CHAPTER TWO

The moon lit across the Hollow moon pack’s gathering so brightly, it could have been mistaken has daytime. The once lively crowd was now in disarray. The night seemed to have exploded as strange wolves pored from the borders straight into the crowd, snarls ripping through the air, claws against stones, the sound of bones breaking. Their eyes glistened with unnatural fury. 

“Hold the line!” Alpha White’s voice thundered, deep and commanding, as he held onto silver. He looked terrified for her before he tore into his wolf form with brutal precision. “Protect Silver. Protect the Heir!”

Silver stood frozen in the middle of the chaos, not knowing what to do, her heart hammering against her chest as she watched the chaos unfolding before her. She heard the warriors shouting her name from a distance. 

The night was burning. Flames clawed at rooftops, casting everything in a hellish orange glow. The air was filled with smoke, stinging her eyes. Children screamed, running between shadows, as parents fought tooth and claw against the attackers. The metallic smell of blood was everywhere.

For a second, her body refused to move. Then instinct shoved her forward as she saw a wolf sneak from behind, lunging into her father. She started towards him, ducking between collapsed beams and furious wolves.

 “Silver, fall back!”

 “Get her inside!”

 “She can’t shift, keep her safe!”

“I’m not leaving him!” Silver screamed, her voice raw. She shoved at the guards, trying to shield her, her white-blonde hair sticking to her sweat-slick face. Her father was surrounded, blood matting his fur; he was wounded but not badly. 

He shoved her away from the field as the attackers pressed closer; their movements were clean and coordinated. Her breath hitched. It did not look random; they were after something.

And then it came, the same one from earlier. It crept into her.

“You belong to me.”

Silver stumbled, losing her balance, and she clutched her head. “No,” she said, barely a whisper. “Get out of my head.”

“Silve,r,” She heard her father yell, his growl cutting through the night, and she snapped as she watched him tear into the wolf that was reaching for her. His jaws snapped bone, but not before claws raked across his side. Blood sprayed the earth in an arc of crimson.

“Father!” Silver fell to her knees, catching him as his body twisted back into his human form. His skin was pale, his chest heaving, his hands shaking where they clutched his wound.

“Stay back,” he rasped, forcing her behind him even as blood poured between his fingers.

“No!” She pressed her palms to his chest, desperate to stop the bleeding. “You’re all I have! You can’t ”

A shadow loomed over them. A rogue wolf, eyes glowing with sickly gold, magic flickering around its body. Its lips peeled back in a grotesque grin.

Silver screamed, “Help!”

Ronan’s blade flashed through the dark. The rogue fell with a gurgling snarl, blood pooling at Silver’s feet. Ronan grabbed her arm, dragging her to her feet. “We have to go!”

“I won’t leave him!” she shrieked, clawing against his hold.

“No… no, no, no.” She fell to her knees beside him, hands trembling as they found his. Tears blurred her vision.

“I need you… to get out of here, child,” he whispered, his voice little more than air. “Go somewhere safe… and don’t come back. Not for a while.”

Her throat closed. “What’s happening, Father? I can’t leave you like this—”

“Listen to me,” he said, his grip tightening weakly around her fingers. “The future of our pack depends on you being alive. You’re all we have left.”

Smoke swirled, screams rose, and for the first time in her life, Silver felt the weight of an Alpha’s command settle like stone in her chest.

The warrior yanked her backward, his voice shaking with fury. As they were about to make their way out of the chaos, a wolf came out of nowhere, sinking its teeth into the warrior. 

“You need to run for help, Silver,” the warrior rasped, his voice shaking with pain. His chest heaved as he lay slumped against the wall, sweat and blood streaking down his skin.

She nodded as she stood up and started running towards the other side of the border. Branches clawed at her arms as she pushed deeper, each snap of twigs underfoot sounding louder than it should. Her breath came in sharp bursts, puffing white into the cold night air. Somewhere behind her, a door slammed. Voices rose, angry, panicked, too far to make out words.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” she muttered to herself, forcing her legs to keep moving.

Her mind betrayed her; every rustle of leaves became a hunter’s approach, every snap of a branch a wolf’s footstep. Twice she dropped to the damp forest floor, her body trembling, convinced something was closing in.

A distant howl cut through the wind.

Her heart seized.

She didn’t dare look back. Looking back would make it real, would mean facing the fact that she was leaving her home, her pack, in the middle of a crisis, and she might never return.

Her bare feet pressed into the floor as she sat up, and the sharp sting of twigs and stones pricked her soles. She winced, curling her toes, but the forest ground gave her no mercy, only the crunch of leaves and the faint squelch of mud.

She continued her wandering absent-mindedly, her thoughts drifting back to the state in which she had left her home. By now, she had no tears left to spare; her eyes were already dried up.

Silver’s last sight of her father was his blood staining the earth, his eyes glazed beneath the light of the Hollow Moon.

And then the night swallowed her as she fled. She soon was out of breath and tired from all the running, so she started to walk, and put a considerable distance between herself and her home, though she was still on their land. She dragged her tired body for as long as she could and passed out at some point.

She didn’t notice the eerie silence until it was too late. Then she heard a low growl curling out of the shadows, and she froze where she stood. Her head snapped up, her heart beating thunderously against her chest.