft silver light crawled from the rogue’s skin, threads of dimming sickness pulling upward like steam rising from warm pavement. The light flowed gently into her hands. The glow flickered. Then disappeared completely.
The rogue exhaled a soft sigh and went still. Calm. Alive. Adam stared. She was healing him.
Not controlling. Not commanding. Not killing. Healing.
Moon sickness had destroyed entire packs. He had seen strong wolves fall to it with screams tearing out of their lungs. He had watched healers break down crying because nothing touched it. No plant. No spell. No treatment. Not even the goddess herself seemed to answer prayers for mercy from that sickness.
Yet here she was. A girl. Fixing it with her hands.
Adam’s wolf pushed hard against his ribs with a deep growl. Not a warning. Something else. Confusion. Recognition. Awe.
The girl lifted her head. Her eyes landed on him instantly. Not fear. Recognition.
Her lips parted slightly. She froze for only a breath, then her voice drifted across the clearing, soft and steady.
“You should not be here.”
Adam did not move. He did not blink. His instincts screamed for answers. He pulled in a breath to scent her.
Nothing.
No wolf scent. No aura. No energy signature. No trace of anything supernatural.
Human.
A human woman kneeled in the middle of rogue territory. A human woman healing moon sick wolves with her bare hands.
Impossible.
Adam stepped closer, testing the air again. Still nothing. His wolf recoiled in confusion, unable to make sense of her presence. No wolf survived standing this close to a rogue pack, much less touching one. And no human had ever possessed power like this.
“How are you alive?” he asked, voice low.
The girl lowered her hands and looked down at the healed rogue beside her. “I ask myself that every day.”
“Humans cannot stay near moon sick rogues,” Adam said. “You should have been dead the moment you walked into these woods.”
“I know.”
“You cannot command them either.”
“I know.”
“You cannot heal them.”
This time she lifted her chin slightly. “I know.”
Her eyes were strangely gentle. Not scared. Not cold. Not angry. Almost sad.
Adam scanned the clearing slowly. Every rogue was positioned around her like a ring. Like they slept while guarding her place in the world. The thought unsettled him. Rogues had no loyalty. They barely had reason. Yet they formed a circle around her.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She hesitated. Only for a heartbeat. Then she answered carefully, as if revealing a truth she had tried to run from.
“I have no wolf.”
That stunned Adam more than anything else so far. No wolf? No aura? Yet she stood at the center of a rogue pack, healing them.
She continued quietly, “I should not exist. Humans do not live through moon sickness storms. Humans do not survive rogue territory. Humans do not draw wolves to them. Yet here I am.”
Adam narrowed his eyes. “You are human.”
“Yes.”
“Why are they following you?”
Her gaze dropped to her hands, still faintly warm from the healing. “Because they think I can save them.”
“Save them from what?”
She looked up again. Her pale hair glowed in the thin light, framing her face like a halo that did not belong in a forest full of monsters.
“From the moon,” she whispered.
The word hit him harder than he expected. The moon? Moon sickness came from the moon’s pull, yes, but no one ever spoke of it as if the moon itself was actively harming wolves.
Adam stepped closer. The nearest rogue tensed, even in sleep. Soft growls drifted from three others around the edge.
“Careful,” she said gently. “They wake if you get too close.”
“Why protect you?” Adam asked.
She met his gaze fully now. No fear. No defensiveness. No lies.
“Because I am their Queen.”
Adam’s breath caught mid inhale.
Queen.
The council reports had insisted on a King. They described a tall shadow commanding rogues with a lift of a hand. But standing before him was not a man. Not an Alpha. Not a wolf. A girl who should have died ten minutes into the forest.
“A Queen,” he repeated slowly.
“Yes.”
“There is no King?”
Her expression tightened with quiet pain. “There never was.”
Adam felt his entire mission tilt under him. Every instinct inside him struggled to rearrange itself around this truth.
He had been sent to kill a King.
There was no King. There was a girl.
Adam studied her again, searching for deception, but found none. Her posture was open. Her voice calm. Her power soft, warm, steady. Nothing about her matched the idea of a rogue leader who commanded armies through fear.
Instead she looked like someone who kept stitching the world back together while it tore itself apart.
A soft shift of air pulled his attention. One of the rogues stirred. Then another. Silver faded slowly from their veins. Their bodies twitched as if waking from a long fever.
One by one, heads lifted. Eyes snapped open. Every eye turned directly to Adam. Every muscle tightened. Every lip peeled back over teeth. A low wall of growls rolled across the clearing like thunder.
The girl stood slowly, hands raised slightly. The rogues surged to their feet and formed a solid barrier between her and Adam. They did not retreat. They did not hesitate. They moved with frightening coordination.
“Stand down,” Adam warned, though he knew they would not.
The girl stepped forward. “Stop. He is not here to hurt me.”
The rogues did not care.
Their claws dug into the dirt. Their bodies lowered. Their teeth glinted. Adam knew exactly how fast moon sick rogues could tear a man apart. Even half healed, they moved like creatures with nothing to lose.
Before Adam could shift, the girl spoke again. Her voice trembled, not with fear, but urgency.
“You do not understand. They are sick because of the moon. If you kill me, the sickness will spread faster.”
Adam’s body went rigid.
What did she just say?
His heart slammed once. Twice. His wolf recoiled in shock. The moon caused this? The sickness was not random? Not natural? And her life was tied to stopping it?
She took a step closer, the rogues shifting with her like a single living shield.
“I am not your target,” she whispered. “You were sent to kill the wrong enemy.”
Adam stood frozen in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by wolves ready to tear him apart, staring at the girl who should not exist yet somehow held the fate of the region in her hands.
His mission was already in pieces. And he did not even know her name.
- Writer
