The Forbidden Woods earned their name.
I'd grown up hearing the stories whispered warnings about the dangers that lurked beyond the pack's borders. Rogue wolves driven mad by isolation. Ancient predators that even our kind feared. Dark magic that twisted the very trees into something hostile and hungry.
As a child, I'd thought they were just tales to keep us from wandering too far. Now, three hours into my escape, I was starting to believe every word.
The forest had grown denser the deeper I went, the canopy so thick that moonlight barely penetrated. Twisted roots reached across the barely visible path like grasping fingers, and more than once I'd stumbled, catching myself against rough bark that seemed to scrape my palms deliberately.
I had no destination. No plan beyond "away."
My bag felt heavier with each step, though it carried almost nothing some clothes, my mother's silver locket (the only thing of hers I had), what little money I'd saved. The essentials of a life I was leaving behind.
A branch snapped somewhere to my left.
I froze, every sense straining. Without a wolf's heightened hearing, I was practically blind out here. Just a human girl stumbling through the darkness, prey waiting to be.
Another snap. Closer this time.
"Hello?" My voice came out smaller than I intended. "Is someone there?"
Stupid. If something dangerous was following me, announcing my presence was the last thing I should do. But the silence was worse than any answer could be.
I started walking again, faster now. The path had disappeared entirely, leaving me to navigate by instinct and the occasional glimpse of stars through the canopy. My breath came in short gasps, fogging in the cold air.
Then I heard it.
A low growl, almost subsonic. The kind that vibrated in your chest and triggered every prey instinct you had.
I spun around, searching the darkness. Pairs of eyes gleamed back at me, yellow, feral, hungry. Not the golden amber of werewolves. These were something else.
Wolves. Real wolves.
They emerged from the shadows one by one. Five of them, each easily a hundred pounds of muscle and fang. Their fur was matted and scarred, and something in their eyes looked wrong. Wild beyond the normal wild. These weren't natural wolves, they'd been touched by the same dark magic that corrupted these woods.
The largest one, the alpha of this savage pack stepped forward. Its lips peeled back to reveal teeth stained with old blood.
I did the only thing I could think of. I ran.
Branches whipped at my face and tore at my clothes. My boots pounded against the forest floor, kicking up dead leaves and loose earth. Behind me, I could hear them giving chase the thunder of paws, the panting of predators closing in.
I wasn't fast enough. Without my wolf, I was just human. Just prey.
My foot caught on a root and I went down hard, my bag flying from my shoulder. Pain exploded in my knee and palms as I hit the ground. I rolled, trying to get up, but they were already there.
The alpha wolf landed on my chest, driving the air from my lungs. Its weight was crushing, its breath hot and rank against my face. Saliva dripped from its jaws onto my cheek.
I stared into its yellow eyes and saw my death there.
"No," I gasped, trying to shove it off. Useless. It didn't budge. "No, get off"
Its jaws opened wide.
And something inside me snapped.
Not broke—snapped like a chain pulled too tight, like a dam giving way, like something that had been locked down and compressed for too long finally breaking free.
Heat flooded through my body. Not the gradual warmth of a normal shift, but searing fire that raced through my veins like liquid lightning. My vision went white, then red, then
Silver.
Everything was silver.
The world slowed down. I could see every detail with crystalline clarity each individual hair on the wolf's muzzle, the pattern of scars on its face, the way its pupils dilated in the instant before it registered that something had changed.
My hand shot up faster than thought, faster than should be possible and caught the wolf's throat. I felt its pulse hammering against my palm, frantic and terrified.
Terrified of me.
I threw it. The massive beast flew through the air like it weighed nothing, smashing into a tree twenty feet away with a crack that might have been wood or bone or both.
I was on my feet before it hit the ground. The other four wolves charged as one, a coordinated attack that should have overwhelmed me.
Should have.
But I could see them. See the pattern of their attack, the trajectory of each leap, the exact moment when they'd strike. Time hadn't really slowed, I'd just become impossibly, impossibly fast.
I moved.
My body flowed like water, like shadow, like moonlight made flesh. I ducked under the first wolf's lunge, my hand trailing across its belly as I passed. Just a touch, barely any force behind it.
The wolf's howl cut off mid-note as it crashed to the ground, its legs giving out. Not dead—but whatever I'd done had sent it into unconsciousness.
The second wolf came from my left. I spun and drove my fist into its skull with enough force to drop it instantly. The impact should have shattered my hand. Instead, I felt nothing but the rightness of the movement.
This is what I was supposed to be, some distant part of my mind whispered. This is what they kept from me.
The third and fourth wolves tried to flank me. I laughed actually laughed at the futility of it. I could see every muscle twitch before they moved, could predict their attacks like reading a book.
I darted between them, too fast for their jaws to catch anything but air. My hand lashed out, precise strikes to pressure points I shouldn't have known existed. They dropped, whimpering.
The alpha had recovered. It stalked toward me, hackles raised, growling deep in its chest. But now there was caution in its approach. Fear.
Good.
"Come on," I heard myself say. My voice sounded different layered, as if multiple tones were speaking at once. "Let's finish this."
It charged.
I met it head-on.
We collided in a blur of motion. Claws raked across my arm,I felt the pain distantly, like it was happening to someone else. My hands found its throat again, and this time I didn't throw it.
I looked into its yellow eyes and felt power flow from me into it. Not physical force. Something else. Something ancient and commanding and absolute.
"Submit," I said—and the word carried weight that made the air itself tremble.
The alpha wolf's eyes went wide. Its struggles ceased. And then, impossibly, it lowered its head and whined a sound of complete surrender.
I released it and stepped back. It scrambled away, tail between its legs, and the other four wolves,those that could still move followed. Within seconds, the savage pack had vanished into the darkness, leaving me alone.
Alone, and changed.
I looked down at my hands. They were glowing faintly with silver light that pulsed in time with my heartbeat. The scratches on my arm were already healing, silver light weaving the torn skin back together.
My reflection stared back at me from a puddle of rainwater. My face was the same, but my eyes.
My eyes were silver.
Not grey, not light blue, but pure metallic silver that seemed to glow with their own inner light. As I watched, they flickered back to green, then silver again, like my body couldn't decide what I was supposed to be.
"What..." I touched my face, half expecting the reflection to be wrong. "What am I?"
The question echoed through the woods, unanswered.
I retrieved my bag and kept walking, though everything felt different now. The forest that had seemed so threatening before now felt... tame. I could sense the life around me,small creatures in the undergrowth, birds sleeping in the trees, the slow pulse of the woods themselves.
And I could feel something else. A pull, like a thread tugging at my chest, drawing me deeper into the forest.
Toward answers. Toward truth.
Toward whatever had been locked inside me all these years.
My legs moved automatically, following that invisible thread. The silver light had faded from my hands, but I could still feel the power humming beneath my skin—waiting, ready to surge forth again if needed.
I'm not defective, I realized, and the thought was almost enough to make me laugh again. I'm not broken. I'm something else entirely.
Something they'd never seen before.
Something they couldn't control.
The trees began to thin ahead, and through them I could see a structure,a cabin, small and weathered, with smoke rising from its chimney. Light glowed in the windows, warm and inviting despite the late hour.
Someone lived out here. In the Forbidden Woods, where no pack claimed territory, where no sane wolf would make their home.
I should have been cautious. Should have hidden, assessed the situation, maybe circled around and continued deeper into the forest.
Instead, I walked straight toward the cabin. That pull in my chest had grown stronger, and somehow I knew with the same inexplicable certainty that had guided me through the fight—that this was where I was meant to be.
I knocked on the door.
For a long moment, nothing. Then I heard footsteps, slow and measured. The door opened to reveal an old man with steel-grey hair and eyes that held the weight of centuries. His face was weathered and scarred, and he carried himself with the careful balance of someone who'd survived things that should have killed him.
We stared at each other.
His eyes widened as they met mine and I realized my eyes must have flickered silver again, because recognition and something like shock crossed his face.
"You," he said, his voice rough with disuse or emotion, I couldn't tell which. "You're the Ashwood girl. The one who couldn't shift."
"I'm Sera," I said, lifting my chin. "And I can do more than shift."
A smile creased his weathered face ,the first genuine smile I'd seen in what felt like years.
"Yes," he said softly. "Yes, you can. Come in, child. We have much to discuss."
He stepped aside, gesturing me into the warmth of the cabin.
I hesitated for only a moment. Behind me lay my old life—the pack that had rejected me, the mate who'd called me defective, the family that had watched me fail without lifting a finger to help.
Ahead lay... uncertainty. Danger, probably. Answers, possibly.
But also power. Real power. The kind that had let me tear through five corrupted wolves like they were nothing.
I stepped across the threshold.
The door closed behind me with a soft click that sounded like finality. Like a chapter ending and a new one beginning.
The old man studied me with those ancient eyes. "Do you know what you are, Seraphina Ashwood?"
I met his gaze steadily, my silver eyes reflecting the firelight.
"No," I admitted. "But I'm going to find out."
"Good answer." He moved to a worn armchair and settled into it with a sigh. "My name is Aldric. And I'm going to tell you a truth that your family has kept from you your entire life."
I sat down across from him, my heart hammering with anticipation and dread.
"You're not defective," Aldric said. "You never were. The reason you couldn't shift is because you were sealed. Deliberately. By someone who knew exactly what you would become if your true nature was allowed to emerge."
"Sealed?" The word felt foreign on my tongue. "By who? Why?"
"That," Aldric said, his expression grave, "is a very long story. And one that begins with your real parents and the bloodlines they passed down to you. Bloodlines that haven't walked this earth in over a thousand years."
He leaned forward, the firelight casting dancing shadows across his scarred face.
"Tell me, child. Have you ever heard of the Moon Blessed?"
End of Chapter 2