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Chapter 3 - Chapter 3

Chapter Three – The Ones Who Hunt the Moon

The Cabin – Moments Later

The door rattled once again, twice, then stopped completely.

Selene held her breath, wrapped in silence so tense it felt like the cabin itself might shatter.

Kade stood before her, sword unsheathed, his frame braced like a wall of iron. His golden eyes had shifted to wolf-amber, pupils narrowed. Every inch of him was a coiled storm.

"Kade," she whispered. "What did it say?"

But he didn't answer her directly. He sniffed the air low, precise, calculating.

"They've masked their scent," he murmured. "Which means that they're not ordinary rogues."

He stepped to the window, flinging the shutter open just wide enough to peer into the snow-laced trees. The forest beyond was covered in eerie stillness.

"No movement," he muttered. "But they're here." Watching."

Selene's hand drifted to her stomach. She could feel it thumming again inside her. Two pulses. One of warmth… the other flickering like smoke and embers beneath her skin.

"We can't outrun them, can we?" she asked quietly.

Kade turned. "Not like that. You're barely healed."

"Then what do we do?"

He hesitated. "I can distract them. Draw them off while you run for the southern ridge."

"No." Her voice cracked with more strength than she felt. "If I die out there, the twins will die with me."

His eyes darkened. "Then we will stay and fight."

Selene looked at him, she really looked at him for the first time since waking up. The roughness of his jaw. The scars that laced his neck were like whispers of battles which he had never spoken of. The quiet rage always coiled beneath his calm.

"What are they?" she asked. Those things outside. They weren't wolves. Not truly."

Kade exhaled. "They are Hollowborn."

Her blood went cold. "That is not possible. That bloodline was extinguished during the Lunar Purge."

"Clearly, someone missed a few." He glanced out the window again. "Or someone remade them."

Scene 2 – Secrets in the Firelight

The wind howled again, it was closer now. More urgent.

Selene paced before the hearth as Kade relitted the protective wards with salt and crushed moonroot.

"I thought Hollowborn were just stories," she said. "They were born of crescent scars, their souls severed from the goddess."

"They're real, and they're empty," he said, his voice low. They don't feel pain. They don't feel bonds. "They exist only to serve whoever controls the mark that created them.

Selene clenched her jaw. "And they're after the twins."

"Yes."

She stared at the firelight. "Why? Why now?"

"Because your womb awakened the Moonstone," he said. "Because you're no longer a bloodline, now they see you as a gate."

She turned to him slowly. "You keep speaking like you know exactly what is going on. But you don't explain. You just protect, or push, or disappear. Who are you really, Kade?"

Silence.

He looked away.

"Kade," she pressed. "Tell me."

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Try me."

He looked up then, his eyes glowing like wildfire.

"I'm not just cursed, Selene. I was once part of them."

Her heart slammed against her ribs. "What?"

"I was born in one of the Hollowborn breeding dens," he said. Raised without bonds, without a name. We were meant to be soldiers, puppets for some forgotten war. But when I was five, I escaped. Your mother found me near death. She took me in. Gave me a name. Gave me a reason to breathe."

He stepped closer, his voice was thick with shadows.

"She healed me. Then she bound me to you, thinking it would save me completely. But the Hollowmark never left. It is part of me, Selene. I fight it every time I close my eyes."

She was speechless.

"And now," he said, "your child carries the same blood, mine." And I don't know what that means."

Selene backed away, stunned.

"And you never thought to tell me?" she whispered.

"I wanted to believe I was better," he said. "That saving you meant I was clean."

Her hand trembled against the wall.

Then the whisper returned, it was through the cracks of the door. Only this time, it was clearer. A woman's voice now, ancient and cruel:

"Come out, daughter of the Priestess. We only want a darker child."

Selene's eyes snapped to Kade.

"They can tell," she breathed. "They know."

Kade bared his teeth. "Then they die here."

 The Unseen Force

The wards flickered.

One of the Hollowborn crossed the barrier.

Kade lunged, his blade gleaming silver. The creature wore no face, it was just stretched skin and deep scars glowing like crescent moons. It hissed, lurching toward Selene.

"Run!" Kade roared.

But she didn't.

Instead, Selene raised her hand and shouted a word in a language she hadn't known she knew.

The fire flared.

The creature screamed, curling into itself as moonlight poured from Selene's palm like a living flame. It burst into silver ash.

Kade froze.

"You channeled the Moonstone," he whispered.

Selene stared at her hand, trembling. "I didn't even think. It just… came."

Kade stepped toward her slowly. "You are changing."

"I'm not the only one."

She looked down. Her stomach glowed faintly, two soft lights pulsing through her skin.

Then the twins pushed back, one flare of silver, one flicker of shadow. A wave of energy blasted outward, cracking the cabin walls.

Kade threw his arms around her, shielding her.

Outside, the Hollowborn howled and retreated.

Selene looked up, stunned. "What just happened?"

Kade whispered, "They felt your sons... and feared them."

The Scorched Mark

After the blast, everything was still.

The woods were quiet.

Then slowly, deliberately, a scroll slid beneath the cabin door, smoldering at the edges.

Selene stepped forward and picked it up, her fingers were trembling. The paper bore a seal she had not seen in years.

The Crescent Order.

Her voice broke. "That can not be. They were wiped out."

Kade snatched it from her hands and read it aloud.

"We know what you carry: the Moonborn King, the Shadow Twin. Deliver them to the Hollow Temple by the next blood moon... or Silverfang will burn."

Selene's heart clenched.

"They know who I am," she whispered. "They know I lived."

Kade looked at her; His face was unreadable.

"No, Selene. They know something worse."

He turned the scroll around, revealing the blood-stamped words which were beneath the threat.

"We know which child belongs to the Alpha… and which belongs to the Curse."

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