The Last Sunset

SARA:

The leather straps of my duffel bag dig into my palms as I tuck it beneath the floorboards under my bed. Every seam is packed to bursting with standard human clothes, savings I’ve spent months hoarding, and a forged ID that doesn’t carry the mark of the Bloodmoon Pack.

Tonight, when the moon hits its peak, I’m leaving.

It isn’t because I hate my life. That’s the hardest part. I love the earthy scent of our timber cottage at the edge of the territory. I love the way the morning light filters through the forest canopy, casting golden stripes across our kitchen table. But as a half-human, half-werewolf, I live every day with one foot in a world that terrifies me. The raw, primal violence of pack culture, the suffocating rules of hierarchy, the looming expectation that I will one day submit to a mate’s bond, it suffocates me. I want normal. I want safe.

“Sara! Dinner’s cooling!”

My mother’s voice carries up the stairs, warm and sweet. I swallow down the lump in my throat, smooth down my sweater, and plaster on my best smile before heading down.

The kitchen smells of roasted garlic and rosemary. My father, the Pack Beta, sits at the head of the dark wooden table, his heavy frame relaxed for once as he laughs at something my mother is saying. He is a formidable wolf on the battlefield, a monster to our enemies, but right now, wiping a spot of sauce from his chin, he is just my dad.

“There’s my girl,” Dad rumbles, his deep voice vibrating in his chest as I pull out my chair. He reaches over, ruffling my hair with a calloused hand. “You’re quiet today, sweetheart. Everything okay at the clinic?”

“Just tired,” I lie smoothly, leaning into his touch for what I know is the last time. “Lots of injured scouts coming through lately.”

“Pack politics,” Mom sighs, setting a heavy plate of stew in front of me. She kisses the top of my head, her soft floral scent enveloping me. “Alpha Gabriel has been pushing the borders hard. The twins are keeping your father on his feet day and night.”

At the mention of the twins, my heart gives a familiar, erratic thud.

Zayne and Kyle. The Alpha’s sons. My entire life has been spent in their shadow. Kyle is the sun, carefree, laughing, constantly teasing me, tugging my braids when we were kids, and flashing that crooked smile that makes every female in the pack melt. Zayne is the dark storm, strict, quiet, his intense gaze following my every move, stepping between me and any threat before I even realize danger is near. They are my constants. And leaving them feels like tearing off a piece of my own skin.

Just a few more hours, I tell myself, picking at my food. You just have to pretend for a few more hours.

We finish dinner wrapped in the cozy rhythm of family. Dad complains about his aching back, Mom teases him about getting old, and I soak in every word, engraving their voices into my memory. When Mom goes to wash the dishes, I step up beside her, elbowing her gently to take the drying towel.

“I can do it, Sara,” she smiles, nudging me back.

“Let me,” I say, my voice slipping slightly. I look into her eyes, seeing the subtle golden flecks that mark her wolf. “I just... want to help.”

She softens, searching my face with a mother’s intuition that almost makes me drop to my knees and confess everything. But before she can ask, a low, reverberating rumble shakes the wooden foundation beneath our feet.

It isn’t thunder.

Dad is on his feet instantly, his chair scraping violently against the floor. His eyes snap from blue to a vivid, glowing amber. “Rogue defenses perimeter just broke.”

A split second later, a blood-curdling howl tears through the night sky, followed by the sickening sound of snapping bone and wood collapsing nearby.

“Stay inside! Bar the door!” Dad orders, his voice echoing with his Beta command. In the blink of an eye, the man who was just laughing over stew shifts into a massive, gray-furred beast, bursting through the front door and tearing into the darkness.

“Dad!” I scream, running toward the door, but Mom grabs my arm, her own wolf surging under her skin.

Outside, paradise turns into hell.

The air grows thick with the metallic reek of fresh blood and scorched earth. Roars echo from the center of the village. Through the shattered window, I see them, a horde of feral, rabid rogues, their coats matted with dirt and dried blood, lunging at anything that moves.

Two massive wolves tear through the chaos, moving as a synchronized, lethal unit.

I recognize them instantly. A pitch-black wolf with razor-sharp teeth rips the throat out of an invading rogue is Zayne. Right beside him, a golden brown wolf slams another attacker into a tree, snapping its spine with a sickening crunch before turning to grin viciously into the fray is Kyle. They are brutal, efficient, and horrifyingly lethal. There is no room for Kyle’s easy charm or Zayne’s quiet restraint here; they are Alpha blood, born for slaughter.

A rogue, gnarled, scarred, and foaming at the mouth, bypasses the main fight, its jet-black eyes locking directly onto our cottage. Onto me.

It lunges through the window, glass showering the floorboards.

“Sara, run!” Mom shrieks, throwing herself in front of me as her bones begin to crack into her wolf form.

The sheer ferocity of the life I am trying to escape slams into me like a freight train. The blood, the teeth, the violent instinct, it is everywhere.

I don’t run to hide. I back away toward the stairs, my heart hammering against my ribs, blood roaring in my ears. The night I am supposed to quietly slip away to freedom has just descended into a bloodbath, and I know, as I watch the twins tear through the shadows outside, that if I don’t leave tonight, this violence will swallow me whole.