CHAPTER 3: Fake Luna

I stood on the porch of the Pack House, my hand still throbbing. Not from an injury, but from a memory. The ghost of Guilermo’s touch was still buzzing in the pad of my finger. I rubbed it against the rough wool of my coat, trying to erase the sensation, but it was like trying to rub a stain out of silk. It was woven in.

I needed to get to work. The northern wards wouldn’t fix themselves, and the longer I stood here hyperventilating about a biological anomaly, the longer I had to stay in this wolf-infested forest.

I reached into my satchel, checking my supplies. Salt, iron filings, a chalk stick made of compressed bone, and the most important item: a vial of Aetheric Oil. It was a volatile binding agent, expensive to brew and notoriously difficult to stabilize. Without it, Guilermo’s blood would just be blood; with it, his blood became a key to lock the metaphysical doors of his territory.

"You’re still here."

The voice was sugar-coated glass.

I didn’t turn immediately. I finished counting the chalk sticks, closed the bag, and then slowly pivoted.

Ibbie Nildav Raya was standing in the doorway I had just exited. She had shed the outer layer of her coat, revealing the pristine cashmere sweater that somehow, despite the mud and the blood of the hunting party outside, remained aggressively white.

"I’m gathering my bearings," I said, my voice clipped. "Is there a problem?"

"We don’t loiter," Ibbie said, stepping onto the porch. She moved with a calculated grace, her hips swaying just enough to draw the eye, her chin tilted up. It was a performance. "In the Pack, everyone has a purpose. Standing around makes you look… weak."

"I am not in your Pack," I reminded her. "And I’m not loitering. I’m preparing to fix the mess your negligence created."

Her eyes, a pale, watery blue, narrowed. "Careful, witch. You’re a guest. And barely that."

She walked past me, heading toward a large wooden table set up on the far end of the porch where several bowls of food were laid out for the guards. She began rearranging them, her movements fussy and possessive.

"Guilermo is too polite to say it," she continued, her back to me. "But he hates having your kind here. The smell disrupts the hunt. It confuses the younger pups. They can’t tell the difference between prey and… whatever you are."

"I’m the only thing keeping the nightmares in the Hollows from eating those pups," I said, stepping off the porch and onto the muddy path. I wanted to leave. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

"Wait."

I stopped. I didn't want to, but she had used a tone that demanded attention—not Alpha command, but social command.

Ibbie turned, wiping her hands on a napkin. "You dropped something."

I frowned, looking down at the ground. "No, I didn’t."

"You did," she insisted, walking toward me. "Your bag is open."

I looked down at my hip. The flap of my leather satchel was indeed unbuckled. I must have missed the clasp when I checked the chalk.

"Thank you," I muttered, reaching to close it.

Ibbie was suddenly there. She moved fast. For a human, it would have been a blur. For me, trained to see the shift in air pressure before a strike, it was readable, but I wasn't expecting an attack.

Not here. Not in front of the guards.

She didn't hit me. She didn't claw me.

She bumped me.

It was a clumsy stumble, her shoulder checking mine with the force of a battering ram disguised as a trip. The impact jarred my entire frame. My boots slipped in the mud, and I flailed, my arm jerking outward to catch my balance.

My hand, which had been reaching for the bag, slapped against the leather. The impact dislodged the contents.

The vial of Aetheric Oil flew out.

Time seemed to slow down. I watched the crystal phial arc through the gray air. It caught the weak light, spinning end over end. I reached for it with my magic. A reflex, a tendril of violet energy shooting from my fingertips to catch the glass before it hit the stone steps.

But I was too slow. Or maybe the cold had made me sluggish.

The sound was sickeningly crisp.

The vial shattered on the edge of the bottom step. The oil didn’t just spill; it reacted. Aetheric Oil was sensitive to kinetic energy. As soon as it hit the air, it hissed violently, a cloud of acrid, purple smoke billowing up instantly.

The smell was horrific like burning hair and rotten ozone.

"Oh my Goddess!" Ibbie shrieked, jumping back and covering her nose. "What did you do?"

The smoke expanded, stinging my eyes. I coughed, waving my hand to disperse it, but the damage was done. The oil was seeping into the porous stone of the steps, hissing as it ate away at the top layer of rock.

"You clumsy idiot," Ibbie spat, her voice changing from feigned shock to venomous delight. "You’re destroying the Pack House!"

"It’s not corrosive to stone, it’s just reactive!" I snapped, dropping to my knees. I didn’t care about the stone. I cared about the oil. That was three weeks of brewing. Three weeks of stirring a cauldron until my shoulders felt like they were filled with broken glass. "Do you have any idea how expensive this is?"

"Expensive?" Ibbie laughed. It was a cruel, barking sound. She looked around at the guards who had stopped their sparring to watch the commotion. "She brings a chemical bomb to our home and complains about the price? This is exactly what I mean."

She looked at the guards, seeking their validation. "Witches have no respect for the earth. They bottle it up and poison it."

My hands were shaking. I reached for the shards of glass, my fingers brushing the oily residue. It stung, biting into my skin like acid. I ignored the pain. I needed to salvage what I could, though I knew it was hopeless.

"You pushed me," I said, my voice low. I didn't look up. I couldn't. If I looked at her, I would hex her. And if I hexed her, the Treaty would be broken, and I would be dead before I hit the ground.

"Excuse me?" Ibbie gasped, clutching her pearls. "I tried to help you! You tripped over your own feet. Everyone saw it."

"She’s right," one of the guards grunted. He was a thick-necked man with a shaved head. He didn't look at me; he looked at Ibbie with a dull adoration. "You slipped, Witch."

Of course. The pack protects the pack. The outsider is always the villain.

I stood up slowly. My knees were wet with mud. My hands were stained purple and bleeding slightly from the glass shards. I could feel the magic inside me boiling, a pressure cooker building behind my ribs. The amethyst glow in my eyes flared, illuminating the mist around us.

The guard took a step back, his hand going to the knife at his belt.

Ibbie didn't step back. She smiled. A small, tight smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"Clean it up," she ordered. "Before the Alpha sees you’ve desecrated his doorstep."

I stared at her. I wanted to rip the air from her lungs. I wanted to make the roots of the trees wrap around her ankles and drag her into the earth. The violence of the thought scared me. It wasn't just anger; it was the proximity to the raw magic of the Hollows. It was amplifying my darker impulses.

I took a deep breath, tasting the metallic tang of the spilled oil.

"I need a solvent," I said, my voice dead flat. "Vinegar and salt. Now."

"The kitchen is for Pack members only," Ibbie said breezily, turning back to the table. "I’m sure you can use… whatever it is you do. Magic it away. Isn’t that what you’re good for? Cleaning up messes?"

She was gaslighting me. She was actively obstructing the repair of the wards that kept her safe, just to assert dominance. It was petty. It was suicidal.

It was exactly what Sibal had warned me about. Wolves are creatures of ego.

I looked at the stain on the stone. I couldn't leave it. The oil would continue to react, eventually eating a hole through the step.

I closed my eyes.

Focus.

I drew on the reserve of energy I kept for emergencies. The deep, cold well in my gut. I didn't use a spell. I used sheer will.

I extended my hand, palm down over the stain.

Rise.

The purple liquid trembled. Slowly, agonizingly, it began to lift from the stone. It formed small, shivering droplets, defying gravity. The effort made sweat pop on my forehead. Controlling liquid without a vessel was high-level telekinesis. It burned calories like I was sprinting uphill.

I gathered the oil into a floating sphere, the purple liquid swirling angrily in the air.

Ibbie stopped arranging the bowls. She watched, her mouth slightly open. The guards went silent.

I turned my hand, condensing the sphere, forcing the reaction to stop by compressing the molecules. It was physics and magic fighting for dominance. My arm shook.

Then, with a flick of my wrist, I sent the sphere shooting into the nearby fire pit.

The fire roared, turning a brilliant, blinding violet for three seconds. The heat flared, intense enough to singe eyebrows ten feet away. Then, it vanished, consumed by the flames.

I lowered my hand. I was trembling. My energy reserves, already low from Sibal, were now dangerously depleted. And I hadn't even started the actual work yet.

I looked at Ibbie. The smugness was gone, replaced by a flicker of fear. Good.

"I will need to brew a substitute on site," I said, my voice hoarse. "Which means I will be here longer than expected. You might want to tell the Alpha that his 'Luna-in-waiting' just extended the repair timeline by six hours."

Ibbie’s face flushed a blotchy red. "You wouldn't dare blame me."

"I don't have to," I said, wiping my bleeding hand on my coat. "The scent of your perfume is all over my bag. Guilermo has a good nose, doesn't he?"

Her eyes widened. She hadn't thought of that. Of course she hadn't. She was playing checkers; I was playing survival.

"I’m going to the ridge," I said, adjusting my bag. "Stay out of my way, Ibbie. I’m out of patience, and I’m out of oil. The next thing I burn might not be the firewood."

I turned and walked away, forcing my spine to stay straight.

I walked past the guards, past the staring wolves, and into the tree line. I didn't look back.

But as soon as the canopy of the forest swallowed me, shielding me from their view, I crumbled.

I leaned against a massive oak tree, sliding down until I hit the wet moss. I buried my face in my hands. The adrenaline crashed, leaving me shaking.

My hand, the one I had cut on the glass was stinging. I looked at it. The blood was mixing with the purple stain of the oil.

I felt humiliated. Not because I had fallen, but because for a moment, standing on that porch, I had wanted to hurt her. I had wanted to use the power Sibal treated like a battery and Guilermo treated like a threat to crush a girl in a cashmere sweater.

I was losing control.

"Get it together, Lilura," I whispered to the empty woods. My breath misted in the cold air.

I wrapped a strip of cloth from my supply kit around my hand, tying it tight with my teeth.

I had work to do. And I had to do it the hard way now without the oil. I would have to use my own blood as the binding agent. It was dangerous. It weakened the caster. But I didn't have a choice.

I pushed myself up, the mud clinging to my jeans.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled. It was a lonely, mournful sound.

"Shut up," I muttered, pushing off the tree and heading deeper into the dark.