Bound by Moonfire

The training field echoed with the sound of fists hitting flesh, bodies thudding to the ground, and breath being pushed out in sharp exhales. Morning mist clung to the treetops above, and the scent of dew-drenched earth filled Liora’s lungs with every inhale. She moved through the drills like her body had been sculpted for it—lean, quick, precise. Every strike and dodge was calculated, every motion fluid. She didn’t move like a guest in this pack. She moved like a warrior.And yet, the whispers still followed her.“She wasn’t born here.”“She hasn’t even shifted yet.”“Bloodlines don’t lie.”Liora shoved the thoughts away as she swept Jonas’s leg and brought him down hard onto his back. He grunted, winded, and stared up at her with a rueful smile.“That’s six,” he muttered.She offered him a hand. “And six times you dropped your shoulder too soon.”“Maybe I just like falling at your feet.”She rolled her eyes, but a smirk tugged at her lips. Jonas was one of the few who didn’t treat h

Liora didn’t sleep.She lay stretched across the flat roof of the watchtower, arms folded beneath her head, staring up at the stars until they blurred into one long smear of light. A chill had crept into the spring air, but she didn’t feel it. Her skin was too hot. Her pulse too fast. She could still taste his scent in the back of her throat—pine smoke, iron, rain.The mating bond curled inside her like a thread set ablaze, burning silently in her chest.She tried to push it down.It pushed back harder.Bonds weren’t supposed to work like this. They weren’t supposed to rip open your soul and then leave you bleeding. They were sacred. Ancient. When a wolf met their fated mate, it was said to be undeniable. Immediate. Whole.But he had denied her.Denied it.Cael, Alpha of the Shadowclaw Pack, had looked her dead in the eye and called her a mistake.The moment replayed over and over in her mind. His eyes—those cold, storm-gray eyes—had widened for just a second. She knew he had felt it.

The sky cracked open just after dusk.Liora stood at the edge of the northern ridge, arms folded tightly across her chest as rain broke over the trees in a slow, rhythmic patter. The forest below blurred into shadows and mist, the kind of eerie stillness that made her wolf tense with instinct. The kind that meant something was coming.Thunder rumbled low and deep across the mountains. Not close, not yet. But it would be.She didn’t move.The air was too heavy, her skin too tight, her thoughts a tangled storm of their own. The conversation at the war table played over and over in her mind—Cael, silent but sharp, his eyes darting to her without permission. His voice steady when he answered her, but strained. Controlled.Too controlled.There was something behind it. Behind him.And she hated that part of her still wanted to see it.She heard him before she saw him.Footsteps on wet earth, slow and deliberate. A pause. Then more.He was giving her time to notice. Time to leave, if she wa

The full moon rose slowly over Crescent territory, casting silver light across the thick canopy of pines. The air was sharp with the scent of woodsmoke and moss, a breath away from thunder. Beneath it all, tension hummed through the camp like the strum of a tight bowstring.Liora stood at the edge of the training ring, her hands on her hips as two Crescent warriors faced off in the circle. She wasn’t watching the sparring. Not really. Her mind was elsewhere—twisting through emotions she had no name for.Behind her, Cael's presence grew stronger. Not just his scent—leather, earth, something cold like iron—but the weight of the bond. She felt it settle against her back like a second skin. She could feel when his eyes were on her, the way her wolf stirred in response. It was a tug just beneath her ribs, persistent and increasingly impossible to ignore.She turned slowly.He stood just outside the ring, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. The shadows clung to his cheekbones, the silver light t

Liora didn’t return to the packhouse.She walked.Not because she had somewhere to go—but because she needed to move. If she stayed still, the weight of everything might crush her. The trees blurred past, branches clawing at her coat, the scent of moss and mud thick in the air after the storm. Her boots sank into damp soil, but she didn’t care. The cold didn’t touch her. The ache did.The ache he left.Her wolf prowled beneath her skin—restless, furious, grieving. Not just for the bond. For what it meant that he didn’t choose her. Not fully. Not yet.She’d given him everything. Not out of duty. Not because the bond demanded it. Because she wanted to. Because despite every warning her instincts gave her, she had believed Cael might actually see her—not as a pawn, not as an outsider, but as his.And he didn’t mark her.He held her like she mattered… and then pulled away like she didn’t.She reached the riverbank by dusk, where the rushing current met a narrow grove of pine. This had bee