The Hollow Howls
The Blood Moon hung low and obscene, swollen red like an open wound in the sky. It bled light across the Blackthorn ridge, turning the pines into black spears and the snow patches into rust-colored smears. The pack had already begun to gather around the bonfire by the time the last sliver of daylight bled away. Voices rose in rough laughter, the crackle of flames, the low rumble of shifting bodies eager for the Claiming Rite.
Sienna Kane stood at the very edge of the clearing, far enough that the heat of the fire never reached her. Arms folded tight across her ribs. Nails digging crescents into her own skin through the worn flannel. She kept her eyes on the flames instead of the faces.
Twenty-nine years.
Twenty-nine f*****g years of standing exactly like this on the outside of every circle, every ritual, every night the pack ran beneath the moon while she stayed behind and pretended the silence didn’t carve holes in her chest.
They didn’t whisper the nickname anymore. They said it loud.
The Hollow.
The Empty.
The b***h the moon forgot to finish.
Tonight the mockery felt quieter, almost bored. Like they’d finally accepted she was never going to change. Never going to sprout claws. Never going to howl back at the sky that had ignored her since birth.
“She’s twenty-nine,” someone muttered near the fire. “It’s done.”
“Waste of a womb.”
“Rhydian should’ve put her down years ago.”
Sienna’s jaw locked so hard her molars ached.
Rhydian Blackthorn stood at the center of everything, shirtless, skin gleaming gold in the firelight. Blond hair swept back. Jaw sharp enough to cut glass. Alpha since he ripped his father’s throat out at twenty-two. He hadn’t looked at her once tonight.
She preferred it that way.
When Rhydian did look at her, it wasn’t lust. It was disgust. Like she was a stain he couldn’t quite scrub off his perfect pack. Like her existence personally offended his bloodline.
Cassian leaned in and murmured something to him. Rhydian’s laugh rolled out low, cruel and his frost-colored eyes flicked toward the outer ring. Toward her.
Their gazes met.
Her stomach twisted into a cold knot.
He lifted his chin. A slow, deliberate challenge. Come closer, Hollow. Let them all see what failure looks like.
She didn’t move.
Thorne dark-haired, scarred across one cheek, mean as a cornered snake grinned wide enough to show fang. “Maybe we should auction the b***h off to the rogues tonight,” he called, loud enough for half the clearing to hear. “Someone’s gotta f**k the human out of her.”
Laughter erupted. Sharp. Familiar. The same sound that had followed her since she was twelve and the rest of her age-mates first shifted while she stood there trembling, waiting for something that never came.
Sienna’s nails broke skin. She tasted copper on her tongue from biting the inside of her cheek.
Then the wind changed.
It came from the north sharp, cold, carrying a scent that punched straight through her ribs and landed low in her belly like a fist.
Charred pine. Gunmetal. Worn leather. Blood. And underneath it all something dark and molten, like s*x and violence boiled down to one brutal heartbeat.
Her knees buckled.
She caught herself against the nearest tree, breath sawing in and out of her lungs.
What the actual fuck
The scent grew stronger. Closer. Overwhelming.
Heads turned. Growls rolled through the pack.
A figure stepped out of the tree line.
Tall Jesus Christ, tall six-five at least, shoulders wide enough to block the moon. Black leather jacket stretched over muscle. Dark hair falling into eyes that burned amber even from fifty yards away. Scars carved brutal lines across his throat, his forearms, disappearing under the collar.
Jax Vargen.
The name detonated in the clearing like a gunshot.
Rogues didn’t come back.
Rogues were killed on sight.
Especially not the rogue who’d torn the previous alpha’s firstborn son to shreds five years earlier. They said he’d laughed while he did it. They said he’d walked away licking blood from his fingers.
He shouldn’t be alive.
He shouldn’t be here.
But he was.
And his eyes those f*****g molten eyes locked straight on Sienna.
The world narrowed to a tunnel.
Her pulse roared in her ears. Between her thighs, something clenched hot, sudden, obscene. She pressed her legs together, horrified.
No.
No f*****g way.
Jax didn’t stop walking.
The pack snarled, half-shifted, claws sliding free. Rhydian stepped forward, already changing black fur rippling down his arms, eyes blazing hate.
“Vargen,” he spat. “You’ve got three seconds to turn around before I finish what my father started.”
Jax didn’t even glance at him.
He kept coming.
Straight toward her.
Sienna’s heart slammed against her ribs so hard she thought it might crack bone.
He stopped inches away. Close enough that she could see the faint scar cutting through his left eyebrow, the way his pupils had blown wide, eating the gold until only a thin ring remained.
“You,” he said. Voice like broken glass dragged through smoke. “You’re the one.”
She laughed sharp, jagged, disbelieving. “The one what? The pack joke? Congrats. You found her.”
His nostrils flared. He leaned in, nose brushing the shell of her ear, and inhaled deep enough that she felt it in her bones.
“Every goddamn full moon,” he growled, so low only she could hear. “Every time I tried to burn this place out of my skull, I heard it. Your heartbeat. Fast. Angry. f*****g starving. Thought I was losing my mind.”
Sienna’s breath caught.
“I don’t have a wolf,” she whispered. “I’m empty.”
Jax’s hand shot out, fingers wrapping around her throat not hard, just firm. Possessive. His thumb stroked the frantic pulse there once. Twice.
“Then why is my c**k so hard it hurts?” he rasped. “And why does my wolf want to rip everyone here apart just so I can bury my face between your thighs and make you scream my name?”
Heat flooded her cheeks, her core, everywhere at once.
She should have shoved him.
Should have run.
Should have done anything except tilt her head back and meet those burning eyes.
“You’re f*****g insane,” she said instead.
A slow, feral smile curled his mouth.
“Maybe. But I’m not wrong.”
Chaos exploded.
Rhydian roared, “She’s nothing! A hollow b***h who can’t even shift! You want trash, rogue take her and get the f**k out!”
Jax still didn’t look away from Sienna.
His thumb kept stroking her pulse point. Slow. Deliberate. Like he was memorizing the rhythm.
Then he did something no one expected.
He yanked her forward, crushed his mouth to hers, and kissed her like the world was ending and she was the only thing worth saving.
It wasn’t gentle.
It was teeth and tongue and a growl that vibrated down her spine. She tasted blood hers, his, didn’t matter. She bit his lower lip hard enough to make him groan. His free hand fisted in her hair, angling her head so he could take more, deeper, filthier.
She moaned into his mouth before she could stop herself.
The pack detonated.
Cassian lunged first big mistake. Jax caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted, snapped the bone like dry wood. Cassian howled. Thorne came next claws out, fangs bared. Jax drove an elbow into his throat and dropped him choking.
Rhydian shifted fully massive black wolf, eyes blazing murder.
“You dare touch what’s mine”
Jax laughed low, dangerous, completely unhinged.
“She’s not yours, you preppy fuck.” He pulled Sienna tighter against his chest, one arm banded around her waist like iron. “She’s mine. And you’re about to learn what happens when you try to claim what belongs to me.”
Sienna’s head spun.
She could feel it something waking up inside her. Not soft. Not tentative. A pulse. A snarl. Silver light flickering behind her eyes like lightning trapped in a storm.
Jax looked down at her, eyes pure gold.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, voice shredded. “Say it and I walk.”
Her fingers curled into the front of his jacket, nails digging through leather.
“If you f*****g stop now,” she breathed, “I’ll rip your throat out myself.”
His grin was all teeth and sin.
“Good girl.”
He scooped her up through her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing and stalked toward the tree line.
Behind them, Rhydian’s roar shook the night.
“Vargen! You’re dead!”
Jax didn’t slow.
He carried her into the dark pines, the scent of blood and pine and raw want wrapping around them both like smoke.
And somewhere deep inside Sienna Kane the Hollow, the Empty, the forgotten a wolf finally opened its eyes.
And it was f*****g starving.
