Chapter 4

When I woke again, the infirmary was silent.

No Lucas. No Liam. No healer.

Only the soft hum of runic wards glowing faintly on the walls—sigils meant to suppress a wolf’s transformation until the body healed.

They burned faintly blue, casting long shadows across my bed.

My wolf stirred weakly inside me, a whisper of breath instead of a roar. Still here, she murmured. Still trapped.

I closed my eyes.

And in the darkness, memory came for me like a tide.

---

I first met Liam Blackwood when I was fifteen, a freshly shifted omega trembling through my first moon-run.

He’d found me in the forest—blood on my claws, confusion in my eyes—and offered his hand.

“Don’t be afraid,” he’d said, his wolf aura wrapping around me like warmth. “You’re one of us now.”

He was the Alpha’s son—handsome, confident, his dominance balanced by a kind of reckless gentleness. The pack adored him. I worshipped him.

We trained together, hunted together. He taught me to control my wolf when the bloodlust came.

Once, during a spar, I’d shifted mid-fight. My claws had grazed his chest, drawing blood.

He’d only laughed. “Good. Never hold back from me, Elena. If I’m going to lead one day, I need a Luna who can tear the world apart.”

Those words had branded themselves into me long before his mark ever did.

---

Years later, during the Blood Moon Festival, he took me to the ridge above the Silvercrest lands. The whole forest glowed red beneath the lunar light.

He bit my neck that night—his fangs carving his claim into my skin, our blood mixing as the mate bond sealed.

A surge of fire and power roared through me. My wolf howled in ecstasy as our souls intertwined.

From that night on, our heartbeats shared a rhythm. I could feel him through the bond—his moods, his pain, his heartbeat when he slept.

And for a time, that was enough.

The first year of our union was everything I’d ever dreamed of. He’d wake before dawn, his wolf brushing against mine across the link: You awake, little moon?

We’d run together under the stars, hunt together, dream together. He’d trace my mark with his thumb and whisper, Forever.

Until she came back.

Camilla Vale.

She’d once been a highborn wolf from the neighboring Crescent Moon pack, sent away after a scandal with a married Alpha. She returned years later—poised, radiant, and venomous.

I should’ve known the moment her scent filled our halls. Sweet jasmine, sharp silver. Dangerous.

She smiled like she knew secrets. And she did—every weakness in my mate, every old affection he’d buried.

She began with little things. Whispering advice to Liam about leadership. Offering to “help” with pack finances. Calling me sweet Elena in that condescending tone that made my wolf’s hackles rise.

Then one night, I woke to find Liam gone.

He came home before dawn, smelling faintly of jasmine.

“She needed counsel,” he said when I asked. “She’s family.”

Family. That word poisoned everything that followed.

He started avoiding me. Stopped answering through the bond. When I asked what was wrong, he’d say I was paranoid.

The first time he called me unfit to be Luna, it was after Camilla’s dinner party. I’d spilled wine—clumsy, human mistake—and his eyes had turned cold.

“You embarrass me,” he’d hissed. “Do you even know how a Luna behaves?”

I still remember the scent of the wine—iron and berries—spreading across the tablecloth like blood.

---

Now, lying broken under healer lights, I pressed my palm to the mark on my neck.

The bond was faint, a dying thread.

When Liam severed it in rage, the mark should’ve faded. But it didn’t.

It pulsed, weakly, stubbornly—the ghost of a bond that refused to die even when the love was gone.

I wanted to rip it out.

But I couldn’t.

The healer said my wolf was too weak to shift, too weak to purge the mark.

So I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, breathing through the ache.

The door creaked open.

Liam stepped inside, dressed in his Alpha blacks, his scent sharp and dominant. And behind him—Camilla, glowing in white silk, a small bandage artfully placed on her temple.

I wanted to snarl, but my wolf only whimpered.

“Elena,” Liam said softly. “Camilla wants to speak with you.”

I turned my face to the wall.

He didn’t like that. His voice dropped lower, carrying that dangerous Alpha growl. “Face her.”

Even broken, my body reacted—the bond instinct forcing submission. My wolf flinched.

Slowly, I turned.

Camilla smiled sweetly. “I just came to say I forgive you.”