CHAPTER SIX- Under the Red Moon

The bell tolled at midnight.

Once.

Twice.

Then silence.

I woke with a start, every muscle locked tight. The air in my room was colder than it should have been, the kind of cold that seeped into bone, pulling goosebumps across my skin.

The Red Moon.

I didn’t have to look outside to know it hung above the Academy again. I could feel it—like the weight of unseen eyes pressing down through the roof.

The whispers began next. Not from the hall, not from the other dorms—but from inside the walls. Soft. Layered. Dozens of voices, whispering in a tongue I didn’t understand.

My heart pounded.

This wasn’t a dream.

I pushed the blanket aside, my bare feet meeting the chill of the floor. The glass I’d swept from the window days ago still glimmered faintly in the moonlight. My hands twitched, remembering how the wolves had once frozen under a single word from me.

Not again, I told myself. Not tonight.

But something was different. The air vibrated—alive, dangerous. I could almost taste it.

When I finally dared to look outside, the courtyard below pulsed with red light. Wolves moved between shadows again, their eyes glowing, but this time, they weren’t circling. They were waiting.

Waiting for something.

Or someone.

And then the voice came.

Lyra.

I froze.

It wasn’t the same disembodied whisper as before. This one was deeper. Familiar. It came from somewhere between the wolves and the moon itself.

Come.

My throat tightened. “No,” I whispered. “Not this time.”

But my feet were already moving.

***

The halls were deserted, lanterns dimmed to ash.

My footsteps echoed as I descended the stairs, guided by instinct—or something worse. Every rule they’d drilled into me about Red Moon nights screamed in my head. Stay inside. Lock the doors.

I didn’t listen.

By the time I reached the courtyard, the moonlight painted everything in shades of crimson. The wolves had parted in two lines, forming a path straight to the fountain in the center.

A figure stood there.

Vale.

His dark coat rippled in the wind, and the light caught on his silver insignia—the mark of an Alpha. His head tilted slightly, as though he’d known I would come.

“Why are you here?” I demanded, though my voice came out small against the night.

He didn’t answer right away. The wolves behind him shifted, uneasy, but didn’t move closer.

“You shouldn’t have left your room,” he said finally. His tone wasn’t angry. It was something worse—quiet, deliberate.

“You called me.”

His eyes flashed. “No. I didn’t.”

But the way his jaw tightened said otherwise.

The air between us pulsed once, hard enough to make the fountain water tremble. My pulse matched it.

“What’s happening to me?” I whispered. “Why do they keep—”

Vale’s hand lifted, silencing me. “Not here.” He glanced at the wolves. “They’re listening.”

“Then tell me where—”

Before I could finish, something cracked overhead. The sky itself seemed to split, and a roar tore through the courtyard—ancient and furious. The wolves dropped low, whining. Vale grabbed my arm and pulled me back just as a burst of crimson light exploded where I’d been standing.

The fountain shattered. Water and stone rained down.

Vale shoved me behind him, his claws flashing for the first time. “Stay behind me, Lyra.”

A shadow emerged from the red mist. Tall. Hulking. Not wolf, not human. Something between.

The creature’s eyes glowed the same shade as my mother’s in that sketch

.

My stomach twisted. “What is that?”

Vale didn’t look back. “A reminder,” he said.

The thing moved fast—too fast. Vale met it head-on, steel and fury, their collision sending ripples through the air. The wolves backed away, whining in submission. I tried to move, to help, but my body refused to obey.

And then its gaze found me.

The creature stopped fighting Vale. It looked straight at me and lowered its head.

Blood that commands. Blood that binds.

The words from the Forbidden Library burned through my memory.

The mark on my palms flared to life.

The creature fell to its knees.

Vale turned, chest heaving. “Lyra—what did you just—”

“I don’t know!” My voice shook. The glow spread up my wrists, threads of light weaving beneath my skin. The wolves were all bowing now, heads pressed to the ground.

Vale’s expression hardened. “You’re awakening.”

“Awakening what?”

Before he could answer, the bell tolled again—one long, mournful note that rattled the glass of every window. The wolves howled as if in pain. The red light dimmed.

Vale caught my shoulders, forcing me to meet his eyes. His touch was rough, grounding, his voice low and desperate.

“Listen to me, Lyra. Whatever’s inside you—it’s older than this place. Older than any of us. And if you don’t learn to control it…”

His gaze flicked to the shattered fountain, the kneeling wolves, the faint smoke rising from the cracks in the stone.

“…it will control you.”

My pulse roared in my ears. “Then teach me.”

Something flickered in his eyes—fear, maybe. Or temptation.

“I can’t,” he said. “Not without breaking the oath.”

“What oath?”

Vale hesitated, his breath uneven. Then, softly, “The one your mother made before she died.”

The ground trembled beneath us.

My mouth went dry. “My mother—she was here?”

Vale’s silence was answer enough.

Before I could speak again, the sound of footsteps broke through the fading echo of the bell. Heavy. Rushed. Ronan’s voice carried through the smoke.

“Vale! Step away from her.”

Vale didn’t move. His claws had already vanished, but his stance was coiled, protective. “You’re too late,” he said quietly.

Ronan’s eyes darted from me to the kneeling wolves, to the faint red light still pulsing under my skin. His jaw set. “She’s marked. It’s starting.”

Vale’s voice dropped lower. “If the Council finds out—”

“They already know.”

My head snapped up. “What Council?”

Neither of them answered. The air between them was thick with something sharp and dangerous—old grudges, maybe, or secrets I wasn’t supposed to see.

“Get her out of here,” Ronan ordered, but Vale didn’t move.

“I said—”

The sky cracked again.

This time, the light that spilled down wasn’t red. It was white—blinding, cold, divine. The wolves howled and scattered into the shadows. The tremor knocked me to my knees.

Vale grabbed my arm, pulling me upright. His breath was ragged, his words barely audible.

“They’re coming.”

“Who—”

“The ones your mother feared most.”

And before I could ask another question,

Vale dragged me through the smoke, down the broken path toward the East Wing.

Behind us, the fountain’s shattered water shimmered—shifting, not settling.

I turned once, just before the mist swallowed it whole.

The woman’s face appeared again on the water’s surface, clearer this time. Her lips moved—soundless at first, then sharp enough to cut through the air.

“He’s not who you think he is, Lyra.”

The fountain cracked once more, splitting straight down the middle.

And Vale stopped walking.

Just for a heartbeat.

Long enough for me to wonder if the warning had been about him.