Page 5

Andros

I expected many things when I came to this godforsaken stretch of ice and fish stink.

Resistance from the boy, maybe. Some desperate locals trying to hide him. Perhaps a few Crescent loyalists with enough spine left to bare their teeth. What I did not expect—was her .

A wolf. But not one I recognized. Not Crescent. Not rogue. Not mine. She looked like nothing. And yet… everything.

Long black hair clung to her face, soaked from the snow, dripping like ink down her shoulders.

Her skin was too pale, almost translucent under the gray morning light, as though she’d never known warmth.

And her eyes—gods, those eyes—were a violent, feral shade of green.

Not forest green. Not even emerald. But something alive .

Something primal. Like moss growing over stone, like flame burning in the heart of a winter storm.

She was thin, almost sickly. Bones too sharp beneath skin too soft. A body made of hunger and frostbite. But the way she moved...

Chin high. Shoulders square. Jaw set like she would bite down on the world before letting it swallow her.

There was no submission in her. No flinch. No tremble. Not even as I held her throat in my palm and pinned her to the frozen wall of her collapsing little shack. Her pulse beat against my fingers—fast, but not desperate. Not panicked. Controlled.

She didn’t plead. She didn’t cry. She just stared at me. Like she was daring me to go further. A wolf. And yet… she didn’t smell like one.

Her scent was broken. Flickering. Like smoke trying to form a shape and never quite managing it. Wolf, yes—but beneath something else. Covered. Masked. Hidden in salt and seaweed and rot. I’d hunted enough to know when a trail had been tampered with.

This was deliberate. This was magic.

Dark magic.

It clung to her like another skin. Ancient, blood-soaked, stitched into the very air around her. Whoever hid her scent knew their craft. And that should have infuriated me. But instead, I leaned closer.

“What pack do you serve?” I asked, my voice a whisper made of smoke and ash.

Her lips parted—but nothing came. Her eyes widened, just a little, and something in them… cracked.

I felt it then. A shiver, not in her body, but through the air between us. Like something ancient had woken beneath her skin. Not her wolf—no, that was still silent. But the thing beneath the silence? It knew me. And I wanted to know it back.

She looked like a ghost, but she burned like prophecy. And for the first time in years, my wolf stirred in my chest—not out of hunger. Not out of rage. But want.

I tightened my grip. Her body jerked beneath my hand, heels dragging deep ruts in the frozen earth as she slammed against the wall of the cottage with a dull, brutal crack . The snow-covered planks shuddered behind her. Her breath hitched—just once. No scream. No cry. Just a wince and silence.

That silence said more than words ever could. Defiance burned in her eyes. Not the desperate kind—no, this was old. Tempered. A fire forged in cruelty and starvation. A flame that had survived.

So I drove her harder against the wall, and let my power bleed out of me like smoke from a long-sealed crypt. The air thickened. Turned violent. The men around us stilled, instincts overriding logic. This was no show of force.

This was a warning. She bared her teeth.

“I serve no pack,” she hissed.

Then she spit in my face.

It hit my cheek with a splatter—hot, defiant, and tainted with the acrid sting of hatred. A challenge thrown in the mouth of death. And I didn’t wipe it away.

The world paused. Even the snow hung motionless in the air, suspended mid-fall as if the gods themselves wanted to see what I'd do next.

I could smell the boy’s fear behind her—sweet and sharp like crushed violets—but I didn’t turn.

I laughed. Low, cruel. A sound pulled from the black marrow of my bones, older than language, deeper than wrath. It echoed off the ruined walls of the cottage and into the hollow spaces where hope used to live.

She wasn’t Crescent Moon. I would’ve known. Would’ve felt it. But she wasn’t rogue either. Rogues stank of desperation. Of shame and loneliness. She didn’t. She smelled like… absence. Like void. Like someone had ripped her from the world and sewn her back in with thread made of lies and blood.

Dark magic clung to her like a second skin—faint, but lingering. A clever mask. A curse. Which raised only one question: If she wasn’t Crescent… then what pack dared plant a wolf this deep in my territory?

Blood boiled beneath my skin, rage surging behind my ribcage. I hadn’t torn the Crescent Moon alpha limb from limb, crushed his sons, burned his holdings, just to have some other mongrel pack sneak in and stake their claim through this silent, defiant bitch.

If she belonged to another, I would find out who. And I would bury them next. But first, I’d break her .

“Leave her alone!”

The voice cracked through the air like lightning across a frozen lake. Thin. Human. I turned, slowly. The boy stood just beyond my reach, trembling like a dying star but burning just the same. Fists clenched, eyes wide with terror—but standing his ground.

“What’s it to you, boy?” I asked, my voice low and razored, dripping with violence barely leashed.

He didn’t back down.

“She’s my mother.”

The silence was instant. Heavy. I stared at him.

Human . No wolf in him. No trace. No bite. No claim. No mark . Just fragile flesh and fire where there should’ve been fear.

I turned back to her. Her eyes met mine like a blade to the throat—bright, furious, unbroken

What kind of wolf claims a human child?

What kind of beast protects the weak?

And what kind of pack would send such a thing to lie hidden beneath my nose, wrapped in shadows and rot?

There was something more here. Something buried so deep it stank of treason.

I didn’t just want answers. I needed them.

Because if another pack thought to stake a claim on what I bled to conquer, they’d learn what it meant to challenge the Blood Night Alpha.

And she— She would be the first to scream.

“Alpha!” a voice barked from the edge of the road, sharp and urgent. “We found him!”

I let her go. Not willingly.

My fingers unfurled from her throat like claws drawn from flesh, reluctant, the ghost of her skin still seared into my palm.

Heat lingered—hers—unnatural and infuriating.

The wolf inside me paced with fury, snapping its jaws, furious to release her.

It wanted her on her knees, wanted her broken, her scent smeared into the snow like a mark of ownership.

But I turned. Duty called. I stalked across the frostbitten road, snow crunching under my boots, each step heavier than the last. My soldiers parted, forming a circle around a boy on his knees, his hands bound, blood dripping from his split lip onto the snow like petals of crimson.

I didn’t need to ask who he was. One breath was enough. The scent hit me like fire on old parchment. Crescent Moon . Faint, but unmistakable. The same sharpness Arlen carried, the same bitter pride that had soaked his dying breath.

The last son. The final flickering ember of a legacy I had reduced to ash.

He looked up when I approached. Face bruised, blood caking one brow.

Young—too young to have been dragged into a war of blood and dominance.

But that fire in his eyes… that damned fire—it was the same.

His father’s. His brothers’. Their whole cursed line, believing nobility would save them from the teeth of the world.

It hadn’t.

I drew my sword with deliberate grace. The steel slid free with a hiss, the edge gleaming even under the gray morning sky. It sang for blood. For finality.

“The Crescent Moon bloodline ends here,” I said, my voice as flat and cold as the snow underfoot.

He didn’t beg. He simply raised his chin, jaw clenched, eyes still burning. I almost respected him for it. Almost.

Then I swung. One clean motion. The blade whispered through air, bone, sinew—truth.

His head dropped from his shoulders and tumbled into the snow with a heavy, wet thump, blood steaming in the cold, staining the white in thick, arterial splashes.

It rolled once, twice, before settling at the base of a broken fence post. His body remained upright for a moment, then crumpled like cloth.

Final. Absolute. The end of a line. The last howl of a dying house. I had gutted a dynasty and bled its future into the dirt.

Around me, my men exhaled. Some nodded, grim and satisfied. Others stared, pale with awe. But I didn’t look at them.

I didn’t need their approval. Behind me, I felt her. Her gaze. Still. Burning holes into my spine. I turned my head slightly, just enough to catch a glimpse of her from the corner of my eye.

“Take them,” I growled.

Two soldiers stepped forward, their boots crunching over ice and blood.

“No!” she snapped, planting herself in front of the boy like a shield of flesh and bone.

Her arms spread wide, trembling—but not from fear.

From fury. “Please… just listen. We’ve done nothing.

I’m not Crescent Moon. I’ve never served them.

If our presence offends your territory, we’ll leave. Now. No questions asked.”

I laughed, slow and sharp.

“Leave?” I echoed, tilting my head. My smirk was cold, teeth bared beneath it. “Is that what you think this is?”

I stepped closer, slow and deliberate, the heat of my body meeting the frost of hers in the narrow space between us. Her scent hit me again—strange, shifting, wrapped in something that didn’t belong. Like death pretending to be life.

“No. You’re some kind of stray ,” I murmured. “A wolf trying to rot in the shadow of men. But here’s the thing—strays don’t survive long in my lands. The only question is why you’re hiding. And from whom .”

I leaned in until my breath danced along her throat. Her pulse thudded against my senses—fast, sharp, defiant.

“Who do you serve?” I whispered. “What is that wretched filth that masks your true scent? You stink of sorcery, of broken chains and borrowed names.”

She said nothing. My smile widened.

“But you won’t give up the truth, will you?” I straightened, letting my voice boom again, letting the beast surface. “So the only place you’re going now is my dungeon. And the boy—he comes with you.”

That did it. The fear in her eyes vanished. Burned away. What took its place wasn’t submission. It was rage—raw, blistering, and sharp enough to cut stone.

“That’s what you wolves do,” she spat. “You prey on the weak. You take. You conquer. You destroy.”

The words hit like claws to the face. I paused.

“You wolves? ” I repeated, softly now. Too softly. “You speak like you aren’t one of us.”

I stepped in close again, so close our breath mingled. Mine like smoke and blood, hers like frost and desperation.

“Tell me,” I murmured, reaching up—slow, intimate—and brushing a strand of her wet, tangled hair behind her ear, “do you fancy yourself human?”

She glared at me, lip curled, green eyes burning with contempt.

“I’ve seen more kindness in that boy,” she said, voice steady, seething, “than I’ve ever seen in any of you monsters.”

I chuckled, low and venomous, letting the sound wrap around her like a noose.

“Careful,” I said, voice dark silk over razors. “You keep talking like that, and I might forget I’m being merciful.”

“I don’t want your mercy,” she hissed. “Creatures like you don’t have any.”

For a moment, just a breath, I didn’t see the ragged stranger standing before me. I saw the flame inside her. The storm. The beautiful, impossible audacity of her. And gods help her… I wanted to break it. I wanted to devour it.

“Chain them,” I ordered, my voice sharp and final. “Now.”

The soldiers moved fast, metal clinking, eyes cautious. They knew better than to take their time when I was in this mood.

She erupted. Snarling, spitting, kicking with wild precision.

She moved like a creature who had nothing left to lose.

Teeth bared, fists flying. Her elbow cracked against one soldier’s jaw with a sickening snap, sending him stumbling back, blood gushing from his mouth.

Another tried to grab her arm—she bit him.

Bit him.

He screamed, and she didn’t stop. Her hands were torn, her lip split, but she fought with the kind of violence only born of desperation. The kind that came from someone who had survived too much and refused to be caged again.

But when I stepped closer—She froze.

Not out of fear. She didn’t flinch from me like she did the others. No wild swings. No snarls.

Instead, she went unnaturally still. Her breathing hitched, just slightly, and she moved as little as possible. As if every inch mattered. As if proximity to me cost her something she couldn’t afford to lose.

It was... curious.

The wolf inside me stirred, nostrils flaring, drawn to something wrong. Not weak. Not broken. Bound. Hers was there. I felt it. A wolf. But barely. Like a heartbeat slowed to the edge of death. Faint. Strangled. Chained.

Not by steel or collar. No, this was something older. Something deeper. Magic. Silence. Shadow.

I narrowed my eyes as the soldiers finally subdued her—barely. It took three of them to clamp the irons around her wrists, and she still kicked one in the ribs hard enough to drop him to his knees.

The boy screamed. Fought back. Tiny fists and curses that meant nothing to trained warriors, but gods—he had her fire. Her rage. I let them chain him too.

Together, they knelt in the snow. Bruised. Bleeding. Unbowed. But it was her I couldn’t stop watching.

Because something about her was wrong . Wolves don’t silence themselves like that. Wolves don’t go quiet when an Alpha is near. They growl. They submit. They howl.

But hers didn’t. Not even a whisper. Whatever kept her wolf buried so deep—it wasn’t natural. And I would find out what it was. No matter how many pieces I had to tear from her to do it.