WOLFBOUND

CHAPTER THREE: THE WEIGHT BENEATH HER SKIN

The forest didn’t look the same anymore.

The trees had always stood like sentinels outside the crooked windows of their cottage, familiar, silent, harmless. But now they loomed like giants, their twisted branches clawing at the sky. Lyra watched them through the kitchen window, her fingers wrapped tightly around a chipped mug of lukewarm tea. The steam had died ten minutes ago, but she hadn’t moved.

Because something inside her had.

Since the dream, and everything that followed, her body felt foreign. Her skin prickled too easily. Her hearing had sharpened, every tick of the clock like a drumbeat against her skull. And worst of all, she felt watched, even when no one was around.

Especially when no one was around.

Behind her, Aunt Mave moved through the kitchen like she always did, quiet but purposeful, wrapped in a shawl of cold detachment. She hadn’t said a word since last night, not since she’d muttered “You’re a Hollowfang” and sealed the house shut like it could keep the truth from leaking further into Lyra’s bones.

Lyra turned, finally. “Are you going to explain what that means, or do I have to guess like a blind girl in a storm?”

Mave didn’t look up from the herbs she was crushing. “Would you believe me if I did?”

“I believed a stranger could stand in our doorway and speak my nightmares aloud. I believed I might turn into something wild beneath the moon. At this point, even the worst truth would be less cruel than silence.”

Mave paused, her fingers stilling. Her face looked tired in the morning light, shadows etched deep around her eyes. “You’re not a monster, Lyra. But you were born from one.”

The words sat in the air like ice in her lungs.

Mave finally looked at her. “Your mother was the last known Hollowfang before you. The blood skipped generations, or so we thought. But Fenric’s curse, his line, it never truly died. It just went quiet.”

Lyra’s voice trembled, but she forced herself to speak. “Did my mother know?”

“She knew,” Mave said. “And she died trying to keep you from becoming what she couldn’t escape.”

Lyra swallowed hard. “And you? You’ve been lying to me since I could walk.”

“Lying?” Mave said, her voice rising, sharp for once. “I raised you! I protected you from a war that’s hunted your name for two centuries. I gave you a life, Lyra.”

“You gave me secrets.” Lyra screamed.

The silence afterward was jagged and thick. Even the birds outside had stopped singing.

Mave turned away, whispering to herself in a language Lyra didn’t understand, then reached for something tucked beneath the floorboards, an old wooden box wrapped in dark leather and sealed with a tarnished silver clasp. She handed it over like it weighed a thousand years.

“Your mother left this for you. I promised I wouldn’t give it to you until… until the dreams started.”

With shaking hands, Lyra opened the box.

Inside, wrapped in faded silk, lay a silver pendant carved into the shape of a wolf’s eye—one side cracked, the other gleaming with an unnatural sheen. There were old letters, parchment stained with time, and a photograph: a woman with Lyra’s eyes, her smile fragile as if she knew the picture would be her last.

Lyra’s throat burned. “She looks… like me.”

“She was you,” Mave whispered. “Fierce, gentle, stubborn. She thought she could rewrite fate. That her love would be enough to keep you safe.”

Lyra clutched the pendant. Her mother’s scent lingered faintly on the silk, lavender, smoke, and something warm she couldn’t name. She felt the weight of it all sink in, threading through her chest like roots breaking through stone.

“Is that why I feel things I don’t understand?” she asked quietly. “Why I keep hearing… voices?”

Mave nodded. “Your blood remembers. The Hollowfangs weren’t just werewolves. They were cursed with echoes, memories that pass through the bloodline. You’ll see things that aren’t yours. You’ll feel things you haven’t lived.”

Lyra’s grip tightened on the box. “Then what’s real?”

A knock shattered the silence.

Mave froze. Her head snapped toward the door. “They’re early.”

Lyra’s heartbeat spiked. “Who’s they?”

But Mave didn’t answer. She was already moving, crossing the room with unnatural speed and cracking open the front door just wide enough to reveal a figure cloaked in dark green.

Ronan.

His expression was stormy, unreadable. “They’ve crossed the border. The Nightbane scouts.”

“Damn it,” Mave hissed. “She’s not ready.”

“They won’t wait.” Ronan’s eyes flicked to Lyra. “Neither will the blood in her.”

Lyra stepped forward, box in her hands, pendant hanging like an anchor. “What do they want with me?”

Mave didn’t speak.

Ronan did.

“They want your loyalty,” he said. “And if they can’t get it, they’ll take your power instead.”

“Why?” Lyra asked. “Why now?”

“Because,” he said, voice low, “Fenric’s blood doesn’t just bind you to his past. It opens the door to his power. And the packs know it.”

Outside, a second knock came, this time slower. Deliberate.

Lyra looked at Mave. “Tell me what to do.”

Mave’s eyes were wet now, the pain no longer hidden. “Choose who you want to be before someone else chooses for you.”

The door creaked open wider, and the snow outside was no longer white, It was red.