Chapter 2

Aria's POV

She saw a man materialize from the darkness at the forest edge, moving with fluid grace that marked him as something more than simply human. He was tall and powerfully built, with dark hair that fell past his shoulders and eyes that caught the moonlight like a predator's. He wore simple clothes, dark pants and a shirt that had seen better days… but carried himself with the unconscious authority of someone accustomed to command and instant obedience. The wolves parted for him without being asked, creating a path through their circle as he walked toward Aria's house with steady, purposeful strides.

Terror finally broke through Aria's paralysis. She stumbled backward from the window, her hand going to her throat in an instinctive protective gesture. The threads of light vanished instantly, snuffed out as though they had never existed. But the warmth in her chest remained, pulsing insistently, and somehow she knew with absolute certainty that the approaching man could feel it too. That he had been drawn here by that pulse, called across whatever distance separated them by a connection she did not understand and had never asked for.

Aria's bedroom door burst open, and her younger sister tumbled in, her eyes wide with fear and excitement. "Aria!! There are wolves everywhere, and Mom says we need to get to the safe room right now, and Dad is getting the rifles, and… " She stopped mid-sentence, her gaze fixing on something past Aria's shoulder. "What is that?"

Aria turned to follow her sister's stare and felt her breath catch. The man stood directly outside her window now, just on the other side of the glass, close enough that she could see the silver flecks in his dark eyes and the way moonlight painted shadows across his angular features. He should not have been able to reach her second-story window without a ladder, yet there he was, apparently standing on empty air with the same casual ease most people stood on solid ground.

Their eyes met, and Aria felt the world tilt sideways. Recognition flooded through her, though she had never seen this man before in her life. She knew him, knew the way he would move before he moved, knew the sound of his voice before he spoke, knew the weight of his presence as though she had carried it within her forever and was only now remembering its reality. The connection between them was tangible, a golden thread of energy that spun out from her chest to his, binding them together in ways that transcended simple attraction or even destiny.

He raised one hand and pressed it against the glass, his palm flat and fingers spread wide. His lips moved, speaking words she could not hear through the barrier of the window, but somehow she understood them anyway. They resonated directly in her mind, bypassing her ears entirely.

"You have awakened, Luna. The Oath remembers, and so the game begins." 

Aria's hand moved of its own accord, lifting to mirror his position on her side of the glass. The moment her palm aligned with his, separated only by the thin barrier of glass and the infinite gulf of understanding she did not yet possess, light exploded between them. Not the subtle threads from before but a blinding flare of silver and gold that transformed night into day for one impossible instant.

When Aria's vision cleared, the man was gone. The wolves were gone. The meadow stood empty and peaceful under the moon's eternal gaze, as though nothing unusual had occurred at all. But Aria knew better. She looked down at her right hand, the one that had touched the glass where his palm had been, and felt her stomach drop.

A mark glowed on her skin, intricate and beautiful and completely impossible. It looked like a crescent moon wrapped in thorns, rendered in lines of light that seemed to exist both on her skin and slightly above it, as though the symbol existed in multiple dimensions simultaneously. As she watched, it pulsed once, twice, then began to fade, sinking into her skin until only the faintest trace remained, visible only if she held her hand at exactly the right angle to catch the light.

"Aria?" Her Sisters voice was small and frightened. "What just happened? Who was that man? And what is that thing on your hand?"

Aria opened her mouth to answer but found she had no words. How could she explain what she did not understand herself? How could she tell her sister that something fundamental had just shifted in the fabric of her reality, that the life she had known was over and a new existence had begun whether she wanted it or not?

Footsteps pounded up the stairs, and a moment later their mother burst into the room, her face pale with worry. "Girls, are you alright? The wolves are gone now, but... " She stopped, her eyes going wide as they fixed on Aria's face. "No. No, it cannot be. You are too young, it is too soon."

"Mom?" Aria's voice came out small and uncertain, nothing like the confident tone she usually maintained. "What is happening to me? Who was that man? What is this mark?"

Her mother moved forward slowly, as though approaching a wild animal that might bolt at any sudden movement. When she reached Aria, she took her daughter's marked hand in both of hers, studying the fading symbol with an expression of mingled awe and grief. "Oh, my darling girl. I had hoped you would have more time. That you might escape the burden our family has carried for generations. But the Oath has chosen, and when the Oath chooses, there is no appeal and no reprieve."

"What oath?" Aria demanded, fear sharpening her voice. "Mom, please, I need to understand what is happening."

Her mother met her eyes, and Aria saw tears gathering there. "The Oath of the Moons, sworn when the world was younger and wolves walked openly among the stars. An oath broken, a curse begun, and a debt that comes due again and again across the centuries." She touched the mark on Aria's hand with gentle fingers. "This is the Luna's brand, the sign that you have been chosen to bear the weight of ancient promises and older betrayals. The man you saw was an Alpha, drawn to you by bonds that were forged long before either of you were born. And now that you have awakened, now that the mark has appeared, everything will change."

"I do not want it to change," Aria whispered, though even as she spoke, she knew the protest was futile. "I did not ask for this. I did not choose it."

"Neither did I," her mother replied softly. "Neither did your grandmother, or her mother before her, stretching back through generations too numerous to count easily. But the Oath does not care what we want or choose. It simply is, and we must bear its weight or be crushed by its refusal."

She looked at her sister... Who had gone very quiet, pressed against the wall as though trying to disappear into it. Aria looked at her sister and saw her own fear reflected there, but also something else. A kind of terrible understanding, as though She had always known this moment would come and had been dreading its arrival.

"The Alpha will return," their mother Celestra continued, her voice taking on the cadence of prophecy or perhaps simply often-repeated warnings. "He is bound to you now, drawn by the mark and the awakening of your power. He will seek to claim you, to bind you to his service and his pack. Whether you go with him willingly or fight against the inevitable, the outcome remains the same. The Luna and her Alpha are two halves of a broken whole, and they will always find each other across whatever distances or obstacles stand between them."

Aria pulled her hand free and stepped back, shaking her head in denial even as she felt the truth of her mother's words resonating in that warm, foreign presence in her chest. "No. I will not accept this. I have a life, plans, a future that does not involve ancient oaths and mysterious Alphas and marks that appear on my skin without permission. I refuse to be some pawn in a game I never agreed to play."

"Oh, my brave, stubborn daughter," her mother said, and there was love and sorrow in equal measure in her tone. "I understand your anger, your fear, your resistance. I felt all those things myself when my time came. But understanding changes nothing. The Oath has awakened, the mark has appeared, and the Alpha has found you. What comes next is not a matter of choice but of how gracefully you accept what cannot be changed."