To run as far as her legs could carry her. To breathe air that did not belong to cages, contracts, or grief. To feel the ache of longing twist inside her ribs as the wild opened before her like a promise that had never been meant to be broken.
There was nothing on her mind but to find home in the wilderness, in the silver darkness where the bright, full moon hung like an ancient guardian, pouring pale light through the towering trees and painting the forest floor in ghostly patterns.
Leaves whispered secrets. Branches creaked like old bones. Every breath tasted of damp earth and pine sap, and every heartbeat drummed with a warning she could not silence.
The mating hunt had just begun.
Footsteps thundered across the forest like distant storms. Howls rose into the night, some triumphant, some hungry, some echoing with the sharp thrill of the chase. Shadows moved between the trees, too fast to be human, too graceful to be beasts.
The forest was alive with pursuit.
Aelyra ran.
She did not know why she alone had inherited the ability to walk through realms and time. She did not understand how fate had twisted so cruelly as to bind her soul to the body of someone who had already died.
The body she now wore had once belonged to a girl named Tereza Starborne, a version of herself in a magical world where vampires ruled citadels of stone, elves guarded luminous groves, and wolves ruled vast territories beneath the moon.
She is unfortunate.
Tereza's life had been carved by sorrow.
She had been the last living survivor of the once-proud Starborne pack. Orphaned and displaced, she had been adopted by a childless couple from the Morvayne pack, a powerful lineage known for carrying traces of highborn Lycan blood.
In the eastern continent, Morvayne ranked among the strongest ten packs, feared for their disciplined warriors and ancient bloodlines that granted enhanced strength, heightened senses, and an almost regal presence.
Not all werewolves were Lycans.
But wolves who carried Lycan blood were something closer to legends than flesh.
For a time, Tereza had known warmth and shelter, a fragile kind of belonging.
Then war came.
When the Morvayne couple fell into a brutal conflict with a rival territory, Tereza had been left alone once more. She was barely fifteen when she began surviving on the forest's edge, learning to hunt small animals, barter with traveling merchants, and sleep with one eye open.
She became a ghost in the woods, a name spoken in passing, a rumor, a girl who existed only on the margins of pack territories.
Years passed.
She met many people.
Betrayal followed.
At thirty, Tereza had been forced into a fate she could not escape. Cornered by enemies wearing the masks of allies, she had been driven to take her own life, her name quietly erased from pack records, her body laid to rest deep within the forest where no one would come looking.
And that was where Aelyra awakened.
Her arrival turned back time.
She found it strange, almost cruelly poetic, that the body had been sealed in enchanted slumber, preserved by old magic, only to awaken again when she came of age.
Eighteen...
Old enough to be considered an adult in wolf society.
Old enough to be bound by pack laws.
Old enough to be hunted.
She rose from the forest floor beneath a sky blazing with moonlight, her lungs burning, her memories fractured between two lives that were not truly hers. Before she could even gather herself, horns had sounded across the territories, and howls had shattered the stillness.
The Mating Hunt had begun...
Once every few years, unmated wolves were released into the forest. The hunt was not merely a tradition. It was a binding law of fate, a ceremony believed to be guided by the Moon Goddess herself.
Wolves roamed until destiny drew them together. Bonds were formed. Territories were strengthened. Bloodlines were secured.
But for someone like Tereza, alone, unclaimed, and vulnerable, it was a nightmare.
Aelyra had tried to hide.
She had wrapped herself in a thick, dark cloak, pressing into the shadows beneath fallen trees and thorned bushes. She had held her breath when patrols passed. She had whispered silent prayers to a goddess she did not yet trust.
But when the full moon rose to its highest point, her body betrayed her.
The blessing of the moon surged through her veins like wildfire. Her heartbeat stuttered. Her skin burned with unfamiliar heat. A sharp wave of instinct rippled through her, ancient and commanding, awakening forces she had never asked for.
"No… not now," she whispered, panic clawing at her chest. "Why now of all times?"
Once a female entered this state, her body began to release a powerful scent, one that carried through the forest like invisible smoke. It was a signal older than words, older than kingdoms. To unmated males, it was impossible to ignore.
It meant she had become a prize.
Not something to be admired.
Something to be claimed.
The wind shifted.
Aelyra felt it instantly.
She ran.
Branches tore at her cloak. Roots tripped her steps. Her breath came out in ragged gasps as her legs strained against exhaustion. She pushed herself harder, deeper into the wild, following deer paths and moonlit streams, praying that the ancient trees would hide her, that the shadows would swallow her scent.
But the forest was no longer on her side.
Howls rose closer now.
Footsteps closed in.
Her legs began to falter.
They burned, trembled. Every stride felt heavier than the last, as if the earth itself was trying to pull her down. Her lungs screamed for air. Her vision blurred at the edges.
She stumbled, catching herself against a tree trunk, bark scraping her palms.
"Move… move," she begged herself.
Because if she stopped...
If she fell...
The night would not wait for her to rise again.
And destiny, already cruel enough to bind her to a borrowed life, was still chasing her through the moonlit dark.