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Chapter Three — The Weight of the Moon

Sleep didn’t come gently.

It dragged me under by the throat.

The moment my eyes closed, heat poured through my veins like molten silver. My body arched off the bed, breath ripping from my lungs as images slammed into my mind forests older than memory, moons bleeding red, wolves bowing not to kings but to something else.

To me.

I woke with a scream tearing from my chest.

The sound echoed off stone walls, raw and animal. I curled inward, clutching my ribs like they might split apart. My skin burned, every nerve buzzing like I’d been flayed and stitched back together wrong.

The bond pulsed.

Not violently this time steadily. Like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.

Ronan.

I could feel him distantly, a presence at the edge of my awareness. Awake. Alert. Unmoving. It was infuriating how calm he felt while I was unraveling.

Get out of my head, I thought viciously.

Amusement brushed against the bond.

I froze.

You felt that, I accused.

Yes, his voice answered not aloud, but inside me, low and controlled. You’re loud when you’re angry.

I shoved myself off the bed, pacing the length of the chamber. My bare feet slapped against cold stone. “This isn’t normal,” I said aloud, refusing to think at him. “You don’t get to just… be in me.”

Silence.

Then, quieter this time: It will fade when you rest.

“I don’t want it to fade. I want it gone.”

That earned me a pause long enough to feel like a held breath.

That isn’t possible.

I laughed, sharp and bitter. “Everyone keeps saying that.”

I pressed my palms to the window, staring out at the vast territory beyond. Forests stretched endlessly, dark and alive. Somewhere out there, wolves ran free beneath the moon—my moon, according to them.

I hated it.

A knock sounded at the door.

I spun. “Go away.”

The door opened anyway.

A woman entered tall, dark-skinned, her posture straight and her eyes assessing. Power hummed around her, different from Ronan’s but no less dangerous.

“I am Mara,” she said. “Beta of Blackthorn.”

“I don’t care,” I replied.

One corner of her mouth twitched. “Good. It means you haven’t learned fear yet.”

She gestured behind her. Two servants slipped in silently, setting down a tray of food and water. The smell hit me hard—meat, rich and bloody. My stomach twisted with hunger so fierce it startled me.

I looked away.

“You haven’t eaten,” Mara observed.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re lying.”

I glared at her. “Is that your job? To tell me what I feel?”

“No,” she said evenly. “My job is to keep you alive long enough not to disgrace this pack.”

“So that’s what I am now. A liability.”

“You are a problem,” she corrected. “One we don’t know how to solve.”

She studied me openly, gaze lingering too long on my eyes, my stance, the way my shoulders squared instead of shrinking. “You don’t move like an Omega.”

“I don’t know what I am,” I snapped.

“That,” she said softly, “is exactly why the Council is afraid of you.”

Fear again.

Everyone feared me except the one person who should.

“Why isn’t Ronan here?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Mara’s brow lifted. “You feel his absence.”

I hated that she was right.

“He’s in Council session,” she continued. “Arguing whether you deserve execution or containment.”

I swallowed. “Those are my only options?”

“For now.”

She turned to leave, then paused. “Eat. You’ll need strength.”

“For what?”

Her gaze sharpened. “Survival.”

When the door closed, I stared at the tray until my hands shook. Hunger roared through me, wild and demanding. I tore into the food like an animal, barely tasting it, shame burning alongside relief.

The moon climbed higher.

So did the whispers.

They came softly at first murmurs at the edge of my hearing. I pressed my hands over my ears, but they weren’t sound. They were memory. Instinct.

Run.

Fight.

Claim.

“No,” I whispered. “I don’t belong here.”

Something inside me stirred.

A presence smaller than Ronan’s, sharper, coiled tight in my chest. Not the bond.

My wolf.

Hello, it said.

I froze.

You’re not real.

A sensation like a smile brushed through me. You keep telling yourself that.

“What are you?” I whispered.

You already know.

Images flickered claws, fur, moonlight streaking through trees. Power surged, eager and restrained only by will.

I backed away from the window. “I don’t want this.”

You survived without wanting it, my wolf replied. You’ll survive with it.

A scream echoed down the corridor distant but sharp.

Then another.

My head snapped up. My wolf surged forward, alert and hungry. I smelled blood fresh, coppery, wrong.

The door burst open.

Mara stumbled inside, a gash across her arm, blood soaking her sleeve. “Stay back,” she barked then froze when she saw my face.

The guards behind her were already dead.

A wolf stepped into the doorway half-shifted, eyes wild, foam flecking his lips. Madness radiated off him in waves.

Council assassin.

He lunged.

My body moved before my mind did.

I caught his arm mid-swipe, fingers closing around bone with impossible strength. Shock flashed across his face.

I felt it then the rightness of the violence. The way my muscles sang as I twisted, hearing the snap of bone, the scream cut short as I slammed him into the wall.

He slid down, unmoving.

Silence fell thick and suffocating.

Mara stared at me.

I stared at my hands, trembling not with fear.

With restraint.

Footsteps thundered closer. Wolves poured into the corridor, Ronan at the front. His eyes swept the scene, then locked onto me.

The bond flared.

“What happened?” he demanded.

I lifted my chin. “He tried to kill me.”

Ronan’s gaze dropped to the body, then back to me something dark and dangerous coiling behind his eyes.

“They sent an assassin,” he said softly.

Mara bowed her head. “The Council has made its decision.”

Ronan straightened, fury rolling off him in lethal waves. “Then they’ve declared war.”

His gaze returned to me, unreadable. “You should be dead.”

I met his stare, heart pounding. “I’m not.”

A slow, dangerous smile curved his mouth.

“No,” he agreed. “You’re not.”

The moon outside burned brighter.

And somewhere deep inside me, my wolf bared her teeth ready.