AYLA – POV
I didn't know how long I ran.
Long enough for the bond to fade back into a whisper.
Long enough for my lungs to burn and my legs to give out beneath me.
When I collapsed, it wasn't fear that dropped me.
It was the weight of something I couldn't carry anymore.
The truth.
The bond.
The eyes of two males who would burn the world for me… and the part of me that didn't know if I wanted to be caught or left behind.
The grove was hidden between two cliffs, hollowed by time and cloaked in silence.
The trees were older than language. Moonlight filtered through in silver shafts, pooling around me like a cradle.
I laid my head on the roots of a twisted ash tree.
And the world fell away.
The First Luna wore no crown.
No silk.
No collar.
She stood barefoot in blood-soaked grass, her eyes pale silver, her body marked in glowing runes that pulsed with power. She wasn't gentle.
She was terrifying.
Wolves circled her. Some bowed. Some bared teeth.
But none dared touch her.
Because they could see it.
She didn't belong to any one Alpha.
She belonged to the moon.
Her voice echoed inside me:
"There is no mate without Luna. And no Luna without choice."
I gasped awake, heart racing.
My hands were glowing.
Not faintly.
Lit.
Runes danced across my forearms. Symbols I hadn't seen before. Symbols that matched the altar.
The tree above me pulsed once, shedding a single silver leaf.
I caught it.
And where it touched my skin—My wolf howled.
For the first time, fully, ferociously, awake.
I felt her claws beneath my fingertips. Her growl in my throat. Her power roaring through my blood like the tide of a divine sea.
Behind me, footsteps crunched.
Rylan stepped into the grove, his eyes going wide.
"You found it," he whispered.
"No," I said, standing tall. "It found me."
He stepped closer, gaze raking over my arms.
"You saw her."
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
I turned toward the moon, letting it hit my skin.
"She said I get to choose."
MOONBURNED
The moon had never felt like this before.
Its light didn't just touch my skin—it soaked into it. Ran beneath it. Filled the empty spaces inside me I hadn't even realized were hollow.
When I stood in the grove beneath the ash tree, I wasn't the girl who'd been rejected, beaten, and shackled in the dark.
I was something else now.
My blood hummed with memory.
My bones ached with purpose.
And the air itself seemed to pause—listening.
I inhaled deeply, tasting the forest. My senses stretched wider than they ever had before.
I could hear the heartbeat of a fox sleeping three trees away. I could taste the magic in the leaves. I could feel Kael, somewhere in the west, pulsing like a storm behind the sky.
And I could hear Rylan's heartbeat stutter behind me.
He was afraid.
Of me.
Good.
"Your scent," he said again. "It's—different."
I turned to face him. He stepped back automatically.
Not a lot.
But enough.
"You're hiding something," I said.
He didn't deny it.
"You knew what I was."
"I knew what you could be," he said slowly.
I narrowed my eyes. "Don't lie to me, Rylan. Not now."
He hesitated.
Then said, "The Seer Council ordered my exile as cover. They sent me to the Outlands to observe you. Not interfere. Just… watch. Measure the bond decay. Record your wolf's silence."
My hands clenched at my sides.
"You were there when they rejected me."
"Yes."
"You were there when they stole my scent."
"Yes."
"And you let it happen?"
His voice cracked. "I didn't know they'd go that far. I didn't know you were her."
Silence fell like a blade.
I took a slow step toward him.
Rylan didn't move.
I could see the guilt written in the way his shoulders curled in. The way he couldn't meet my eyes now.
"You knew I wasn't normal. That I wasn't just an Omega."
"Yes."
"You knew I carried the First Luna's bloodline."
"I didn't know you were her vessel."
I paused. "What does that mean?"
He exhaled. "You're not her reincarnation. You're her continuation. The ritual that stole your scent? It wasn't meant to destroy your bond. It was meant to contain your power. To keep it asleep."
I blinked.
Rylan took a step closer, slowly, as if approaching a feral wolf.
"They tried to bind you to the wrong Alpha. Then erase you entirely when it failed. But your blood won't stay bound. That's why your bond burned through the magic when Kael came near."
My pulse slammed in my ears.
"I'm not meant to be anyone's," I said.
He shook his head. "No. You're meant to choose. And that makes you more dangerous than any Luna before you."
A wind shifted through the trees.
Cold.
Wrong.
Not just natural.
A warning.
I turned west. The breeze carried no scent. Nothing. And that was the danger.
Rylan stiffened.
"You feel that?"
"Yes."
I dropped into a crouch, instincts flaring sharp and precise.
The forest no longer felt neutral.
It felt hunted.
And I wasn't the prey anymore.
Branches snapped in the distance.
No footfalls. No growl. Just a shape moving wrong. Unnatural.
It stepped into the clearing like it had always been part of it. Tall. Humanoid. Once-wolf, but twisted — its limbs too long, its skin waxen and gray. Its eyes glowed faint white, and its mouth never opened.
But I heard it.
In my head.
"You carry what was denied. We are here to take it back."
I stepped forward, not back.
Rylan moved to my side, blade drawn, shoulders tense.
"What is it?" I asked.
"A failed vessel," he said quietly. "One they tried to replace you with."
It didn't have a scent. But it reeked of death.
Of broken bonds.
I felt them swirling around it — echoes of wolves who never survived the ritual.
And I saw them.
Threads of silver torn and blackened, dragging behind its feet like chains.
"I won't let you touch me," I said.
It cocked its head. "You already did."
Pain lanced through my chest.
Images flashed — the dungeon, the chains, the wolfsbane laced with powdered ashroot. My scent in a vial. My bond dripping from another wolf's skin.
I screamed once, not from fear—but from wrath.
And the forest responded.
Moonlight roared through me.
The ash tree above me lit like fire without flame. My skin glowed brighter than before, the runes now running up my throat and down my back.
The creature flinched.
It hissed.
It took a step back.
Rylan stared. "Ayla…"
I didn't hear him.
I raised my hand.
A rune in my palm ignited, and the threads around the scentless creature snapped like twine in flame.
It screamed.
Soundless.
And disintegrated before my eyes.
The silence that followed was not peace.
It was fear.
The forest went still again.
And somewhere, far away—Kael howled.