Moonlights and Bloodlines

Chapter Five – Bloodlines Revealed

The day began like every other but Amara felt the pressure from the moment she woke up. She dragged herself through her morning routine, shoulders tight, heart racing even when she was standing still. The classrooms were jails, the teachers' voices blended into a din of nothing, and each clock ticked louder than the last. She found herself staring at the windows, wondering if the trees outside were hiding him, if Kael was out there fighting the same restless energy that pulled at her.

She had not slept much the night before. Her dreams had been dense with fragments she could not untangle. Kael's mouth on hers. Kael's voice, rough and trembling. The wails of howls splitting the silence of the woods. She'd woken gasping with her skin damp, the image of eyes burning seared into her brain.

By the final bell, she was exhausted. Her notebooks were filled with doodles that she had no memory of doing. Jada tried to catch up to her in the hall, but Amara brushed her off with a faint smile, saying she had to get home. In truth, she had no intention of going straight to the house.

The thought of dinner with her father nauseated her. He was more tense than usual that morning, speaking of new trails in the woods, of broken branches that showed large bodies passing through the trees. He had said the words with that tone to his voice that always made Amara feel like a child under interrogation. If she went home, he would be questioning her with questions she had no answers to. Worse, he would gaze at her with those suspecting eyes, as if her secrets could be told without uttering a word from her lips.

So she passed by her street, her feet leading her towards the woods.

The woods loomed in front of her, dense and dark, their branches like arms ready to embrace her. The air was cool and full of the scent of damp earth and pine. The last light of the day clung to the horizon, but beneath the trees it was already dusk. The shadows were profound beneath the roots, and the sound of her feet crunching in the underbrush seemed too loud in the quiet.

She told herself she was not looking for Kael. She breathed it into her mind, her desire to think so nearly a physical thing. She was merely walking to clear her head. Just moving because she could not remain still. Yet each step deeper into the woods contradicted her.

Her heart jumped at each noise. The snap of a twig. The flap of wings. The groan of branches swaying against each other in the wind. She'd learned to read the woods, to mark signs of danger. And tonight danger seemed to crouch on every side.

Then she heard the noise that nailed her to the ground.

A growl.

Low. Deep. Near enough that she could feel it vibrate in her bones.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Out of the darkness ahead, a figure staggered into the clearing.

Kael.

Relief detonated in her chest before confusion strangled it.

His chest was bare, damp with sweat in the cold air. His fists were clenched into fists, all the muscles strained as if he fought against invisible chains. His head was down, but when he lifted it, she saw the shine in his eyes. Not the churning darkness she had grown used to but a burning faint gold. Something that should never be in a boy at all.

"Kael," she whispered.

He shook his head, taking a step back as though her presence made it all worse. His voice was rough, torn by strain. "You shouldn't be here."

"What's happening to you?"

His body convulsed, a violent shudder racking through him. He dropped to one knee, his breath breaking into rough noises that were less than human. His skin seemed to ripple, muscles swelling under it in ways that made her belly shrink.

"Go," he gasped, voice breaking into something almost beast. "Go before I lose it."

Everything in her screamed at her to run. To spin around and run until her lungs burst. But her heart wouldn't let her. She stepped forward, her voice trembling. "No. I am not going to leave you."

Kael lifted his head, and her heart stopped.

His eyes were completely gold. Bright, burning, unearthly. His teeth were pointed where only human teeth were present.

The truth hit her like a lightning bolt.

The stories her father used to tell were not mere stories. The wolves her family had been hunting for generations were not mere dark shadows. Kael was one of them.

She did not have time to say anything prior to a howl ripping through the air. It was close, close enough that the sound resonated her ribs. Kael snapped his head towards the trees, his body tensing. A second howl answered in the distance, and the forest trembled with the noise of something large crashing through it.

Forms appeared out of the darkness.

Wolves.

Three of them, huge and snarling, eyes glinting in the dark. Their paws pounded the earth, their teeth glinted.

Kael stumbled to his feet. His voice was no longer quite human, a harsh snarl fighting its way out. "Behind me."

Amara retreated, her heart racing against her rib cage, but she obeyed.

Kael leapt forward and his body gave way to the change.

It was not graceful. Bones crackled like thunder, his back arching and broadening. His arms stretched, his legs fragmented into new shapes. Black fur ripped through his skin, bursting like fire on burning paper. His face lengthened, his jaw breaking and re-forming until pointed fangs gleamed in the dim light.

In seconds the boy she had kissed was gone.

In his place stood a wolf, huge and black as midnight. His eyes burned gold like liquid gold. His growl was so low she could feel it vibrate through the trees.

Amara's breath ripped from her throat. Fear and awe filled her in equal measure. He was terrible. He was magnificent.

The three wolves paused, circling around him. The clearing was filled with the sound of their snarls. Kael responded with a roar that was so loud it shut them up immediately. He dropped his head, his hackles raised, his body exuding power.

They paused. Their growls died.

Kael was bigger than any one of them, his presence crushing.

Alpha.

The word seared her brain.

The wolves dropped their gaze, obstinate but compliant. They retreated backward into the night, their bodies blending into the trees until silence returned.

Amara's knees nearly buckled. Her heart was racing so hard it hurt.

Kael turned to her. His shape was still the beast's, towering and growling, but his eyes softened when they met hers. For a moment she saw him. Not the monster. Not the legend. The boy. The boy who had looked at her as if she mattered more than anything else.

Her hand rose, trembling, reaching toward him. She didn't know if she wanted to touch him or keep him back.

A twig snapped behind her.

Amara spun.

Her father stood at the edge of the clearing, crossbow raised, his face twisted in a victorious fury.

"Step away from it, Amara." His voice boomed like thunder.

Ice ran through her veins.

Kael growled, a low menace, his huge body stepping in to guard her.

Her father's jaw tightened as he held the gun higher. "Now."

Amara's chest tightened. She was trapped between them, paralyzed in the line of fire, her heart tearing itself in half.

Her father's voice thundered through the clearing. "Do you have any idea what you're doing? That creature is not human. It's a monster. It's what our kind was bred to destroy."

Kael's growl deepened. His muscles tensed, his body coiled to spring.

Amara's mind screamed in terror. She could not move. Could not choose.

The crossbow string shrieked taut with a loud crack.

Kael crouched low, golden eyes ablaze with fury and fear.

Her voice broke, cracking under the weight of everything that was within her. "Stop. Please."

But neither listened.

The arrow soared.

The wolf sprang.

The night unravelled with the collision of choices too vast to bear.

And Amara's world ripped in two, love and family colliding in the middle of Hollow Creek beneath the merciless light of the moon.