Hunter's Moon
654 Words
Chapter 10: Hunter’s Moon
The headlights crawled up the mountain road like predator eyes, slow and deliberate.
Thorne’s arm tightened around Elara’s bare shoulders, his coat the only thing between her and the biting cold.
Steam rose from their skin as the shift’s heat faded. Below them, Silverridge slept under a blanket of snow, oblivious.
“That’s not pack,” Thorne said, voice low and lethal. “And it’s not random.”
Elara’s newly sharpened vision picked out details even at this distance: a dark SUV, mud-spattered, out-of-state plates.
One figure behind the wheel. Another in the passenger seat, window cracked, cigarette glow pulsing.
Her stomach dropped.
“Marcus,” she whispered. The name tasted like rust.
Thorne’s head snapped toward her. “Your ex?”.
She nodded, unable to look away from the vehicle as it turned onto the town’s main strip, headlights sweeping past the diner.
“He always said he’d find me. No matter how far I ran.”
Thorne’s growl vibrated through his chest into hers.
“He tracked you here?”
“I thought I was careful. Burner phone, cash only, no social media…” Her voice cracked. “He has friends. Cops. Private investigators. People who owe him.”
The SUV slowed in front of Moon’s Bite Diner, idling directly beneath her upstairs window. The driver’s door opened.
Marcus stepped out.
Even from this height, Elara recognized the way he moved—shoulders squared, head tilted like he owned the night. He scanned the building, then the street, before crushing his cigarette under his boot.
The passenger—a thick-necked man she didn’t recognize—joined him, holding a flashlight.
Thorne’s grip became steel. “He’s not getting near you.”
But Elara’s blood ran colder than the snow. “He’s not alone. And he’s not stupid. He wouldn’t come this far without a plan.”
As if on cue, the passenger opened the back hatch. Metal glinted under the streetlight: rifles, tranquilizer guns, silver-tipped bolts in a crossbow case.
Hunters.
Not just an abusive ex—Marcus had found people who knew exactly what lived in these mountains.
Thorne scented the air, nostrils flaring. “Wolfsbane on the ammo. They came prepared.”
Elara’s heart slammed against her ribs. “How did he even—”
A second vehicle crested the ridge behind the first—a pickup with a light bar. It parked beside the SUV. The driver got out, and even in shadow Elara recognized the silver hair.
Harlan.
The elder shook Marcus’s hand like an old acquaintance.
Betrayal hit her like a physical blow.
Thorne’s entire body went rigid. The growl that tore from him was pure alpha fury—deep enough to rattle snow from nearby branches.
“He sold us out,” Thorne said, voice barely human. “Sold you out.”
Below, Harlan gestured toward the mountains—toward the very ridge where they stood. Marcus nodded, loading a tranquilizer rifle.
Thorne pulled Elara to her feet. “We have to move. Now.”
“But the pack—”
“Will be walking into a trap if we don’t warn them.” He met her eyes, fierce and unwavering. “You’re one of us now. We fight together.”
Elara looked down at her healed hands, then at the moon still burning bright overhead. Strength surged through her—new, wild, unafraid.
She bared her teeth in something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“Then let’s hunt the hunters.”
Thorne’s answering grin was all predator.
Side by side, they shifted—fur rippling, bones reshaping in seconds now that the moon had claimed her fully. Two wolves leaped from the outcrop, vanishing into the trees.
Behind them, Marcus looked up at the ridge, frowning at the empty snow.
He never saw the golden and black shadows racing down the mountain toward him.
But he would feel them soon.
- Writer
