The night of my eighteenth birthday wasn't supposed to feel like a funeral.
But as the clock in the packhouse's great hall struck midnight, a strange chill crawled across my skin—like invisible fingers tracing my veins—and a mark began to burn into my wrist. Not a normal mate mark—no warm glow, no gentle tug of bond. This one was icy, jagged, shaped like a claw tearing through a moon.
I hissed under my breath and clutched my arm, hiding it from the curious stares of the other wolves. The laughter, the music, the clinking of champagne glasses around me all blurred into static.
And then—
"I've waited for you."
The voice was low, male, and far too close.
My head jerked up, but no one was there. The pack hall was still filled with guests celebrating my birthday, the air thick with roasted venison and the sound of someone drunkenly howling in the corner.
I told myself I imagined it.
Until the voice spoke again.
"Don't marry him."
My pulse spiked. "What?" I whispered, before realizing I had just responded out loud to someone who wasn't there.
Heads turned. My mother frowned from across the room. My father's beta—already watching me with hawk-like suspicion—tilted his head.
I forced a smile and slipped out of the hall, my heels clicking against the marble floor as I pushed open the doors to the moonlit garden.
The night air hit me like a bucket of ice water, but it didn't calm the pounding in my chest. I glanced down at the mark again—it was still there, black and gleaming like wet ink, pulsing faintly in time with my heartbeat.
And then—
"Come find me."
The voice was in my head this time.
I froze. The words weren't a suggestion. They were a command. A pull.
---
Growing up, I'd heard the stories about the BloodClaw pack. Everyone had. They were the savage clan from the northern mountains, feared for their unmatched strength and their refusal to bow to the Alpha Council. Ten years ago, they were slaughtered—wiped out in a single night. No survivors.
That's what history claimed.
That's what my father, Alpha of Silvercrest, swore to me when I was little.
So why… why was I hearing the voice of a man who claimed to be my mate from a pack that didn't exist anymore?
---
I gripped the stone railing of the garden terrace, breathing hard. "This isn't real. I'm just tired. It's the wine."
But deep down, I knew I was lying.
The mate bond wasn't something you could mistake for exhaustion. It was woven into the bones of every wolf from birth—a golden thread that could only connect to one other person. It was supposed to feel warm. Alive.
Mine felt like moonlight on a grave.
---
The next morning, I woke with my wrist still marked and my thoughts still tangled around the voice. My mother tried to pretend she didn't notice my sudden mood change, but the way her gaze lingered on my arm told me she'd seen it.
She didn't ask. And that was worse than her yelling.
I kept telling myself I wouldn't listen to the voice. That I would stay home, pretend this never happened, and focus on what mattered—my arranged engagement to Ethan Vale, son of our pack's allied Alpha.
But that night, the whisper came again.
"You don't belong to him. You belong to me."
The mark burned hot, then cold, then hot again until I couldn't stand it anymore. I pressed my fingers to it—and that's when everything changed.
---
It felt like falling through ice. My lungs seized, my vision went black, and when I opened my eyes again, I was no longer in my bedroom.
I was standing in the middle of a dead forest.
Ash coated the ground like snow. The air was thick with the metallic tang of old blood. A crumbling stone wall loomed in the distance, its gates shattered, the crest of a blood-red claw barely visible through the soot.
The ruins of the BloodClaw pack.
---
I should have run.
Instead, I stepped forward, my boots crunching against brittle leaves.
And then I saw him.
A man stood at the center of the ruined courtyard, his back to me. His shoulders were broad, his posture unnaturally still—too still. His long, dark hair was tangled and streaked with silver, as though frost clung to it.
When he turned, the breath caught in my throat.
His eyes were glowing—an unholy shade of crimson that I'd only ever seen in nightmares. His skin was pale, his jaw sharp, his lips slightly parted as though tasting the air between us.
And yet… my wolf recognized him instantly.
Mate.
The word echoed through my head, but it was wrong. Everything about him screamed wrong. He wasn't alive in the way normal wolves were. His presence was heavy, ancient, suffocating—like the air before a storm.
"I knew you'd come," he said, his voice the same one that had haunted me since last night. "The Moon tied you to me. Even death couldn't break it."
I swallowed hard. "You're supposed to be dead."
He smiled without warmth. "I was. Until you were born."
---
The air shifted, colder now, and I realized we weren't alone. Shadows slithered along the broken walls—wolves that weren't quite wolves, their forms shifting and melting into the darkness. His pack. Or what was left of it.
"They killed us all," he said, stepping closer, his boots silent on the ashen ground. "Burned our homes. But the Moon cursed them the moment they cursed me."
I stumbled back, but he was already in front of me, his hand lifting to trace the mark on my wrist. His touch was freezing, but it sent heat racing through me in a way I couldn't explain.
"You're mine," he murmured. "And now that I'm awake… I'm coming back. With you."
---
The world tilted, and before I could speak, the shadows surged forward, wrapping around us like a tide. My vision blurred, the scent of smoke and blood filling my nose—
And then I was back in my bed, gasping for air, the mark on my wrist glowing faintly in the dark.
Outside my window, the night wind howled.
Somewhere far away, something howled back.