Elara woke screaming.
She clawed at her shoulder, only to find smooth skin beneath her fingers. No wound. No scar.
Only a faint silver mark shaped like teeth.
She sat up, breath ragged, as Alpha Caelan entered the room.
"You're safe," he said calmly. "Rowan brought you back."
Her heart twisted. "Where is he?"
Caelan's jaw tightened. "Confined."
"Confined?"
"He broke the law," the Alpha said gently. "A healing bite without Council consent."
Elara stared at her hands. She could still feel Rowan—like a ghost beneath her skin. His fear. His regret.
"I didn't ask him to," she whispered.
"I know," Caelan said, sitting beside her. "You're not to blame."
He took her wrist, adjusting the charm he'd given her earlier. The runes glowed faintly.
"This will help you rest," he said.
And she did.
Too deeply.
That night, Elara dreamed of silver fur slick with blood.
She woke with a scream lodged in her throat—and the distant sound of Rowan Blackmoor screaming her name.
The Blood Moon rose three nights later.
It bled across the sky, red and swollen, casting long shadows through the pack grounds. Wolves gathered instinctively, unease rippling through them like a warning they couldn't name.
Elara felt it before she saw it.
A pressure in her chest. A heat beneath her skin.
She staggered out of her room, fingers digging into her arms as if she could hold herself together by force alone. The charm around her wrist burned—no, strained—as if fighting something far stronger than it was.
"Elara?" Lyra called, rushing to her side. "You look pale."
"I can't—" Elara gasped. "Something's wrong."
The ground tilted.
The moonlight touched her skin—
—and something inside her screamed.
Pain unlike anything she'd known tore through her body. Her bones bent, cracked, reshaped. She collapsed to the earth as her scream turned into a howl that split the night.
Wolves froze.
Elders shouted.
Rowan, still confined at the edge of the grounds, snapped his chains and looked up.
"No," he breathed. "No—"
Silver light erupted from Elara's body.
Her spine arched. Her fingers lengthened into claws glowing pale as moonfire. Fur burst through her skin—not brown, not black, but silver, radiant and unmistakable.
Ancient.
Extinct.
A Silver Wolf rose where Elara Nyx had fallen.
The Circle went silent.
The Moon Oracle, cloaked in white, dropped to her knees.
"The extinction breathes again," Selune whispered, voice trembling. "The Moon has chosen its executioner."
The Silver Wolf lifted her head and howled.
The sound was grief.
The sound was power.
And Rowan Blackmoor screamed her name as the Moon watched in satisfaction.