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Chapter One — The Moon Finds Me

I learned early that survival meant silence.

Silence when the itch crawled beneath my skin like ants trapped under glass. Silence when my bones ached before storms that never came. Silence when the moon felt too close, too heavy, like it was leaning down to whisper my name.

I lived among humans because they didn’t listen to the dark. They didn’t hear the way the night breathed. They didn’t notice how the world tilted when the moon grew full, how shadows stretched just a little too long, how my pulse stopped belonging to me.

I worked at a diner on the edge of town, the kind with flickering neon and cracked vinyl booths that smelled permanently of grease and old coffee. Graveyard shifts suited me. Less people. Less questions. Less chance someone would notice the way I flinched at sudden sounds or how my eyes reflected light wrong when I was tired.

I kept my hair tied back. Long sleeves even in summer. Gloves when I could get away with it. I avoided mirrors during certain nights because sometimes only sometimes I swore my reflection blinked when I didn’t.

I didn’t know what I was.

I only knew what I wasn’t allowed to be.

The symptoms started when I was sixteen. Night fevers that left my sheets damp and shredded at the edges. Dreams of running until my lungs burned and my heart felt too large for my ribs. Waking with dirt under my nails when I hadn’t gone outside. The doctors called it stress. Hormones. Trauma.

They weren’t wrong about the trauma.

I barely remembered my parents. Just flashes. A woman with dark hair humming off-key. A man’s laughter cut short by shouting. Red. Fire. Hands pushing me into a closet that smelled like cedar and fear.

After that, I bounced. Foster homes. Group homes. Streets when I aged out. I learned quickly that being forgettable was safer than being special.

So I made myself small.

I took pills that dulled the edge of my senses. I marked my calendar obsessively. I locked myself inside on nights when the moon swelled heavy and bright. I told myself it was all in my head.

Until the night it wasn’t.

The full moon rose like a wound reopening.

I felt it hours before it crested the treeline a pressure behind my eyes, a hum in my bones. By the time my shift ended, my hands were shaking so badly I spilled coffee down my wrist and barely noticed the burn.

“You okay, Lyra?” my manager asked, frowning.

I nodded too fast. “Just tired.”

Always tired. Always fine.

I clocked out early and walked instead of taking the bus. The air felt wrong, charged, like static before lightning. Every sound scraped against my nerves the crunch of gravel, the distant bark of a dog, my own breathing too loud in my ears.

I cut through the woods because it was faster.

That was my mistake.

The trees swallowed me whole, their branches tangling overhead as the moon climbed higher. My pulse thundered. My skin burned. Each step sent a jolt of pain through my calves, like my muscles were stretching beyond what they were meant to hold.

I stopped when the scent hit me.

Wet earth. Pine. And something sharp and animal that made my mouth water and my stomach turn.

A growl rippled through the darkness.

I spun, heart slamming against my ribs. “Hello?”

Stupid. Human. Weak.

The growl came again, closer. Yellow eyes flickered between the trees. Then another pair. And another.

Wolves.

Too big. Too many. Their bodies moved wrong too fluid, too aware. I backed up slowly, my heel catching on a root. The moment I stumbled, they lunged.

I ran.

My lungs screamed. Branches tore at my clothes and skin, but I barely felt it. Fear sharpened everything, stripped me down to instinct. I didn’t know where I was going only that stopping meant dying.

One wolf snapped at my leg, teeth grazing skin. Pain exploded white-hot, and something inside me snapped back.

Heat flooded my veins.

I skidded to a stop, chest heaving, and turned to face them. The wolves circled, hackles raised. My vision blurred at the edges, sharpening at the center. I could hear their hearts. Smell their breath. Count their steps.

This wasn’t possible.

One wolf broke from the pack larger, darker. He lunged.

I didn’t think.

I moved.

My body reacted faster than thought, twisting aside as my hand my hand struck out. It connected with bone. The wolf yelped, crashing into a tree with a crack that echoed through the woods.

Silence fell.

The wolves stared at me.

So did I.

My hands were trembling, but not with fear. With power. With something feral and electric humming under my skin.

Another growl sounded deeper, commanding.

The wolves froze.

A figure stepped from the shadows.

Not a wolf.

Not entirely human either.

He stood tall, broad-shouldered, his eyes a molten gold that pinned me in place. His presence pressed down on the clearing like gravity itself. The other wolves lowered their heads instinctively.

A rogue, my mind whispered, though I had no idea how I knew.

He looked at me the way a hunter looks at prey and then the way a man looks at something that shouldn’t exist.

“Interesting,” he murmured.

I backed away. “Don’t come closer.”

His lips twitched. “You don’t even know what you are, do you?”

Terror clawed up my throat. “Stay away from me.”

He tilted his head, studying me. “They would kill you for this.”

“For what?” My voice broke. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You breathed,” he said simply. “That’s enough.”

The wolves behind him stirred, restless.

He lifted a hand. They stilled.

Then, impossibly, he stepped aside.

“Run,” he said.

I stared at him, disbelief crashing through fear. “Why?”

Something flickered in his eyes recognition, maybe. Or regret.

“Because if they find you,” he said quietly, “there won’t be mercy next time.”

I didn’t wait.

I ran until my legs gave out, until the woods spat me back onto asphalt and the world felt dull and human again. I collapsed in an alley, gasping, shaking, my body burning from the inside out.

I didn’t know it then, but that mercy cost me everything.

Miles away, under the same unforgiving moon, Ronan Blackthorn jerked awake.

The Alpha King sat upright in his bed, breath ragged, claws half-extended. His wolf snarled inside him, pacing, restless.

Mate.

The word slammed into him with bone-deep certainty.

A scent lingered in his mind wild, unfamiliar, intoxicating. Power coiled tight around it, suppressed but undeniable.

Impossible.

No mate bond had stirred in him for years. He had crushed weaker claims without hesitation. He had ruled through blood and fear and unyielding control.

And yet.

His gaze snapped to the window where the moon hung full and bright.

She exists.

Orders barked through the pack within minutes. Wolves scattered, drawn by instinct and command. Ronan dressed with mechanical precision, his jaw tight, his mind already calculating.

Whoever she was, she was dangerous.

And she was his.

I didn’t make it home.

I barely made it out of the alley before hands seized me, rough and unyielding. I fought, teeth bared, nails clawing, but exhaustion dragged me down. The scent hit me again pine, earth, dominance and the world went dark.

When I woke, iron bit into my wrists.

I lay on cold stone, the air thick with unfamiliar scents and the low hum of something alive all around me. Wolves. Dozens of them. Their attention pressed against my skin like weight.

Footsteps approached.

I lifted my head just as he stepped into view.

Gold eyes met mine and the world detonated.

Fire ripped through my chest, white-hot and merciless. My breath punched from my lungs as something ancient and undeniable snapped into place between us, a bond singing to life with a force that stole my scream.

Gasps echoed around the room.

“Mate,” someone whispered.

I stared at him through tears I refused to shed, pain and fury tangling in my veins.

“No,” I said hoarsely.

But the moon had already chosen.

And it never asked permission.