The forest was wrong tonight.
Too quiet. Too still. Even the wind held its breath.
I moved through the pines in near silence, each step measured, my senses stretched to the breaking point. My wolf was restless under my skin, claws pressing just enough to remind me he wanted out. The scent in the air was thick and metallic blood tangled with something sharper.
The Blood Moon was three nights away. That should have meant tense peace, the fragile kind that kept enemies on their own side of the border until the moon was gone. But peace never lasted long in my world. Not with rogues slipping through territory lines and hunters growing bold enough to test their luck.
Weakness was death. I'd built my life and my pack on making sure no one ever mistook me for weak.
A sharp crack broke the stillness. My head snapped left. Somewhere in the shadows, something moved.
I crouched low, my eyes flashing silver as my wolf pressed harder against the edges of my control. Through the shifting light of the moon, I caught the ripple of dark fur lean, fast, and not one of mine.
Rogue.
I moved without sound, weaving between trunks, my boots skimming the damp earth. The scent grew sharper the closer I got wolf, but soured by fear and exhaustion.
He stumbled into the next clearing and froze. His sides heaved as though he'd run for miles, his coat slick with sweat. He shifted back into human form before collapsing to his knees, bare skin gleaming pale in the moonlight.
"Alpha Vale," he gasped, head bowed despite the tremor in his limbs. "They're" He sucked in a ragged breath. "They're coming."
My voice was even, but my wolf's low growl hummed beneath it. "Who?"
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. "Hunters. Silver weapons. They"
The crack of a gunshot tore through the night.
The rogue jerked, his eyes wide with shock as a silver-tipped arrow bloomed from his chest. The stench of burning flesh hit me a heartbeat before his scream. He crumpled, lifeless, to the forest floor.
I was already moving.
The undergrowth exploded with shouts and the pounding of boots. Moonlight flashed off metal as the first hunter burst through the trees. My wolf lunged to the surface. Bones snapped, muscles stretched, and fur tore through skin as the shift took me mid-stride.
He didn't have time to fire. I slammed into him, the rifle tumbling from his hands as my claws tore through his coat. The sharp tang of fear flooded my senses.
More hunters followed five, maybe six their weapons gleaming. My wolf didn't hesitate. We moved as one, a blur of teeth and claws. Their silver burned when it bit into me, but pain was nothing new. My pack had bled for every inch of the land we held, and so would I.
By the time the last one hit the ground, the clearing was a ruin. The air was thick with the stink of blood, gunpowder, and the acrid tang of silver. I shifted back, drawing in slow, steady breaths, my chest rising and falling in time with the quiet that followed.
And that's when I caught it.
Not blood. Not silver.
Something else.
It threaded through the night air, faint but unmistakable, sharp and sweet all at once, like the first breath after a storm. My pulse stuttered. My wolf froze.
I turned toward it.
She was there, half-hidden behind a pine, her eyes wide and fixed on me.
Not a wolf. I would have known. Human. Or at least, she should have been.
"Come out," I said, my voice rough from the fight.
She didn't move at first. Then, with a slow, wary step, she left the shadows and let the moonlight touch her.
Her hair spilled in loose waves down her back, catching the silver glow. Her face was pale, but her chin lifted as if she refused to be afraid, even though I could hear the hammer of her heartbeat from here.
"You're bleeding," she said.
I glanced at the thin graze across my ribs, silver still smoking faintly where it had grazed me. "It's nothing," I replied. "You shouldn't be here."
"I was running," she said. Her eyes flicked to the bodies around us, then back to mine. "From them… and from you."
I stepped forward. She stepped back.
The scent hit me again, stronger this time, wrapping around my senses like a chain. My wolf went utterly still. Recognition struck like a blow to the chest.
Mate.
No. Not just mate.
The Moonbound heir.
The words of the prophecy I'd ignored my whole life whispered through my mind: Under the blood moon, the lost heir will rise. She will unite the packs… or burn them to ash.
I didn't believe in destiny. I believed in strength, in choice. But fate didn't give a damn what I believed.
And it had just put her in my path.
I opened my mouth to speak, to demand her name, to ask why she carried the scent of my mate, but the forest around us erupted in sound.
Not hunters this time. Wolves. My wolves.
They were closing in fast, and if they saw her before I could decide what to do, this night was going to end in blood for a whole different reason.