MasukSilence settled heavily after Maela’s question.No one answered immediately.Because hearing Selene’s name spoken like that inside Silvermoon still felt unfamiliar.Not impossible.Just changed.Maela remained near the doorway, hands lightly clasped before her. Her posture stayed respectful, but something uneasy lingered beneath it now.Evelyn noticed first.Not fear.Concern.Real concern.Seraphina spoke before the silence stretched too long.“The pack does not need rumors,” she said evenly. “It needs discipline.”Her tone remained calm.Controlled.But the weight behind it was unmistakable.Maela lowered her head slightly.“Yes, my lady.”Still, Evelyn could see the hesitation that remained.The servants had heard the howl.The younger wolves had reacted to it.And now the entire castle was trying to understand what Silvermoon itself did not yet fully understand.Evelyn stepped forward slightly.“Fear spreads faster when no one understands the truth,” she said quietly.Seraphina’s
Silvermoon had not returned to normal after the pursuit began.It only became quieter.And somehow, that felt worse.The castle corridors no longer carried their usual rhythm. Conversations lowered when footsteps approached. Servants moved carefully, eyes avoiding one another for too long.Because everyone had heard it.That howl.Even those who did not understand what it meant had felt what it did to the pack.The full moon still hung above Silvermoon, pale light spilling through the high windows of the eastern hall. Shadows stretched long across the stone floor, restless beneath flickering torchlight.Near the servant wing, whispers moved faster than orders.“They said the dungeon bars were damaged—”“No first-shift should have that kind of strength—”“She escaped past the lower grounds—”“Was it really her?”Maela turned sharply toward the younger servants.“That’s enough.”The girls immediately lowered their heads.Maela rarely raised her voice.Which made it worse when she did.O
The forest beyond Silvermoon did not sleep.It listened.Every branch held a memory of movement. Every patch of earth carried scent trails that were already fading, shifting, rewriting themselves under the pressure of the full moon.And now—Silvermoon was moving into it.Not as chaos.As structure.At the front line, Damian moved without hesitation.The cloak around his shoulders caught against the wind, but he did not slow. His presence alone changed the rhythm of the wolves behind him. No one spoke unless necessary. No one broke formation.This was not a search.It was a pursuit.Liam moved slightly behind and to the side, eyes scanning the terrain as he spoke in low, controlled intervals.“Three tracking lines deployed north-west. Two cutting south ridge. Perimeter widening every five minutes.”Damian didn’t look at him.“Any scent lock?”“Not stable,” Liam replied. “It’s… fragmented.”That made Damian’s jaw tighten slightly.Fragmented meant movement without pattern.Instinct with
The alarm did not sound like war.It sounded like interruption.A break in order.And in Silvermoon, that was more dangerous than violence.Within minutes, the lower corridors of the castle shifted into controlled movement. Wolves moved with precision, not panic—armor adjusted, routes assigned, tracking formations prepared.But beneath it all, something restless lingered.Not confusion.Instability.Liam stood over the stone table marked with the forest grid, already issuing commands.“West ridge sealed. East corridor remains open for tracking units only. No one crosses the southern boundary without clearance.”A guard nodded quickly and moved.Another stepped forward.“Beta… the southern border units are reacting.”Liam’s eyes lifted.“Define reacting.”The guard hesitated.“The newly turned wolves. They’re unstable. Pacing, agitation, loss of control in some cases.”Liam’s expression sharpened slightly.“Contain them,” he said firmly. “Keep formation tight. Do not let instinct overr
The silence after the escape did not feel empty.It felt wrong.Like the castle itself was holding its breath and refusing to release it.Damian stood in his study without moving for a long time, eyes fixed on nothing in particular. The air around him was still, but the tension inside it was not.Liam closed the door behind him quietly.Neither of them spoke at first.Because speaking meant accepting what had just happened.And neither of them had fully done that yet.Then Liam finally broke the silence.“You shouldn’t have confined her like that.”The words were not loud.But they landed heavily.Damian didn’t react immediately.His gaze remained steady, but something behind it tightened.“She was unstable,” Damian said finally.Liam exhaled slowly, shaking his head once.“No,” he replied. “We called it instability because we didn’t understand it.”That made the air shift slightly.Damian’s jaw tightened.Liam continued anyway.“She wasn’t acting out of control,” he said. “She was sh
“…The servant girl.”The words settled heavily into the corridor.For a moment, no one moved.Then Damian turned sharply toward the confinement wing.Fast.Controlled.The guards immediately stepped aside as he passed.Liam followed close behind, tension already tightening across his expression.Another low growl echoed faintly from deeper below.Not human.Not entirely wolf either.Something between restraint and instinct.The deeper they moved into the lower confinement corridor, the more obvious the damage became.Claw marks carved deeply into the stone walls.Broken cracks spreading through the floor.Bent iron bars.One of the torch brackets had been torn completely from the wall and now hung crookedly beside the cell entrance.Silence filled the corridor again afterward.Heavy.Contained.Like the danger inside the confinement chamber had merely paused to breathe.Then Damian saw her.And stopped.The wolf stood at the far end of the cell beneath the fractured shaft of moonlight
Selene barely slept that night.Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the dungeon again. The dark corridor. The iron bars. Those strange eyes staring at her from the shadows like they already knew her.There you are.The words kept echoing in her mind.She sat quietly on the edge of her bed long
She rinsed the brush carefully, setting it back into the bucket before lifting it with both hands, the weight heavier than it should have been as she rose to her feet. The guard said nothing as she passed, and she kept her gaze lowered, walking steadily through the corridor toward the service base
The stone floor was rough on Selene's knees as she scrubbed away. The bristles of the brush dragging harshly against the surface making a lot of noise in the hallway.Her hands hurt already and her fingers were red from pressing hard but she kept going. The guard was standing behind her watching he
Selene did not move at first. The moment was frozen in time, her breath was still uneven from the collision, her fingers were half-curled where they hovered between them. The hands on her arms were steady. They grounded her but they also made everything else feel sharper.Then his voice cut through







