CHAPTER TWO: Ashes of the Blood Moon

The clearing still smelled of iron and smoke.

Lyra stood barefoot in the churned soil, her cloak torn, her breath still ragged from the chaos that had ripped the ceremony apart. All around her, Crescent Hollow wolves shifted back into human form, their bodies streaked with blood and dirt, eyes wide and haunted.

The Blood Moon Binding the one that was meant to tie her fate to Kael’s and secure the fragile peace between their packs lay in ruins. The ceremonial stones were cracked. The torches had been trampled.

And the rogues gods, there were more of them than anyone expected had vanished as suddenly as they’d appeared, slipping back into the trees like wraiths, leaving only dead behind.

Lyra’s heart still hadn’t steadied. Her mind replayed the scene in fragments:

The flash of teeth.

The stranger’s gray eyes locking on hers.

The shift his body breaking and reforming into that black wolf mid-stride.

The surge inside her chest when their eyes met.

Mate.

The word wasn’t spoken, but it vibrated in her bones.

--

“Lyra.”

Her name came out like a growl.

She turned, and Kael was there, already half-shifted back, his silver fur retracting, his body streaked in rogue blood. His face was sharp and unreadable, but his eyes—pale and cutting burned with something fierce.

He strode toward her, not caring that warriors were still tending the wounded, not caring that elders were whispering about omens.

“Are you hurt?” His voice was low, dangerous like a storm about to break.

“I no,” she managed, though her hands shook as she pushed hair out of her face.

Kael’s hand cupped her chin, tilting her face toward him. His touch wasn’t gentle—it was claiming, like he needed to feel her skin to remind himself she was still his.

“Good,” he muttered, almost to himself. “You’re mine. No one touches you.”

The words made her chest tighten, not with comfort, but with something closer to fear.

---

A ripple of tension passed through the gathered wolves.

He was still here.

The black wolf, the stranger, hadn’t left.

He stood at the treeline, massive and still, his coat glinting under the blood moon, his eyes fixed on Lyra like the rest of the world didn’t exist.

A murmur moved through the Crescent Hollow wolves:

“Stormfang.”

“No… Look at him. He’s not theirs.”

“Then who?”

Kael turned, finally seeing the wolf.

Something shifted in the air a crackle of raw hostility.

Kael didn’t shift, but his claws slid from his hands anyway, his stance widening like he’d lunge.

“Who are you?” Kael’s voice was sharp enough to cut the night.

The wolf didn’t answer not in words. But his stare stayed locked on Lyra, and her pulse tripped.

“Answer me,” Kael barked, stepping toward him.

The black wolf growled low not submissive, not backing away.

And Lyra God help her took one step toward him.

It wasn’t a choice.

It was instinct.

That invisible tether in her chest pulled taut, and before she realized it, her lips parted, whispering, “Wait”

Kael heard it.

He didn’t look at her, but his jaw clenched.

“You dare come into this sacred ground,” Kael snarled, his voice thickening as his wolf surged closer to the surface, “and look at her like that?”

The black wolf took a step forward, lips curling over teeth, gray eyes flashing with something fierce and primal.

Lyra’s heart slammed against her ribs.

She didn’t know his name.

She didn’t know where he came from.

But she knew the moon had chosen him.

---

The black wolf shifted.

The sound was brutal bones snapping, fur retreating, the raw magic of it making the wolves around them flinch.

And then he stood there a man.

Broad shoulders, bare chest streaked with rogue blood, hair tousled like the forest itself had been clinging to him.

And those storm-gray eyes.

“I didn’t come to fight,” he said, his voice rough and low, carrying across the clearing like thunder.

“Then why are you here?” Kael’s voice was sharp enough to cut.

The stranger’s gaze didn’t move from Lyra.

“To save her.”

---

The words cracked the clearing open.

Kael stepped forward, every inch of him radiating Alpha air. “She doesn’t need saving. She’s mine.”

The stranger gods, even standing here, his presence was wild and uncontained tilted his head, those gray eyes steady.

“She’s my mate.”

The whispering turned to gasps.

The word hung in the air like lightning, and Lyra’s breath stopped.

Kael’s claws dug into his palms.

“No,” he said, his voice a lethal whisper.

“Yes,” the man replied, stepping closer.

Lyra’s wolf howled inside her chest, straining toward him.

Kael’s wolf snapped, his teeth bared in fury.

Before either man could strike because Lyra saw it in both of them, the urge to lunge, to tear a distant howl echoed through the night.

Not Crescent Hollow.

Not Stormfang.

Something else.

Something is wrong.

Warriors tensed. Elders muttered.

The stranger’s head snapped toward the sound, muscles taut.

“They’ll come again,” he said, his voice harsh. “The rogues. The ones you think you killed tonight they were just the first wave.”

He looked back at Lyra.

“They’re coming for her.”

Kael moved, stepping in front of Lyra like a wall, his silver eyes blazing.

“You don’t speak her name,” he snarled.

The stranger didn’t flinch.

He just looked past Kael, right at Lyra, and said quietly,

“Do you feel it?”

The clearing felt too still.

Because she did.

That tether. That invisible thread pulling her toward him.

She didn’t speak.

She didn’t have to.

Her silence was enough.

The stranger backed toward the trees, still watching her.

“This won’t stop,” he said, voice dark with certainty. “Not until you choose.”

Then he was gone melting into the misty forest like a shadow, leaving the whole clearing holding its breath.

Kael turned on her.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” His voice was low, shaking with something raw rage, jealousy, maybe even fear.

Lyra’s throat tightened.

She didn’t answer.

Because she didn’t know how.

That night, the clearing was cleared. The dead were buried. The broken stones of the Blood Moon Binding were left untouched.

And Lyra lay awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling, hearing his voice over and over:

She’s my mate.

And she whispered into the dark, not meaning to:

“I felt it too.”