MINE BEFORE THE BLOOD MOON

Blood froze along the border line, My brother's blood. Ten years old, but the snow remembered.

I knelt beside the dark stain buried beneath fresh layers of ice and frost. Most people would have seen nothing more than a patch of discolored snow. Time had done its best to erase it, but I saw it. Every winter, the mark returned,every winter the forest gave his blood back to me.

My gloved fingers brushed the frozen ground. A cold bit through the leather immediately, but I didn't pull away.  

I remembered that day, the screams,the scent of smoke,the torn remains of the wooden fence that once separated our lands from theirs. Most of all, I remembered finding my little brother lying in the snow,motionless,silent,gone.

A piece of me had died beside him that day.The rest of me had spent the last ten years hunting monsters.

I pressed my palm harder against the stain "This is for you Eli," I whispered.The wind carried my words into the darkness,then I stood. 

The border waited only a few steps away,a single silver line carved into the frozen earth, the divide between the human world and wolf territory. Crossing it was forbidden, humans who wandered beyond it rarely returned. If they did, they came back changed,broken,mad or dead.

I should have turned around,any sane person would have,instead I stepped over the line.

The moment my boot touched wolf territory, a strange chill raced up my spine. The forest seemed to notice, the wind died instantly,the trees fell silent,even the snow stopped falling. As though the woods themselves were holding their breath, I tightened my grip on the silver blade strapped to my thigh, its familiar weight steadied me. Silver was one of the few things wolves feared. Tonight, I planned to make sure they remembered why.

The scent reached me first, pine,smoke,and wild earth. The smell wrapped around me unexpectedly, ancient, powerful, and dangerous. A strange ache stirred deep inside my chest, I ignored it.

Then came the feeling, not fear,not exactly,awareness. The uncomfortable certainty that I was no longer alone, someone was watching me. My pulse quickened,every instinct screamed that I should leave. Instead, I pushed deeper into the forest.

The moon hung above the treetops like a silver blade,thin,pale,incomplete,not full,not yet. Three nights remained, three nights until the Blood Moon. Three nights until the anniversary of my brother's death, three nights until I finally got answers.

The trees grew thicker and darker. The deeper I walked, the more wrong everything felt. The forest wasn't merely alive,It was awake, watching, waiting.

My hand drifted toward the necklace hidden beneath my jacket, a crescent moon carved from white stone. The only thing my mother had left me before she disappeared. For years, it had been nothing more than a keepsake but tonight, it felt warm against my skin,I frowned. The stone had never reacted before.

A sudden pain shot through my chest, Sharp enough to steal my breath. I stopped walking, the sensation vanished as quickly as it appeared. Strangely,lately these pains had become more frequent,doctors couldn't explain them neither could I. It felt almost like something inside me was trying to wake up,I hated the thought.

A twig snapped behind me “I froze”. The sound hadn't come from an animal,it was too deliberate,too controlled. Slowly, I turned,nothing but only darkness stretched between the trees, yet the feeling remained. Someone was there watching, waiting, hunting.

My fingers tightened around the silver knife "Come out," I called. Silently the forest answered with a low whisper of wind,then a voice emerged from the darkness. "Humans don't cross that line unless they're bleeding or dead."

Every muscle in my body locked,the voice was low,rough and dangerously calm. The kind of voice that sounded as though it had spent years delivering commands no one dared question or sentences no one survived.

I turned toward the sound,a figure stepped from the shadows. For a moment, the darkness seemed reluctant to release him as if even the night recognized him as its own tall,broad-shouldered. Power radiated from him with every step, snow fell from the branches above but never touched his skin. The cold itself seemed to avoid him.

A scar cut across the corner of his mouth, giving him a permanently dangerous appearance. Dark hair framed a face carved from sharp angles and harder edges and his eyes stopped me cold. Gold glowed faintly around the edges, not human,not even close,predatory,ancient,wolf.

 “Alpha Kael Riven” The monster whose name haunted every story told near the border. The ruler of the Northern Pack, the man many blamed for the growing disappearances along the forest edge,the man I had spent years wanting to kill. Yet something strange happened when I looked at him,the anger I'd carried for years didn't come first. “Recognition did” my heart skipped,my breath caught and deep inside me, something stirred. Not fear,not hatred,something far more dangerous.

Kael stopped twenty feet away,his gaze swept over me slowly,calculating. His eyes lingered on the silver blade at my thigh before returning to my face. A faint crease appeared between his brows and confusion as if he sensed something he couldn't explain. I felt it too,an invisible thread pulling tight between us,unwelcome,impossible.

My chest ached again,harder this time. Kael's jaw tightened for the briefest moment, surprise flashed across his face then it vanished,hidden beneath cold authority.

"Which are you, little hunter?" he asked quietly,his voice sending an unwanted shiver down my spine. He took another step forward,snow crunched beneath his boots. "Bleeding..." Another step. "Or dead?"

The silver knife burned against my palm, pain grounded me,pain reminded me why I had come. I wasn't here because of strange feelings,or mysterious aches,or impossible instincts. I was here because of blood, my brother's blood.

I lifted my chin,met the gaze of the most feared Alpha in the North,and refused to back down "Neither."

The wind picked up suddenly,branches swayed overhead somewhere deep in the forest, wolves began to howl. One,then another, then dozens more. The sound echoed beneath the moonlit sky. Kael's eyes never left mine,neither did mine leave his. The invisible tension between us stretched tighter,as if fate itself was holding a breath,waiting,watching.

The crescent moon necklace beneath my jacket suddenly grew hot. A flash of silver light exploded behind my eyes,for one terrifying second, I saw something impossible. A blood-red moon,A throne of bones,A wolf with silver eyes standing beside a crowned alpha,The world burning around them. Then the vision vanished,and I staggered.

Kael noticed immediately,his expression darkened. "What did you see?" My heart pounded. I hadn't meant to react,hadn't meant to reveal anything,yet somehow he knew. As though he'd felt it too,I gripped my knife tighter "You first."

A dangerous smile touched the corner of his mouth, not friendly,not warm,predatory,and interested. For the first time since entering the forest, I felt genuine fear. Not because he might kill me, because part of me suddenly wasn't sure I wanted to leave. And that frightened me far more.

Kael's golden eyes flashed beneath the moonlight. "The full moon comes fast in my woods," he said. The wolves howled again,closer this time,hungrier. A storm gathered above the treetops, the first crack of thunder rolled across the mountains and somewhere beyond the darkness, fate began to wake. "Then let's see if you survive the night, little hunter."