Night didn't fall it bled.
The moon rose through a sky the color of old scars, and every shadow in the Ash Pines felt like it was holding its breath.
We moved as a unit Aezrel at my side, Kaelen and Draven flanking the rear, and a new shadow slipping into our ranks. Taren.
He didn't speak when we left the fortress. He didn't need to. His eyes cold, surgical never left the treeline.
The Alpha King had sent him as "support."
I knew what that meant.
Taren wasn't here to protect me. He was here to watch Aezrel.
The pines swallowed us whole. Branches clawed at my arms, damp soil muffled our steps, and somewhere far off a wolf's cry split the air long, low, and answered by another.
"They're close," Draven murmured.
My wolf was already pacing inside me, ears pricked. I could feel it too movement, faint but deliberate, just at the edge of sense.
Then it happened.
A flicker of movement, a snap of a branch, and the air around us shifted. Danger, immediate and sharp.
"Down!" Aezrel's voice was pure command, and instinct drove me low as a blur of fur and teeth exploded from the underbrush.
The first rogue hit Kaelen, claws raking sparks across his armor. Another came for me black eyes, froth at its muzzle. My wolf surged, and before I could think, my body twisted with it. We met mid-lunge, my claws sinking into its neck.
The scent of blood was instant and hot.
But there were more.
Four… no, five shapes broke from the trees, encircling us. Taren moved then not like a soldier, but like something older. His blade caught the moonlight, and in one smooth motion, a rogue's head hit the ground.
Aezrel was a storm beside me fast, brutal, precise. Yet in the chaos, our eyes met, and I saw it there: the wolf in him, straining against the leash, furious that danger had touched me.
"Behind you!" I shouted, too late.
A second rogue slammed into him, driving him back.
Something inside me snapped. My wolf wasn't pacing anymore it was roaring. We collided with the attacker, my claws tearing deep until it went limp. I didn't stop until Aezrel's hands gripped my shoulders, dragging me back.
"You're bleeding," he growled. His eyes were wild, his scent sharp with fury.
"So are you," I shot back, my voice shaking with more than adrenaline.
We were nose to nose, the heat between us burning through the blood and the danger. But there wasn't time to breathe it in because Taren's voice cut through the clearing.
"They weren't here to kill us."
We all turned.
He was standing over the last rogue, still alive but pinned, its yellow eyes darting between us.
"They were here to deliver a message," Taren said and then he looked straight at me. "For her."
The rogue's lips curled back, and in a voice rasping like broken glass, it whispered,
"The hunt begins at dawn."
....
The air tasted like smoke and blood.
I could feel it coating the back of my throat as I crouched low behind the splintered pine, listening for the soft thud of paws in the dirt. They were out there. Circling. Waiting. The rogues' scent rode the wind feral, hungry, tainted with something that made my wolf stir and bare her teeth.
Aezrel's hand brushed my arm.
Not a command, not a restraint just a signal. Now.
We bolted from cover together, our boots tearing into the frost-hardened ground. Behind us, a howl split the quiet—a sound so raw it made my bones ache. The dawn's pale light stretched our shadows long across the forest floor, but the rogues were closing fast.
My wolf clawed at my insides, desperate to break free, but I forced her back. Not yet. I matched Aezrel's pace, my lungs burning with cold air, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it might crack my ribs. His eyes those molten gold eyes cut to me for a fraction of a second, and I knew. We couldn't outrun this. We'd have to stand and fight.
They came from the mist in a blur snarling shapes with eyes that gleamed like knives. The first lunged. In that heartbeat, my control shattered. The shift ripped through me, bones splintering, fur spilling from my skin until the ground rushed up under my paws.
Aezrel's wolf was already there massive, furious, beautiful in the way storms are beautiful. He slammed into the rogue with a growl that rattled my chest. I twisted mid-leap, silver fur flashing in the pale light, and felt my claws tear hot lines across another rogue's flank.
Blood hit the air like a warning bell.
We fell into rhythm instantly. His growl was my cue to strike. My snarl told him when to move. We didn't think we just knew, every turn and lunge feeding off the other until the rogues began to falter.
When the last of them slunk back into the trees, tail low, I stood heaving in the stillness. My wolf pressed her side against Aezrel's without hesitation, our bodies trembling in the same wild cadence.
Then, like the tide pulling back, the change came. Fur peeled away, muscles twisted, and I was human again bare skin slick with sweat and streaked with blood. The cold should have bit into me, but it didn't. Not with him standing so close, his chest rising and falling, his gaze locked on mine as though neither of us remembered how to look away.
The hunt was over.
But the danger between us was just waking up.
....
The forest had gone quiet too quiet.
Only our breathing and the faint crackle of branches settling after the fight filled the space between us. I could still taste copper on my tongue. My body ached from the shift, but adrenaline was a cruel balm it made me aware of him more than the pain.
Aezrel stepped closer, his shadow stretching over me in the thin dawn light. His hand lifted, hesitating just long enough for me to feel it, before his fingers brushed the blood on my cheek. It wasn't mine. He wiped it away, his thumb dragging slow over my skin, and I hated how it made my pulse race faster than the fight had.
"You're bleeding," he said, voice low. Not a question an accusation wrapped in concern.
"I've had worse."
It came out sharper than I intended, but I couldn't help it. Every nerve in me was still sparking, and his nearness wasn't helping.
He caught my wrist before I could turn away. His grip was firm but not painful, the kind that made you want to lean into it instead of pull back. His gaze flicked to my shoulder where a rogue's claws had raked deep, and without another word, he guided me to the base of an old cedar.
"Sit."
One word, and my knees folded before my pride could argue.
I watched as he tore a strip from his own shirt, his movements quick but precise. When he crouched in front of me, the world felt small, narrowed to the way his fingers brushed my collarbone as he cleaned the wound. His touch was rough where it had to be, gentle where it didn't and each shift of pressure sent heat curling low in my stomach.
"You fight like you don't care if you die," he murmured, binding the makeshift bandage tight.
"Maybe I don't," I said, because I wanted to see what it would do to him.
His hands stilled. His eyes gold burning hotter than the rising sun met mine, and for a moment, I swore he could see everything I kept locked away. Then his jaw tightened, and he went back to the bandage without a word.
When he finished, I caught his hand before he could pull it back. "You're bleeding too," I said, even though the gash along his ribs looked far worse than mine.
He smirked, just barely. "I'll live."
"Not if you keep standing there like you're invincible."
I moved before I thought closing the distance between us, pressing my palm against the heat of his wound. His breath hitched, but he didn't stop me. The smell of him earth, cedar, and something sharp like ozone filled my lungs, made my wolf stir restlessly.
For a long moment, we just stood there, skin against skin, the danger of the fight replaced by a different kind of danger entirely. One I wasn't sure I wanted to run from.
...
His chest rose and fell against my palm, slow but heavy, like each breath was a choice. I could feel the rapid thrum of his heartbeat under my hand, and for some reason, it made mine stumble.
"You should let me look at it," I said, meaning the wound, but my voice came out softer, almost shaky, and I hated that he'd notice.
Aezrel's eyes locked on mine, sharp and searching. "You think you can fix me?"
The way he said it wasn't about the cut anymore.
I didn't answer. My thumb shifted against his skin, tracing the edge of the blood there. His muscles flexed beneath my touch, and I realized just how close we'd gotten, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him, close enough that if I leaned in just an inch…
The air between us changed, thickened.
My wolf stirred, pressing at the edges of my control, urging me to close the space, to taste him, to claim him. But there was something dangerous in his gaze. dangerous because I wanted it.
"Aezrel…" I meant to warn him, or maybe myself, but the word came out more like a plea.
He stepped forward, and my back brushed the rough bark of the cedar. His hand came up, fingers curling around the side of my neck not squeezing, not threatening, but holding me there like he didn't trust me not to bolt.
"You keep looking at me like that," he murmured, "and I'm going to forget we're still being hunted."
My pulse hammered against his palm. "Maybe I want you to forget."
The faintest smile curved his mouth, the kind that promised trouble. "Careful. I'm not the kind of man you play with, Luna."
"I'm not playing," I whispered.
And then his mouth was on mine hot, fierce, tasting of blood and something wild. My wolf howled inside me, clawing at my skin, and before I knew it my hands were in his hair, pulling him closer, matching his hunger with my own.
The world beyond the two of us dissolved the rogues, the chase, the danger. There was only the cedar at my back, his body pressed against mine, and the deep, dizzying need that had been building between us since the first time our eyes met.
...
His lips were still on mine when the first howl split the night.
It cut through the forest like a blade, sharp and cold, snapping me back into the reality we'd been trying to ignore.
Aezrel broke the kiss, his forehead pressing to mine as our breaths tangled in the space between us. I could taste the iron of blood on my lips, feel the heat still radiating off him but his body had already shifted into tension, every muscle coiled like a bowstring.
"They're closer than they should be," he murmured.
I swallowed, forcing my pulse to slow even though my wolf was pacing inside me, restless and ready. "That wasn't just rogues," I said. "That howl… it was a call."
Aezrel's eyes flicked to mine, dark and unreadable. "Alpha code."
The words dropped like stones in my gut. If they were using Alpha signals, this wasn't just a hunt it was a trap. Which meant the other Alphas weren't just sitting in their halls, pretending to stay neutral. They were moving.
For us.
He stepped back only far enough to scan the treeline. "We can't go back to the cabin. They'll expect us to. We move north until dawn, then cross into the ridge."
I should've agreed immediately, but something in me bristled. "You're not telling me something."
A muscle ticked in his jaw. "Luna—"
"No." I cut him off, my voice low but sharp. "You feel it too. This isn't just about rogues chasing us for sport. There's a bigger play here, and you know what it is."
His gaze stayed on the shadows between the trees, but his silence was answer enough.
I took a step toward him, brushing past the cedar bark. "If they've called the other Alphas into this, then whatever they want… it's more than your head, Aezrel. It's mine, too."
That got him to look at me, and the truth in his eyes was worse than any wound. "They want to break you before they kill me. You're the one thing they think I can't lose."
My chest tightened. not from fear, but from the dangerous warmth blooming there. "Then they're right."
For a heartbeat, something raw flashed in his eyes, but he shut it down, turning away. "Shift. Now. We'll make the ridge by first light if we push."
The familiar rush of heat rolled over me as I let my wolf take the lead, bones stretching, muscles tightening, skin pulling until fur replaced it. My senses sharpened instantly, the air alive with the scent of pine, blood, and the faint, acrid tang of the rogues trailing us.
Aezrel shifted beside me, his wolf massive and dark, a shadow against the snow-pale moonlight.
We ran.
Branches whipped past, earth damp beneath our paws, every beat of my stride syncing with his. The cold bit into my lungs, but the adrenaline burned hotter. Somewhere behind us, more howls rose closer now, and layered with the deep, commanding timbre of Alpha voices.
They weren't chasing us to kill us quickly. No… they wanted us to run. To bleed. To break.
Aezrel slowed just enough for me to draw alongside him, his golden eyes cutting to mine. Keep moving, they said without words. Don't stop. Don't look back.
But I could feel it pressure at our heels, a net tightening around us. And under all of it, that pull between us, raw and dangerous, the thing the Alphas knew could undo us.
They were right to fear it.
Because if they caught us… they wouldn't just see what we could be together.
They'd see what we'd do to survive.