THE FORGOTTEN LUNA

TO HEAR The dead had been calling my name for three nights. Tonight, I finally decided to answer. That was the moment everything went wrong. I should have stayed in bed. I should have pulled my blanket over my head and pretended the strange voice drifting through my window was nothing more than the wind playing tricks on me. Most importantly, I should have listened to the little voice inside me that had spent nineteen years begging me to stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, curiosity had always been my greatest weakness. And tonight, it was about to become my biggest mistake. "Maya." I froze beside the window. The voice came from somewhere beyond the academy walls, soft enough to make me question whether I had actually heard it. Yet there was something unsettling about the way it carried my name. It sounded familiar, almost like someone whispering from the other side of a dream. I pressed my fingers against the silver pendant hanging around my neck. It was cold. Not the ordinary chill of metal against skin, but a deep, unnatural cold that seemed to spread through my fingertips. I had worn the necklace for as long as I could remember. My mother had given it to me before she died, and her final instruction had been simple. Never take it off. I had obeyed that instruction for nineteen years without understanding why. Perhaps that was what happened when you grew up with more questions than answers. Eventually, you stopped expecting explanations and learned to live with the mystery. "Maya." This time, the voice was closer. My heart gave an uncomfortable thud. "Who's there?" I whispered. Silence answered me. I glanced at the clock beside my bed. It was nearly midnight, and the academy grounds were supposed to be empty. Students who wandered outside after curfew risked losing credits, privileges, and, in serious cases, their place in the next ranking assessment. For someone already sitting at the bottom of the academy's social ladder, losing anything else would be embarrassing. But embarrassment was the least of my worries when the voice called again. "Come to me." A shiver traveled down my spine. Then my wolf spoke. Don't go there. I stopped breathing. My wolf rarely spoke to me. Most days, I could barely feel her presence. While other werewolves boasted about their instincts, strength, and supernatural senses, mine seemed content to sleep somewhere deep inside me. It was one more reason everyone believed I was weak. Yet now she sounded frightened. Not annoyed. Not sleepy. Frightened. I should have listened. Instead, I grabbed my jacket, slipped into the corridor, and followed the voice. The academy's western wing was deserted. Moonlight spilled through the tall windows, illuminating the stone floor and the portraits of former Alpha Kings. Their painted eyes seemed to follow me as I hurried past them. At the end of the corridor stood an old staircase. I had never seen it open before. The iron gate that usually blocked the entrance hung against the wall, its lock lying broken on the floor. Beyond it, narrow steps descended into darkness. A faint blue light flickered below. I swallowed. "This is a terrible idea," I muttered. "Just so we're clear, I'm blaming whoever is calling me when I get expelled." No one answered. I descended anyway. The air grew colder with every step. By the time I reached the bottom, my breath had begun to cloud in front of me. The passage opened into a small stone chamber lined with ancient symbols. At its center stood a sealed door. I recognized the mark carved into the stone. A wolf surrounded by a crescent moon. The same symbol rested on my pendant. Before I could examine it more closely, the metal against my chest grew warm. Then the door opened. A narrow gap appeared between the stone panels, revealing a darkness so complete that the blue light seemed to disappear inside it. I took one cautious step forward. Two golden eyes opened in the darkness. I stumbled backward, nearly losing my balance. They belonged to something tall, something standing on the other side of the door. I couldn't see its face, but I could feel its attention fixed on me. My wolf stirred violently. Run! For once, I didn't argue. I turned toward the stairs, but a voice rose behind me before I could take another step. "When he claims you..." The words echoed through the chamber. My legs refused to move. The voice sounded neither male nor female. It was old, heavy, and filled with a sorrow that made my chest ache for reasons I couldn't explain. "...don't believe him." The blue light exploded. I screamed and threw up my arms, shielding my eyes. Something rushed past me, stirring the air with a force that sent me stumbling against the wall. Then everything went dark. When I opened my eyes again, the door was sealed. The golden eyes were gone. For several seconds, I stood there, struggling to convince myself that I hadn't imagined the entire thing. Then my pendant burned against my skin. I gasped and clutched it. A whisper brushed the inside of my mind. He's coming. I didn't wait to discover who he was. I ran. By the time I reached my room, my lungs were aching, and my hands were shaking so badly that I struggled to close the door. I locked it, leaned against the wood, and tried to slow my breathing. Tomorrow, I decided, I would report the broken gate. Or perhaps I would pretend I had never seen it. Yes. That sounded considerably safer. Unfortunately, the following morning offered no opportunity to hide. It was Ranking Ceremony day. Every year, the academy assessed its students and placed them according to their strength, abilities, and supernatural potential. Your rank determined your privileges, your training opportunities, and, to a certain extent, how much respect other students showed you. My rank had never been a mystery. I was always last. As I entered the great hall, whispers followed me between the rows of students. "Think she'll finally get a number below the last ten?" "What's the point? She's barely a werewolf." "Maybe they'll rank her with the humans this year." Laughter rippled through the crowd. I kept walking, pretending their words didn't hurt. It was a skill I'd perfected over the years. If people wanted to underestimate me, I let them. If they wanted to laugh, I gave them nothing to laugh at except the fact that I was still standing. Besides, I had bigger problems than my rank. The strange voice from the crypt had followed me into my dreams, and every time I woke, my pendant felt colder. Something was wrong. I just didn't know what. At the front of the hall, the ranking crystal stood on its pedestal, waiting to measure us. One by one, students stepped forward, placed their hands against its surface, and received their results. Cheers erupted when a powerful wolf earned a high position. Disappointed murmurs followed the weaker students. Then my name was called. "Maya Cross." I walked toward the crystal as hundreds of eyes settled on me. The examiner looked as though he wanted to finish the assessment as quickly as possible. "Place your hand on the crystal." I obeyed. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a faint red light flickered inside the stone. Numbers appeared across its surface. RANK: 120/120. A few students laughed. I stared at the result, forcing myself to keep my expression calm. Last place again. No surprise there. Then the numbers disappeared. The crystal flashed blue. The examiner stepped back. New words appeared. STATUS: ANOMALY. The hall fell silent. Before anyone could speak, the crystal cracked. A sharp sound split the air, and blue light burst across the room. Students screamed and stumbled away as the entire pedestal shook beneath my hand. I tried to pull away, but I couldn't move. Every sound vanished. Every person in the hall froze. Everyone except me. And the man standing at the far end of the room. Kade, the Alpha King. He had arrived without announcement, dressed in black, his presence commanding the kind of silence that no ordinary wolf could demand. His gaze moved across the shattered crystal before settling on me. Then his eyes dropped to my pendant. Something changed in his expression. It was brief, almost impossible to notice, but I saw it. The hard lines of his face tightened, and for the first time since I'd entered the hall, he looked genuinely unsettled. He crossed the room. "Where did you get that necklace?" His voice was quiet. That somehow made it more frightening. I wrapped my fingers around the pendant. "It belonged to my mother." "Your mother's name?" "Why?" His eyes sharpened. "Answer me, Maya." The way he said my name made my stomach twist. He didn't sound like a man asking a simple question. He sounded like someone who had spent years searching for an answer and had finally found it standing in front of him. "My mother is dead," I said. "Whatever you want to know, I doubt she can tell you." For a moment, Kade said nothing. Then he reached toward the pendant. I stepped back. "Don't touch it." His hand stopped between us. "You don't understand what you're wearing." "Then explain it to me." "I can't." I let out a humorless laugh. "Of course you can't. Everyone at this academy knows something about me that I don't. It's becoming a very irritating tradition." His expression hardened. "Take it off." "No." "Maya." "My mother told me never to remove it." His gaze flickered toward the broken crystal. "That necklace is suppressing something inside you." The words struck harder than they should have. Suppressing something? I had spent my entire life wondering why my wolf was so quiet, why my senses were weaker than those of other werewolves, and why every ranking assessment ended with the same humiliating result. "What's inside me?" I whispered. Before Kade could answer, a shadow stretched across the floor behind him. It moved against the direction of the light. My blood turned cold. I knew that shadow. I had seen it in the crypt. The pendant flared with blue light, and a familiar voice filled the frozen hall. "Leave her alone." Kade went completely still. His face lost every trace of anger, replaced by an expression I couldn't understand. Recognition. Fear. Perhaps even guilt. Then the voice spoke again, softer this time. "Kade, you promised." My fingers tightened around the pendant. My mother was dead. So why was her voice speaking to the Alpha King? And what had he promised her? Kade looked at me, and for the first time, I sI'maw something in his eyes that frightened me more than the shadow. He knew the truth. Perhaps he had always known it. Someone had made sure Maya Cross was never born. And somehow, the man who ruled every werewolf in the kingdom knew exactly why.