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Chapter 2 - Chapter 2

Chapter Two – Echoes in the Blood 

The Forgotten Cabin – One Month Later

The first thing that Selene remembered was the scent of smoke and wildflowers.

Then pain. A deep ache threaded through her limbs, like she had been cracked open and stitched back together with stars. Her throat was dry, her lips chapped.

She blinked against the dim candlelight and rough wooden ceiling. The room was warm, rustic. She was lying on a pile of furs, a blanket tucked into her chin. Outside, the snow fell against the cabin walls.

She tried to move. A sharp stab in her stomach made her hiss.

"You should not sit up yet," came a deep, familiar voice, distant as thunder over the mountains.

She turned her head. A figure sat in the shadows, sharpening a blade with firelight. Kade. He looked older, somehow leaner, hollow-eyed, cloaked in silence like it was part of his skin.

Her voice cracked. "Where am I?"

"My cabin. Deep in the Outlands. Far from Silverfang territory." He did not look at her when he spoke. "You have been unconscious for nearly a month."

A month?

Selene's heart thudded.

"I thought I was dying," she said, her voice faint.

"You were," Kade replied.

Silence stretched between them.

"Poison?"

He nodded. "A bloodroot variant. Slow-acting. Masked as ceremonial tea. It would've torn apart your insides if your magic had not fought it."

Her fingers curled into the blanket. "They wanted me to go that badly?"

"They feared you," he said simply. "You weren't supposed to survive the Claiming."

 Unraveling the Past

Selene's voice was low, but sharp with accusation. "And what were you doing there that night, Kade? You left the pack years ago. You only show up when people disappear."

Kade paused. The blade in his hand stopped gliding over the whetstone. "I felt it. The moment your bond shattered. I felt it like a crack through my chest."

She blinked. "You... felt the bond?"

His gaze met hers, and something ancient stirred behind his eyes.

"I was bonded to you first, Selene, a long time ago, before Lucien ever knew your name."

She sat up despite the pain, her voice was sharp. "That is not possible, the Moon doesn't give more than one bond."

"It doesn't anymore," Kade said bitterly. "But it used to, before the Council outlawed the Moonchild Oaths."

Her breath caught. "The old rites? The blood-and-moon ceremonies? They were abolished generations ago."

"Not all of them," he said. Your mother believed in the old ways. She called me to protect you when you were barely five. We swore a moon oath at the Temple ruins. I was bound to you before I even understood what it meant.

She stared at him, horrified and strangely drawn. "Why didn't I remember?"

"Because the Council sealed the memories. They wanted those bonds erased from history."

Selene's head spun. "Why didn't you say something all these years? Why didn't my mother?"

"I was forbidden to speak of it. Sworn in blood. "Your mother thought the Moon would undo the bond as you grew older, rewrite your path."

"She gave me to Lucien."

"She tried to save you from me," Kade whispered, looking away. Because my soul had already been touched by a shadow. Even then."

Selene's heart beat faster. "You speak as if you are cursed."

"I am." He leaned back, pulling down the collar of his shirt to reveal a sigil burned into the skin over his heart, an ancient rune, pulsing faintly with dark energy.

She recoiled. "What is that?"

"The mark of the oath I made. It wasn't just a vow to protect you, Selene. I offered a part of myself to the Moon to keep you safe. But the Nightfather heard it too. He marked me that night. I have been fighting his voice ever since."

The fire crackled. Shadows danced against the walls. Selene's fingers trembled as she whispered, "And the boy you were... is he still in there?"

Kade didn't answer.

The Discovery

Later that night, when Kade had gone to gather firewood, Selene stood on unsteady legs and touched her belly. A dull ache pulsed there, different from the healing pain.

Something shifted inside her.

She sucked in a breath and grabbed a fur-lined cloak from the wall. Her hands worked quickly, trembling as she took the small blade Kade had left behind and pricked her finger.

She smeared blood onto a mirror hanging by the cabin's corner and whispered the old Moon Priestess invocation:

 "Truth in silver, blood in light. Show me what I carry inside."

The mirror shimmered.

A pulse.

Two pulses.

Selene gasped as two faint heartbeats flickered in the small, rhythmic, glowing with faint silver hues.

Twins.

She stumbled back, the blade clattering to the floor.

Not one.

Two.

One heartbeat shone clear and bright, silver like a moonfire.

The other was somewhat darker and powerful, laced in shadow. 

She gripped the wall, her mind was filled with wonder and terror.

Whose children were they?

The mate bond with Lucien had broken before anything had ever happened between them hadn't it?

But something inside her twisted, as if one child answered to the sun... and the other to shadow.

A Dangerous Realization

Kade returned to find her sitting in the corner, wrapped in silence. She didn't speak as he set down the firewood.

"I felt your magic," he said cautiously. "What did you see?"

Selene lifted her eyes, her voice was quiet but cutting. "I'm pregnant."

He stilled.

She added, "With twins."

Kade looked away, his muscles tightening.

"Say something," she snapped.

"I suspected," he said after a long pause. "Your scent changed a week ago."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"I didn't know how. You've been barely clinging to life. I didn't want to give you another reason to break."

She rose, approaching him. "I saw them, Kade. Two heartbeats. Two auras. One of them is light. The other is... like you."

His breath caught. "Then one is mine."

Selene staggered back.

"I didn't—" she began, horror blooming in her throat.

"We didn't," Kade said quickly. "Not physically. But magic doesn't always follow flesh. The Moonchild Oath may have bound us more deeply than anyone realized. One child carries your bond to Lucien. The other... carries mine."

She covered her mouth.

"This isn't happening."

"It is." Kade stepped forward. "And now you see why they wanted you dead. You carry the future of two bloodlines. And both are touched by prophecy."

The Blood That Calls

Suddenly, the air in the cabin chilled.

A howling rose in the distance, it was long shrill, wrong. Not a wolf's cry, but something older, hungrier.

Selene's heart seized.

"What was that?" she whispered.

Kade's face paled. He grabbed his blade and shoved it into his belt. "We need to move. Now."

"Why? What's happening?"

He grabbed her cloak and tossed it over her shoulders. "Something has found us. Something that should not have done so."

The door rattled violently.

Then a low voice whispered through the crack.

 "Moonborn... mother... surrender the heirs... or burn."

Selene froze.

Her eyes went to the mirror, which had begun to pulse again, it was no longer showing her reflection, but the flickering form of the Moonstone, glowing violently.

And beneath it...

The image of a monstrous wolf with crescent scars burned into its skin.

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