The Moonblood Prophecy

CHAPTER SEVEN — FIRST ENCOUNTER

RONAN'S POV

I don’t remember when the world stopped spinning. I only remember the cold. Cold ground under my palms. Cold air burning my lungs. And a cold, foreign voice whispering inside my head,

“Get up. Someone is coming.”

It wasn’t my wolf. No. The voice wasn’t male, or growling, or familiar in any way. It was… hers. The witch. My eyes snapped open.

I pushed myself upright, and the impact of the earlier attack slammed back into me. The border patrol had ambushed me. Wolves. My own kind, sent by the elders to “retrieve” me before I crossed the boundary. Retrieve was a pretty way of saying capture, restrain, and break.

I touched the side of my ribs. Warm blood.

“Damn them,” I muttered.

But before I could stand fully, the wind shifted. And there she was. The witch. The girl from the dreams. The girl whose pain I felt like it was mine. The girl I wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

She stumbled out from behind a crooked oak, breathless, hair tangled, eyes too wide to be anything but terrified. A white cloak clung to her, one clearly meant for confinement, not travel. Her wrists were raw; someone had been holding her too tightly. She shouldn’t have been able to reach this far from the coven. Witches didn’t cross borders accidentally.

Which meant she was running too.

“What are you doing here?” I snarled.

She took one step back. But she didn’t run. Her voice trembled. “I don’t know. My legs just…moved. I felt… something.”

“It was the bond.” I forced myself up. “We’re tethered. Like cursed animals.”

Her jaw tightened, and fire sparked in her eyes. She didn’t like being compared to an animal. Good. I didn’t like being bound to someone who used magic.

“We need to talk,” she said, swallowing hard.

“We need to stay away from each other,” I corrected sharply.

But the moment I said it, pain pierced through my chest: sharp, electric, almost blinding.

Not my pain. Hers. She clutched her heart, knees weakening. I instinctively moved toward her. “What now?”

“I… I think being too far apart hurts us.”

“Perfect.” I scowled. “Exactly what I needed.”

Witch. Weak link. Lifeline. I hated all of it.

But the forest around us shifted. Heavy footsteps. Snapping branches. Not wolves. Not witches. Both. They were searching for us.

Lyanna’s breathing faltered. “They’re coming for me… and you.”

“And if they catch us,” I finished, “they’ll kill us. Or use us.”

Our eyes met – unwilling allies in a hunt neither of us started.

“We run,” she whispered.

“For how long?” I growled.

“I don’t know.”

But she was lying. I could feel it in the bond; she did know something.

LYANNA'S POV

Ronan’s presence felt like standing too close to a storm, thunder vibrating under the skin, electric, unpredictable, and terrifying.

I didn’t want to be near him. I didn’t want to need him. And I definitely didn’t want him to feel my heart racing the way it was now. But he did. And I felt his, too. Strong. Steady. Wild. No, not steady. Guarded. Forced into control the way a prince would hold his posture even while bleeding.

He wasn’t just a wolf. He carried authority, power, and exhaustion carved into his bones.

“We can’t keep running,” he said as we weaved between trees. “The packs know these woods better than anyone.”

“And the witches have wards everywhere,” I added. “I’m surprised I made it this far.”

Ronan shot me a sharp glance. “How did you make it this far?”

I hesitated.

He stopped moving. “Answer me.”

So I told him the truth in the smallest dose.

“I didn’t choose to run here. Something pulled me. Hard. I couldn’t fight it.”

“The bond?”

“Or the prophecy.” I swallowed. “Something wants us together.”

He muttered a curse under his breath. “Of course it does.”

We kept moving, the noise of the search parties splintering behind us. Torches flickered through the trees. Wolves howled in the distance. Wards hummed in the air like static. We were trapped between two worlds, and neither wanted us alive.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “Why is this happening to us?”

“Because one of our ancestors clearly hated peace.” Ronan kept scanning the area, breathing unevenly from the wound in his ribs. “We need a plan.”

“And where exactly do you plan for us to go?”

His eyes flicked toward the east. “There’s an abandoned ground between the realms. Neutral land. No wards. No patrols.”

I whispered the name even witches feared.

“The Forsaken Valley”.

He nodded.

“No one goes there,” I said. “The magic there kills anything that breathes.”

“Not anything,” Ronan replied. “Only those without a tie to both worlds.”

My breath stilled. He stopped walking and turned to face me fully for the first time.

“That’s our mission,” he said. “We go there. We find the place where the first Soulbond was formed.”

“Kaelor and Seraphina,” I whispered.

He nodded sharply. “If we’re cursed because of them, then the key to breaking this bond or understanding it is where it began.”

Understanding it. Breaking it. Two very different outcomes.

“What if going there makes everything worse?” I asked quietly.

He held my gaze, unblinking. “What if not going gets us killed?”

I had no answer. But the bond pulsed. Calling, tugging, almost begging us to move in that direction.

“We leave now,” Ronan said. “Before the hunters close in.”

I took a shaky breath. “Fine.” But as soon as I stepped forward, a branch snapped behind us. A warning hissed in the air. Too late. Shapes emerged from the shadows: witches and wolves, all armed, all furious.

Ronan seized my wrist. “Run!”

We sprinted into the trees, the bond burning between us, the world closing in. I could barely breathe, barely think. All I knew was that every direction except one would lead to capture.

THE FORSAKEN VALLEY. Neutral. Ancient. Dangerous. The birthplace of the first bond. Our only hope.

Ronan’s voice cut through the dark. “Listen carefully, witch.”

“My name is Lyanna,” I snapped.

“Fine. Lyanna.” His jaw tightened. “We reach that valley, or we die. Those are our options.”

I swallowed the fear rising in my throat.

“No pressure,” I whispered.

He almost smirked. Almost. But then he said something I didn’t expect.

“We’re in this together. For now.”

For now. It wasn’t trust. It wasn’t friendship. It was survival. A bond neither of us wanted but neither of us could escape.

And as the forest swallowed us whole, running toward the valley no one returned from… I realised something: this was only the beginning.