Epilogue – Five Years Later: The Weight of the Moon

Dawn crept over the cliffs, slow and bruised, washing the sea in pale gold.

The old villa was gone. The sea, as ever, remained — steady, patient, unchanged in its hunger. It lapped against the rocks with the same rhythm as the night they had first arrived, though now it sounded older, wearier — as if it, too, had seen too many storms to still believe in calm.

Five years had passed since that night beneath the full moon, when they shed both fear and skin.

Five years of moving, hiding, surviving.

Two relocations.

Two trials.

And one litter of werewolf cubs that had changed everything.

Anna woke first.

The curtains swayed in the ocean breeze, tracing light across her face. Her hair had grown longer—dark waves streaked with silver. Not from age, but from the moonlight that had never left her since that night. Her beauty had sharpened over time—not softer, but honed, like a blade that gleamed because it had been used, not preserved.

She sat up slowly, listening.

A sound drifted from the ne