Chapter 1: The Carrion Queen

Keira

Most werewolves hunt by using their noses to smell or their ears to hear, but I was different now. 

I had changed. I did not need a nose to find my prey. To me, the whole world looked like a map of heat and the steady thump-thump-thump of hearts beating in the dark.

I sat very still on a sharp, black rock. Below me, a bad Alpha named Vane was hurting a small village of weak wolves. 

He was huge, covered in thick fur, and full of a mean anger that had made him lose his mind. 

Five years ago, if I had seen a wolf like him, I would have cried and run away. Five years ago, I was just a small girl. 

I was the girl who cried when her fated mate, Alpha Theron, told her she was a "mistake." He had told me I was too weak to be part of his family.

But that girl was gone. I had buried her in the cold mud near my old home. From her grave, a scary Witch had helped me become something else.

Kill him, Keira, a cold voice whispered inside my chest. It was not a wolf's voice. It was a vampire's hunger. It felt sharp, like a piece of ice.

I did not change into a wolf the way other people do. There was no sound of bones breaking or skin tearing. Instead, shadows started to come out of my skin. 

They looked like thick, black oil. My bones did not just move; they grew long and very, very hard. A strange "Stillness" moved over the forest. 

The wind stopped blowing. The bugs stopped making noise. I became like a hole in the air that no one could see or hear.

I jumped down from the high rock.

I did not land with a loud noise. I landed as quiet as a puff of smoke. Vane, the big wolf, turned around fast. 

His mouth was covered in blood from the people he had hurt. He tried to smell the air, his yellow eyes looking everywhere. He looked scared. 

He could not smell me at all. To him, I was a ghost that he could almost see out of the corner of his eye.

"Who is there?" he growled. His voice sounded like a broken machine. "Come out and fight me, you coward!"

I stepped into the light of a small fire. I did not look like a girl, but I did not look like a wolf either. I was something in the middle. I was tall and thin, with long claws that shone like metal. 

My eyes were a glowing mix of purple and red.

"I am the one who is going to take your head, Vane," I said. My voice sounded like rocks rubbing together.

He jumped at me. He was very fast for a big wolf. A long time ago, he would have caught me in a second. But now, he looked like he was moving underwater. 

I stepped to the side very easily, like I was dancing. My claw scratched his side. It was not a deep cut, but it had a special vampire poison on it. I wanted him to feel it burn.

"You... you are not a wolf," Vane gasped. He fell down because the poison was making his body stop working. He changed back into a human. 

He was shaking in the dirt and could not breathe well. He looked at me, trying to see through the blood in his eyes.

Suddenly, his face turned very white. He smelled the air again. "That smell... I know it. It smells like flowers... and wood."

He pushed himself away from me on his elbows, looking terrified. 

"No. It cannot be you. You are the weak girl from the Blackwood Pack. The one Theron threw away. You are supposed to be dead in the river."

"The river did not want me," I said. I walked toward him slowly. Every step I took felt heavy and strong. "The darkness wanted me instead."

"You are a monster!" he screamed. His voice was shaking. "You are a freak! The Moon Mother has cursed you! Theron was right to say he did not want you. You are an embarrassment to everyone who is alive!"

When he said Theron’s name, I usually felt a big pain in my heart. It was a reminder of the day Theron stood in front of everyone and told me I was nothing. 

He had looked at me like I was a piece of trash. He had made me feel so sad that I wanted to die.

But now, I feel nothing. It was just a hollow feeling where my heart used to be.

"Theron said no to a girl," I whispered. I leaned down so he could see that my eyes did not look human anymore. I put my hand on his chest, and my claws poked his skin. 

"I am the nightmare he got instead of that girl."

I did not kill him fast. I watched him realize that he was going to die. I felt his heart beat faster and then slow down. I was very careful and cold as I finished my job. 

I did not feel bad for him. I only cared about finishing the work.

When he was dead, the village people came out of their houses. They did not say thank you. They did not clap. An old woman looked at me and looked very scared. She said a prayer to keep monsters away.

"Monster," she whispered.

"You are welcome," I said quietly. I wiped the blood off my hand.

Suddenly, a hot pain started to burn in my body. It was the "Hybrid’s Curse." It felt like a fire under my skin. It reminded me that I was in trouble. 

The vampire magic was trying to eat my wolf soul, and my wolf soul was trying to fight back. If I did not find a way to fix it, I would die in two years.

I walked away from the fire and went back into the dark trees. I pulled out a small black phone. It was vibrating. I had a new job to do.

Client: Anonymous 

Job: Protection

Place: The Blackwood Pack

Pay: Lots of money + A special magic item.

I stopped breathing for a second. It wasn't because of the money. It was because of the place.

Blackwood. 

I leaned against a tree. My head felt dizzy. I remembered things I wanted to forget. I remembered the pack standing in a circle, laughing at me while I cried in the mud. 

I remembered Theron’s father smiling while his son broke my heart. I remembered Theron not even looking at me while I ran away into the woods, hurting and alone.

I should not go back, my brain told me.

Go, the darkness whispered. Go and see the man who broke you. Go and see if he is scared of you now.

I touched the screen and said yes to the job. My finger stayed on the map. I was not going back as a daughter of the pack. I was not going back as a mate.

I was going back to make them pay.

Suddenly, a very sharp pain hit my stomach. I fell to my knees. I gasped for air. My skin started to glow with strange black and silver lines. 

The curse was getting worse. The witch had told me this would happen. She said that having two different souls in one body would eventually break me.

I gripped the dirt with my claws. I needed a cure, but I also needed to see him. I wanted to see if Alpha Theron was still mean and proud, or if he had become sad and broken since I left.

I stood up and wiped some black blood from my mouth. The Huntress was going home. 

And this time, I was the one who would decide what happens

.

I moved through the trees like a dark shadow under the moon. I left the Gray Zone behind. 

Behind me, a bird flew over the body of the bad Alpha I had killed.

The hunt was just starting.