2. Someone... help

Slowly, I forced my eyes open, my heart already prepared to plead, to swear I hadn’t seen anything, to beg for mercy. But as my lips twitched with no words forming, only broken whispers, I found the foot of the tree empty.

No one was there.

I looked around from the tree, and no one came into view except the woman still sprawled in the mud a few meters away, her body crippled and her hands fallen limply to her sides.

My heart tightened when she tried to whisper something through the pain and weakness consuming her. I couldn’t make it out clearly, but I thought I heard…

“Someone… help.”

Without thinking, reckless, terrified, and desperate, I made the greatest mistake of my life. I climbed down from the tree and rushed toward her. She looked so feeble, struggling to lift her head from the mud, her strength failing her completely.

I couldn’t stand there and do nothing.

Dropping into a crouch, I tried to turn her onto her side, but blood kept pouring from her head, warm and sticky, soaking my hands and staining my already torn clothes. Panic clawed up my throat.

What do I do?

Confusion wrapped around me like a suffocating veil. The air drained from my lungs as she lay motionless, save for a weak twitch of her arm, a reflex, nothing more. Fear struck me hard. She was losing too much blood and If I didn’t stop it, she would die within minutes. The thought alone scared me more.

I didn’t hesitate. I tore at my clothes, ignoring how the ripped fabric exposed my thighs to the cold air. My hands shook violently as I pressed the cloth against her wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

I really… really tried. But due to my trembling form, the cloth only wrapped loosely around the wound. By now my entire body was a mess of a stranger’s blood. I tried to turn her onto her side but failed after two attempts due to her weight and my lack of breakfast that morning.

Then suddenly, a striking chill hit me as the air left my lungs.

I froze in disbelief as I stared at her.

Luna Venice.

Luna of the Silver Moon Pack.

My breath hitched painfully.

The dirty mud glued to her face like a second skin, smearing every inch of her once-beautiful pale face. Her shimmering blue gown was ruined, filled with dirt, no different from the skin that had once glowed with authority and grace.

I was buried deep in the shocking, horrific discovery, absent to the surrounding footsteps, until a strangled groan tore through the woods.

The entire air stilled. Even my legs couldn’t move. My trembling body quaked violently under the suffocating grunt of whoever it was. It carried raw power… one I couldn’t withstand. My knees buckled, and I dropped with a hard thud into the mud.

The dirt smeared my body with a brutal splash, sending a few strands of dirty sand into my eyes. Pain exploded instantly. I rubbed at my eyes desperately, but it only made the discomfort worse. I couldn’t see.

Blind and panicking, I scrambled on my knees, one hand clawing at the ground for anything… anything, to wipe my eyes. The pain traveled straight to my brain cells, the darkness unbearable, and my heart pounded violently with unmatched fear.

In the background, I could make out heavy footsteps closing in on me, probably from where Luna lay, because when my arms flailed through the air looking for anything at all to wipe my eyes with. Untill, I stumbled into a strong, wretched frame, like a statue standing unmoved.

My lungs gave out as his scent, his unmistakable mint-and-woody scent, flooded my nostrils. I froze in place, my chest shuddering uncontrollably.

My hands went numb as I felt it, his firm grip closing over my head. Direct and unforgiving, pulling at the strands of my hair and drawing me closer, so close that I slammed into his hardened frame. I wailed as pain shot through my entire body.

Then, with one brutal force, he yanked me by my hair, a strangled scream tearing from my lips at the intensity of his pull. He didn’t stop until I was standing inches away, his breath fanning across my scalp.

Despite the searing pain, I blinked repeatedly, forcing my eyes open again and again until I was staring into the most dangerous shade of blue eyes I had ever seen.

Marvin.

Luna Venice’s son, and the soon-to-be Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack.

His gaze bore into mine, unnerving, darkened, and so intense that the world around us blurred into nothingness. Only my ragged breaths and the panic clinging to me remained.

“How could you?” he growled.

His rage was palpable. Bruising, crushing.

“I… I…” I stammered under his relentless grip, the pull on my hair forcing painful whimpers from my lips.

I cried out and squeezed my eyes shut in agony. When I opened them again, my breath caught as he jerked me forward,

his claws were dangerously piercing into my scalp. Another scar I knew would never fade away. Scar that would haunt me for as long as I lived.

Then he released me and I crashed into the dirty muds. His gaze fixed on my collapsed form, sting with something intense… something dark. A promise that this wasn't over. This nightmare was only the beginning.

But… for what exactly?

I couldn’t yet tell, not until it all began to make sense.