CRESCENT MOON RISING

CHAPTER FIVE

That night, Sasha couldn't sleep.

She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, running through everything Maya had told her. Project Chimera. The first hybrids. The prophecy. Maya's grandmother, watching from the shadows, waiting to see what Sasha would become.

And beneath it all, the memory of Luc's eyes, warm and old and knowing. The way he'd looked at her like she was something precious. The way Rhys had looked at her like she was something dangerous.

The purebloods don't want you. The witches won't trust you. And the vampires will just want to study you.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe she was a fool for thinking she could belong anywhere.

A sound outside her window made her sit up.

It was faint—barely audible—but her wolf caught it instantly. Footsteps. Fast and light, moving away from the building. Followed by another set, heavier, running. The sound of a chase.

Sasha was at the window before she could think, peering into the darkness.

The quad was empty, silver in the moonlight. Beautiful and still and peaceful. But at the edge of the trees, she saw movement—two figures, one fleeing, one chasing. The chaser moved with supernatural speed, closing the distance in seconds. There was a flash of something metallic, a cry cut short—

And then nothing.

Sasha's heart hammered. Her magic surged. Her wolf howled.

She should go back to bed. Pretend she hadn't seen anything. That was what her grandmother would have told her to do. Stay safe, child. Stay hidden. Don't get involved. The world is dangerous, and you are the most dangerous thing in it.

But someone had just been hurt. Maybe killed.

And Sasha was so tired of hiding.

She pulled on jeans and a jacket, slipped out of her room, and ran toward the trees.

The woods behind Hawthorne Hall were darker than she expected—the kind of dark that felt alive, watching, waiting. The kind of dark that had teeth. Moonlight filtered through the bare branches in silver shafts, illuminating patches of forest floor and leaving everything else in impenetrable shadow.

Sasha moved carefully, using her wolf senses to navigate. Her hearing sharpened, picking up sounds she couldn't normally hear—the rustle of small animals, the creak of branches, the distant hoot of an owl. Her vision shifted, the darkness becoming less absolute, shapes emerging from the gloom.

And beneath it all, her magic hummed, ready to defend her.

She found the blood first.

A trail of it, dark and glistening, leading deeper into the trees. It smelled wrong—metallic and sweet and something else, something that made her wolf whine with distress. Sasha's stomach turned, but she followed it, stepping carefully around roots and rocks, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.

The trail ended at a clearing.

In the center, a boy lay on his back.

He was young—seventeen, maybe eighteen—with pale skin and dark hair and eyes that stared at nothing. His throat had been torn open, the wound still wet in the moonlight. Someone had driven a wooden stake through his heart, pinning him to the forest floor like a specimen in a collection.

Vampire, Sasha realized. She could tell by the too-still chest, the way his body was already starting to desiccate, the edges of him crumbling like old paper.

She'd never seen a dead body before.

She stood there, frozen, unable to look away. Unable to breathe. Unable to do anything but stare at those empty eyes and wonder who he'd been, what he'd loved, who would miss him.

"You shouldn't be here."

Sasha spun, magic flaring so brightly it lit the clearing.

Rhys Donovan stood at the edge of the trees, his face half in shadow, his eyes gleaming gold. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the body, his expression unreadable.

"Did you—" Sasha's voice broke. "Did you do this?"

"No." He moved closer, and she saw that his hands were clean, his clothes unmarked. He knelt beside the body, examining it with a detachment that made Sasha's skin crawl. "I heard the chase. Same as you." He touched the stake, carefully, not moving it. "Vampire. Young. Staked by someone who knew what they were doing."

"Who?"

"That's the question." He looked up at her, and his eyes were different now—less hostile, more... something else. Concern, maybe. Confusion. "You shouldn't be here alone. If whoever did this is still around—"

"I can take care of myself."

"Can you?" He stood, and even in the darkness, she could feel the weight of his attention. It was like being under a spotlight, like every detail of her was being cataloged and filed away. "You're a hybrid. That means you're stronger than most witches, more magical than most wolves. But it also means you're a target." He stepped closer, and she caught his scent again—pine and smoke and something wild. "There are people who would kill for what you are. People who would experiment on you. People who would—"

"You don't know what I am."

"I know what I smell." His voice dropped, became something almost intimate. "Jasmine. Ozone. Magic and wolf and something else. Something..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "You need to go back to your dorm. Lock your door. Don't come out until morning."

"And you?"

"I'll handle this." He gestured at the body. "It's my job."

Sasha should have left. Should have run back to her room and pretended this night had never happened. But something kept her there, rooted to the spot, watching the way the moonlight caught his face. The sharp lines of his jaw. The tension in his shoulders. The way his hands had curled into fists at his sides.

"Why do you care?" she asked. "Last night, you couldn't get away fast enough. You called me a mutt and told me I didn't belong. Now you're playing protector?"

Rhys was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was different—less certain, less controlled. "Last night, I was doing what my father expects. What the pack expects. What I've been trained to do my whole life." He met her eyes, and for a moment she saw something raw there, something almost vulnerable. "Today... today, I'm doing what I think is right."

Before Sasha could respond, a twig snapped behind her.

They both spun.

Luc stepped out of the trees.

His face was pale in the moonlight, paler than usual, and his eyes were fixed on the body with an expression of such profound grief that Sasha felt it like a physical ache. He moved slowly, carefully, like each step cost him something.

"I felt him die." His voice was raw, nothing like the smooth confidence of their first meeting. "I was too late."

Rhys moved in front of Sasha, protective. "Vampire. You know him?"

"He was a first-year. Turned last year." Luc knelt beside the body, gently closing the boy's eyes. His hands trembled slightly as he did it. "His name was Theo. He liked poetry and hated stakewood. He was seventeen years old."

The grief in his voice hit Sasha like a physical blow. She'd never seen a vampire mourn before. Hadn't known they could.

"We need to report this," Rhys said. "The council will need to—"

"The council can wait." Luc looked up, and his eyes were different now—older, harder, burning with something that might have been rage. "Whoever did this is still on campus. We find them first."

"And then?"

Luc's smile was cold. "Then we remind them that Veritas has rules for a reason."