Marked by the Moon

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• Marked for Betrayal   The Line before the Storm

  POV: AlexMia didn’t move for hours after they dragged her back from the courtyard.Her wounds weren’t the worst I’d seen—bruised ribs, cracked skin along her back, a nasty gash across her collarbone—but it wasn’t the injuries that had everyone so quiet. It was the stillness. The unnatural, total stillness of a body that wasn’t asleep, wasn’t healing, just... holding.Her pulse was steady. Her breathing slow.But her wolf had gone completely silent.I sat beside her on the infirmary cot, my blood still drying on my shirt, refusing to clean up until I was sure she’d open her eyes. The firelight flickered low behind me, shadows stretching across the walls in long, thin fingers.She looked smaller like this. Vulnerable. Human.No one else was allowed in the room.The medic had tried to argue. Said he needed to monitor her vitals. I’d growled once, low and final, and he left.She was mine to guard tonight.Outside, the forge still burned. They hadn’t been able to put it out. The stone its

• Marked for Betrayal   What remains after Fire

  POV: NovaI ran until the forest swallowed me.Branches whipped my face, roots tore at my boots, but I didn’t stop. Not when the howls rose behind me. Not when the smoke from the forge turned the sky the color of memory. I didn’t stop even when my legs trembled and my lungs burned like I'd swallowed coals.Because if I stopped, I’d start doubting myself.And if I started doubting, I’d never recover from what I’d done.The Hollow Fang hadn’t followed. They’d scattered as planned—back into the dark, to report, to hide, to hunt again. We weren’t friends. We weren’t allies. They were simply the only ones who’d listen when I told them what Mia had become.No one else had.Not Alex. Not Chito. Not even the pack I’d bled beside.They saw her as a leader.I saw her for what she was becoming: a doorway.To what, I wasn’t sure.But I knew something ancient had begun to slip through the cracks of her control—and it terrified me.I reached the ridge line and finally collapsed beneath an old ash t

• Marked for Betrayal   Ashes between Us

  POV: Mia (Zero)The courtyard exploded into movement the moment Nova dropped her hand.The Hollow Fang wolves lunged with terrifying precision. No wasted motion. No roar of challenge. They struck like assassins—silent, surgical, meant to kill fast. But Alex didn’t hesitate.He was already between them and me, his blade carving clean through the first strike. He pivoted low, drove his shoulder into another’s ribs, and brought his elbow down in a single fluid motion that shattered the wolf’s jaw. Blood sprayed, but it didn’t slow them.“Back!” I shouted, turning as two wolves flanked me. My blade met theirs in a burst of sparks. One swung wide; I ducked under the arc and drove my knife into his gut. His snarl turned to gurgle. The second came in hard, claws to throat—I caught his arm, twisted, snapped it back at the joint.The forge fire roared behind us. Nova stood still at its edge, not joining the fight, not flinching. Just watching.Watching me.Her betrayal still hadn’t sunk in.I’

• Marked for Betrayal   Wolves in the Walls

  POV: Mia (Zero)The fire was real. It wasn’t a distraction.Smoke rolled in from the southern ridge like breath from a dying god, thick with pine, fur, and accelerant. The watchtower bell rang again—three sharp notes. That wasn’t a patrol alarm. That was a breach.Alex reached the wall first. Nova and I weren’t far behind. From the ridge, we saw them.Not an army.A strike team.Twelve Hollow Fang wolves, cloaked in black and bone, moving through the forest like ghosts. Each had marks carved into their arms—binding runes that weren’t just symbolic. They’d been sealed with blood. They weren’t here to threaten.They were here to end something.“Split their line,” I shouted to Nova. “Cut them before they get to the barracks.”She was already shifting before I finished. Her eyes flashed silver, and her voice dropped into the low growl she rarely used. “They don’t run like wolves. They run like assassins.”Chito was already moving with two sentries. They’d positioned to intercept from the

• Marked for Betrayal   Lines you don't Cross

  POV: AlexShe should have died.I saw her disappear beneath the river, swallowed by that thing the Hollow Fang called a guardian. Saw the stone crack where it had walked. Saw the blood fly from her shoulder before she vanished. No breath. No signal. No heartbeat through the bond. I thought we’d lost her.And then she came back—barely breathing, eyes hollow, ribs cracked. But alive.When Nova carried her through the gate, the courtyard went still. Even Marcus didn't speak. We watched her pulse return like watching a storm turn in the wrong direction—too fast, too unnatural, too close.She slept through the night, fevered and muttering, while Chito bound what wounds he could and the scouts doubled the wall posts. I didn’t sleep. I sat beside her, every instinct in me wired for movement, for rage, for revenge I hadn’t yet named.When her eyes finally opened, she looked at me like I wasn’t real.“You were dead,” I said.“I was lost,” she whispered.“Same thing to me.”She tried to sit up.

• Marked for Betrayal   Blood Never Sleeps

  POV: Mia (Zero)The red moon rose faster than expected.Three days too soon.It emerged like an open wound above the mountains, casting its crimson haze across the stone and shadow of Darkhaven. It wasn’t just a moon—it was a signal. A summons. And a sentence.I was in the council chamber when it appeared, bent over the hide Varin had given me, trying to decipher the layers of old glyphs inked into the weave. Nova burst in before I could finish, her breath ragged, blood on her knuckles, and fear swimming in her eyes.“They’ve moved,” she said. “They didn’t wait.”Alex was already strapping on his blade. “How close?”“They’re inside the tree line,” Nova answered. “But they’re not charging. They’re circling. Watching. Like they’re waiting for her.”I stood, clutching the hide in one hand, and followed them out to the northern wall. The scent hit me first—not just wolves, but something older. Wilder. The air was thick with it, and for the first time in weeks, I felt my wolf rear up insid