Chapter One: The Night the Moon Chose Me
I was never meant to survive that night. Iunderstood that long before the forest tried to swallow me whole.The cold clawed into my lungs as I ran. It wasn't the sharp, bracing cold of winter mornings that wakes the blood and clears the head. This was heavier wet, invasive, the kind that settled into your bones and refused to leave. Every breath scraped my throat raw, each inhale a shallow, burning punishment I couldn't slow no matter how hard my body begged.
My boots slipped on the uneven forest floor, slick with fallen leaves and thick mud that clung like grasping hands. Roots jutted from the ground, hidden traps waiting to send me sprawling. Twice I nearly fell. Once I caught myself against a tree trunk, bark tearing at my palms, damp moss smearing my skin. Pain flared, but I barely registered it.
I didn't stop.
Stopping meant being caught. And being caught meant the end of whatever fragile thing I still owned myself. Something large crashed through the undergrowth behind me. Not cautious. Not silent. Branches snapped like brittle bones, leaves bursting into the air in frantic spirals. Whatever hunted me no longer bothered with stealth. It knew I was exhausted. It knew the forest would eventually betray me.
The howls had begun hours earlier. Deep. Resonant. They carried through the trees with unnatural clarity, rolling across the land like commands rather than calls. I felt them in my chest more than I heard them, vibrations that made my heart stutter in response.
I didn't look back.
Looking back would have meant giving shape to the shadows that had already ruled my life for too long. It would have meant admitting that what chased me wasn't just fear or imagination, but flesh and blood and intent.
Only hours earlier, I had stood inside Greyfen's stone hall, my wrists bound beneath layers of ceremonial cloth. The torches lining the walls flickered and smoked, their flames casting warped shadows that stretched and twisted like watching eyes. The air smelled of incense, sweat, and old stone of tradition heavy enough to suffocate. They circled me slowly. Elders. Wolves wearing human skin, their gazes sharp and assessing. They spoke calmly, as though discussing land boundaries or livestock.
"She's suitable."
"Her bloodline is thin enough."
"She'll stabilise the alliance."
The alpha's voice cut through them all, final and unquestionable. His decision sealed my fate.They called it a binding ceremony. A sacred union. A necessary political act to prevent war between packs.But I saw the truth the moment my eyes caught the glint beneath the cloth draped over the altar. Iron. Chains prepared in careful silence. Control disguised as tradition.
I wasn't a bride.
I was an offering.
In Greyfen, women like me half bloods, diluted lines weren't meant to speak. We existed to serve pack needs, to be bartered when alliances demanded it. My mother had been the same. Whispered about. Watched carefully. Then gone.
Her disappearance had never been explained, only accepted.
I had learned early how to survive there. Keep your head down. Speak only when spoken to. Blend into the stone and shadow until you were no longer seen as a problem.
That night, something inside me fractured.
The silver thread binding my wrists burned against my skin, searing hot, as if it recognised what I was about to do. The elders were arguing voices rising, attention fractured by territory disputes and pride. The guards shifted, distracted for a heartbeat.
That was all I needed.
I tore through the binding with a strength I didn't recognise as my own. The pain was sharp and immediate, but it was nothing compared to the terror of staying. I ran without grabbing supplies, without a plan beyond escape. Instinct took over, raw and desperate.
Now that instinct drove me deeper into the forest, lungs screaming, legs shaking. Branches whipped my face and arms, thorns tearing into my sleeves and skin. Warm blood ran in thin lines down my forearms. I barely felt it.
The moon rose ahead of me, its light slipping through the canopy in pale silver shards. I burst into a clearing and skidded to a halt, my heart hammering so violently it felt like it might tear free from my ribs.
The full moon hung low in the sky huge, blinding, impossibly close.
Its light washed over me.
And something answered.
Pain detonated in my chest, sudden and overwhelming. I dropped to my knees with a strangled cry as heat surged through my veins. Not burning. Awakening. Like fire threading paths that had been dormant for generations. My spine arched as my heartbeat slowed, deepened, changing rhythm until it felt ancient heavy and deliberate, as though the earth itself had begun counting time inside me. My vision blurred. The forest tilted.
Something moved beneath my skin.
Images flooded my mind without warning. Wolves kneeling in fields of ash and blood. Silver fire tearing through the night sky. A woman standing alone beneath the moon, unbroken, her silhouette etched in light.
Stand.
The voice wasn't sound. It came from everywhere and nowhere, resonating through bone and blood. It didn't ask. I gasped and forced myself upright. My legs trembled, but they held.
The forest had gone completely silent.
At the edge of the clearing stood a wolf larger than any I had ever seen. Ash-grey fur streaked with scars that caught the moonlight like silver threads. His presence pressed against the air itself, heavy and undeniable. Molten gold eyes locked onto mine with an intelligence that made my breath hitch.
He didn't snarl.
He didn't lunge.
Slowly, deliberately, he lowered his massive head.
Emotion surged up my throat without warning relief, awe, grief for something I hadn't known I'd lost. Tears burned my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I didn't understand why I was crying. Only that something buried deep within me had been found.
The pain ebbed, leaving behind a steady hum beneath my skin. Power. Not wild, not raging—waiting. My name echoed in my mind, whole and certain, reclaimed from the fragments Greyfen had left me with.
Hayley Ashborne.
The howls resumed in the distance, but they were different now. Hesitant. Wary.
I wiped my face and took a single step forward. The wolf watched me, unmoving, his golden eyes never leaving mine.
The night wasn't over.
But for the first time in my life, I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
I was no longer running.