It began with the howling.
Low. Guttural. Wrong.
Not the howl of wolves mourning. Not even the war-cry of a pack in heat or battle.
This howl carried something darker. Wild. Shattered.
Seren felt it before the wind even shifted.
He's losing control.
She stood alone on the southern ridge, eyes cast toward the valley where the Blackthorn Keep loomed against the silver sky. She didn't want to go back. Not tonight. Not ever.
But then she heard it again—this time laced with pain.
Her fingers curled.
"Damn it," she whispered, already moving.
⸻
Inside the Keep, the guards were in chaos.
Kael had locked himself in the old war chamber—a room laced with iron and ancestral magic. The kind of place built to contain a rabid wolf… or die trying.
"Alpha Blackthorn is in the grips of the bloodstorm," one of the warriors said, eyes wide with fear. "He tore through the west wing door. We can't get close. He's shifted—but it's not full."
Seren pushed past him.
"You're not going in there—" he started.
"I am."
"You'll die."
"I already did," she said coldly. "Five years ago."
She stepped into the chamber and shut the door behind her.
⸻
The room was in ruins.
Books shredded. Tables splintered. Blood smeared across the stone walls.
And in the center—a half-shifted Kael Blackthorn, gasping like an animal caught between worlds.
His limbs were too long. His eyes—no longer gold—burned black with void.
Claws scraped the floor as he hunched forward, fighting something no one else could see.
"Kael," Seren said quietly.
He didn't answer.
His body convulsed.
Bones cracked. Muscles spasmed. His wolf was trying to take over… but something was wrong. The shift wouldn't complete. It was like his soul was at war with itself.
And he was losing.
She stepped closer.
The air pulsed with rage and desperation.
"Kael," she said again, firmer this time.
His head snapped toward her.
He didn't see her.
His snarl rattled the walls.
And then he lunged.
⸻
She didn't run.
She moved with Moonblood instinct, her body spinning just in time. He collided with the wall instead, shaking the room.
When he turned again, she stood still.
Her blade was drawn, but not raised.
"Do it," she whispered. "Rip me apart. Finish what you started under the moon."
He paused—just a moment—snarling, teeth flashing.
Then she did something no one would expect.
She dropped the blade.
And stepped into his arms.
⸻
He roared.
But her hands—bare, glowing with moonlight—pressed to his chest.
His heart thundered beneath her palms.
"Remember me," she whispered.
His claws grazed her sides.
"Remember what you touched and threw away."
He howled again.
"REMEMBER ME."
Something cracked—not bone, not stone—but inside him.
He collapsed to his knees, shifting mid-fall, his skin snapping back to human as the wolf receded with a final guttural cry.
He gasped like a drowning man.
Seren caught him before he hit the floor.
⸻
Later, when the guards dared enter, they found the Alpha unconscious, wrapped in a shroud of silver mist—Seren kneeling beside him, blood on her lips, her eyes closed in a trance.
She'd channeled the bond.
She'd slowed the curse again.
But it had cost her.
⸻
Hours passed before Kael stirred.
When he awoke, his head was on her lap.
The room was quiet.
Her hands were still on his chest.
"I'm sorry," he rasped.
"You should be," she said, not looking at him.
"I would've killed you."
"No. You would've killed yourself."
He swallowed. "Why did you stop me?"
"Because I need you alive."
Kael looked up at her, hope flickering. "To complete the bond?"
She finally looked at him.
"No," she said. "To learn why it still matters."
"One scent and I'm a wreck. One look and I forget I'm supposed to hate her."
Kael hadn't meant to follow her. But the moment Seren slipped through the dense tree line, his instincts took over—Alpha or not.
He moved through the shadows like a predator, his breath tight in his chest, trying to make sense of her presence.
Why now? Why like this?
She was moonlight and fire, carved from storms and memory. He'd rejected her once—under the cursed blood moon—but she moved now like the mate who'd returned to break him.
She knelt at the old well, drawing symbols into the dirt with her fingertips. Her hair glowed silver under the moon's eye, power radiating off her in thick, unspoken waves.
"You're watching again," she said without turning.
Kael stepped into the clearing. "And you're bleeding magic into my land."
Seren stood slowly. "It's not your land anymore. It remembers me, Kael. Even if you don't."
His wolf roared behind his ribs. "I remember everything."
"Do you?" Her voice broke. "Then you should remember the night I begged you not to let go."
Silence. Kael's jaw flexed.
"You think you're punishing yourself by staying cold," she whispered. "But you're punishing me too."
The ground pulsed. Her anger was doing something dangerous now—drawing her Moonblood energy to the surface.
"Seren, breathe," Kael warned, stepping closer.
"You don't get to tell me to breathe—"
Her eyes blazed suddenly, not blue, not gold—but silver. The ancient kind.
The well behind her cracked.
Kael reached for her—
And then she screamed. The trees bent. The air pulsed. And every wolf within range lifted their heads… because the Moonblood had just revealed herself.