Chapter 4

​"Please... just a little further," I whimpered to myself, my knees buckling under my own weight as I stumbled over a mossy tree root.

​I hit the damp earth hard, scraping my palms against the jagged stones. The impact didn't even hurt anymore. My entire body had gone numb hours ago.

​Four days.

​It had been four agonizing days since the High Council stripped me of my name, my pack, and my dignity. Four days of wandering through the dense, unforgiving wilderness of the southern borderlands, living off muddy creek water and a few bitter, unripened berries I managed to scavenge from wild bushes.

​"Get up, Nyx," I whispered, forcing my trembling arms to push my chest off the ground. "You can't lie down here. If you lie down, you won't get back up."

'​I'm tired, Nyx'... a faint, cracked voice whispered in the back of my mind.

​It was my wolf. She sounded so small, so broken. Ever since Calix severed our mate bond in front of the entire kingdom, the invisible thread tethering my soul to hers had been slowly fraying. Rejection wasn't just an emotional agony; it was a physical poison that slowly starved a wolf from the inside out if they couldn't find a way to heal.

​"I know you're tired," I choked out, a warm tear slipping down my dirty cheek and splashing onto the cold moss. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I couldn't give us a better life."

'​It hurts... everything burns...' she whimpered softly, her spirit curling into a tight, weak ball deep within my chest before sinking back into a silent stupor.

​"Don't leave me," I begged, clutching my stomach as a fierce, sharp wave of hunger pangs twisted my insides. "Please, don't sleep. You're all I have left."

​The forest around me was silent, wrapped in a thick blanket of gray fog. The pine trees towered over me like silent judgmenters, blocking out whatever warmth the pale afternoon sun tried to offer.

​I dragged myself up against the trunk of an ancient oak, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. My dress was shredded at the hem, stained with mud, dried blood, and dirt. The thin cloak I carried barely kept the freezing mountain draft from biting through my skin.

​And on my neck, the Mark of the Eclipse throbbed with a dull, persistent heat. The black crescent moon encircled by silver thorns felt heavier with every passing hour, a constant, cruel reminder of the night my entire world fell apart.

​"Why didn't you just let them execute me, Goddess?" I looked up through the dark canopy of leaves, my voice trembling with raw, bitter anger. "Why leave me out here to starve like a dog? Is this your grand design for the Cursed Luna?!"

​Naturally, the sky offered no answers. Only the distant howl of the wind rushing through the canyon answered my desperate cries.

​I reached into my canvas bag, my fingers brushing against the cold, empty bottom. The stale crust of bread was long gone. My canteen was down to its last bitter drop.

​"Water first," I muttered to myself, shakingly lifting the wooden canteen to my chapped lips. I tilted it back, letting the cold liquid hit my parched throat.

​Only a single drop wet my tongue.

​"No, no, no..." I shook the canteen violently near my ear. Empty. "No, please!"

​I dropped the canteen into the dirt, burying my face in my trembling hands as dry, painful sobs wracked my frame. I had no strength left to hunt. I had no fire to keep warm. I was an eighteen-year-old girl dying alone in the dark, forgotten by the world that had promised to protect me.

​"Calix..." his name slipped off my tongue before I could stop it, leaving a metallic, bitter taste in my mouth. "Did you ever care? Was I just a convenient choice until the moon proved otherwise?"

​I remembered his eyes from that night—the sudden, cold distance that replaced years of shared laughter, warm smiles, and gentle promises. He hadn't even hesitated. When forced to choose between a girl who loved him and the shiny golden crown of an Alpha, he stepped over my bleeding body without looking back.

​"I hate you," I whispered to the empty forest, wiping the dirty tears from my eyes with the back of my sleeve. "I hate you, Calix Ashborne. I hate my parents. I hate Asteria."

​The anger gave my weak muscles a tiny, flickering surge of warmth. I forced myself to stand up, using the rough bark of the oak tree for support.

​"I'm not dying in this ditch," I growled through clenched teeth, my jaw trembling from the cold. "If you want me dead, Goddess, you're going to have to drag me down yourself."

​I took one slow, painful step forward. Then another. Dragging my bleeding, bare feet across the carpet of sharp pine needles, forcing my broken wolf to keep moving forward into the unknown.

​The fog grew thicker as the afternoon faded into a twilight gloom.

​I had managed to find a shallow, trickling stream near the base of a rocky ridge, burying my face directly into the freezing water to slake my burning thirst. It gave me a momentary spark of clarity, but it did nothing to quiet the hollow, painful emptiness in my stomach.

​My head snapped up from the water's edge, water dripping from my chin.

​The forest had gone entirely quiet. The birds that had been chirping in the upper canopy a few minutes ago had vanished. The wind seemed to hold its breath.

​"Who's there?" I called out, scrambling backward onto the slippery river stones, clutching my thin cloak tightly around my chest.

​No voice answered. But from the dense brush across the narrow stream, a low, guttural growl vibrated through the damp air.

​My heart slammed against my ribs. "Show yourself!"

​The bushes parted, and a massive, gray wolf stepped out onto the muddy bank.

​His coat was matted with dried blood and mud, his fur patchy and scarred. His yellow eyes were wild, bloodshot, and completely unhinged—the unmistakable mark of a rogue werewolf. A wolf who had lost his mind to the bloodlust after being cast out from a pack for too long.

'​Danger! Nyx, move!' my wolf screamed weakly in my head, trying to force a surge of adrenaline into my exhausted veins.

​The gray wolf bared his long, yellowed fangs, thick spittle dripping from his jaws as he let out a menacing growl that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

​"Stay back!" I stammered, picking up a heavy, sharp-edged river rock with my shaking right hand. "I'm warning you! I don't want to fight!"

​The rogue didn't care about warnings. He was driven purely by hunger and wild instinct. He locked his bloodshot eyes onto my bare, exposed throat.

​With a terrifying, guttural roar, the rogue leaped across the narrow stream.

​"Ahhh!" I screamed, hurling the river rock with all the strength I had left.

​The rock caught him squarely in the shoulder, but it barely slowed him down. The massive wolf slammed into my chest, knocking the air completely out of my lungs as we tumbled backward onto the sharp, jagged stones of the riverbank.

​"Get off me!" I shrieked, kicking wildly with my legs as his heavy paws pinned my shoulders to the ground.

​The rogue snapped his jaws inches from my face. I could smell the stench of rotting meat and wet fur on his breath. I jammed my forearms against his throat, holding his snapping jaws back with every ounce of physical strength remaining in my weak body.

​"Nyx... fight back!" I screamed at myself, my muscles burning, trembling under his immense weight.

​I tried to summon my wolf's strength, to push the shifter power into my limbs, but my wolf was too weak from the rejection bond. She couldn't give me the power I needed. The rogue pushed down harder, his claws digging deep into my collarbone, slicing through the thin fabric of my dress.

​"Ahgh!" I cried out as blood welled up from the deep gashes on my shoulder.

​The rogue smelled the blood and went wild. He snapped his head sideways, bypassing my weak forearm guard, and clamped his jaw onto my upper left arm.

​A sickening crunch echoed through the quiet clearing as his fangs sank deep into my flesh.

​"AAAAAHHHHH!" a blood-curdling scream tore from my throat, tears instantly blinding my vision as excruciating pain erupted through my arm.

​"Let go! Please! Let go!" I hit his nose with my free fist, punching him again and again, but the rogue only bit down harder, thrashing his heavy head side to side, intent on tearing my arm clean off my body.

​I was losing. I was too weak, too hungry, too broken to fight off a fully grown rogue wolf.

​My vision began to blur at the edges, darkening into black spots. My blows grew weaker, my fists sliding harmlessly off his blood-matted fur.

'​So this is how it ends,' I thought bitterly, as the cold mountain air mixed with the hot, coppery taste of my own blood in my mouth. 'Not by a curse. Not by an executioner's blade. Just torn apart in the mud like trash.'

​The rogue loosened his grip on my shredded arm, lifting his heavy head to deliver the final, crushing bite directly to my exposed throat.

​I closed my eyes, weeping quietly, waiting for the cold darkness to swallow me whole.

​"I'm sorry..." I whispered into the quiet air. "I'm so sorry..."

​BUT a sudden, sharp sound cut through the roar of the river.

​Before the rogue's fangs could reach my neck, a heavy, brutal force slammed into the side of his head with the power of a thunderbolt.

​The rogue let out a high-pitched yelp, his massive body flung violently off me, crashing hard into the river stones ten feet away.

​I gasped, pulling my bleeding arm against my chest, coughing violently as air rushed back into my lungs. I blinked away the tears and blood blurring my eyes, struggling to see through the gloom.

​Standing between me and the struggling rogue was a tall figure shrouded in dark, unadorned leather armor.

​He wore a dark cloth mask that covered the lower half of his face, leaving only a pair of piercing, razor-sharp silver eyes visible under the deep hood of his cloak. He held no weapon. His hands were bare, curled into tight, lethal fists.

​"Wh... who..." I choked out, my voice barely a rasp.

​The warrior didn't answer. He didn't even look back at me.

​The rogue scrambled up from the rocks, shaking his bloodied head, letting out a furious, deafening roar at the intruder who had interrupted his kill. The rogue lunged forward, throwing his full weight toward the stranger's throat.

​The masked warrior didn't flinch. He didn't step back.

​With terrifying, effortless speed, the stranger stepped inside the rogue's attack line. He grabbed the massive wolf by the throat with a single, iron-clad hand, stopping the beast's momentum dead in its tracks.

​The rogue thrashed violently, clawing frantically at the stranger's arm, but the masked warrior stood like a mountain carved from stone.

​"Foolish beast," a deep, quiet voice muttered from beneath the cloth mask.

​With a swift, brutal twist of his wrist, a sharp crack echoed through the riverbank.

​The rogue's thrashing instantly stopped. His eyes went glassy, and his heavy, lifeless body collapsed onto the river stones, splashing limply into the shallow water.

​Silence returned to the forest, broken only by the gentle trickling of the stream and my own ragged, desperate breathing.

​I stared in absolute shock at the fallen rogue, then lifted my terrified gaze to the stranger standing over the body. He slowly wiped a spot of rogue blood off his leather glove, his shoulders rising and falling in calm, steady rhythm.

​"P-Please..." I whimpered, dragging myself backward against the muddy bank, clutching my bleeding, mangled arm. "Don't... don't hurt me..."

​The masked warrior turned his head toward me. His sharp silver eyes scanned my trembling form—taking in my shredded dress, my bare, bloodied feet, the deep claw marks on my shoulder, and finally, the throbbing, silver-bordered mark on my neck.

​He didn't flinch at the sight of the Cursed Luna mark. He didn't pull a weapon. He didn't look at me with disgust or terror.

​He simply stepped closer.

​"Stay back!" I cried out, holding my uninjured hand out defensively, though I knew it was useless against someone who had just snapped a werewolf's neck with his bare hands. "Just leave me alone!"

​The stranger stopped three paces away. He reached into a leather pouch at his waist and pulled out a small, dark glass bottle and a roll of clean, white linen bandages.

​Without saying a single word, he knelt down on one knee in the mud and set the bottle and bandages on a flat, dry stone right beside me.

​I stared at the glass bottle, then up at his masked face. "What... what is that?"

​The warrior remained silent. He pointed a gloved finger at my bleeding arm, then at the bottle, indicating that the liquid inside would clean the wound.

​"You're... helping me?" I asked, my voice cracking with pure disbelief. "Why? Don't you know who I am? Don't you see the mark?"

​I pulled my thin cloak aside, fully exposing the black crescent moon and silver thorns carved into my flesh. "I'm cursed! Everyone who comes near me dies! The High Council banished me! The villagers threw stones at me! Why aren't you running away?!"

​The masked stranger paused. He looked down at the glowing mark on my neck for a long, quiet moment.

​Then, he lifted his gaze back to my eyes.

​For the first time, I saw something in those sharp silver eyes beneath the hood. It wasn't hatred. It wasn't fear. It was a deep, quiet respect—and perhaps, a faint trace of pity that he quickly masked beneath a stern, military gaze.

​He reached into his pouch once more, pulling out a small, wrapped leather package. He set it down beside the medicine. The rich, savory scent of dried meat and baked bread immediately wafted out from the wrapping, making my mouth water instantly.

​"Eat," the stranger spoke, his voice low, rough, and carefully disguised. It was the first word he had spoken directly to me.

​He stood up, turning his back on me to face the dark forest path.

​"Wait!" I called out, pushing myself up onto my good elbow, staring at his retreating back. "Wait, please! Who are you? Why are you doing this for a stranger?!"

​The masked warrior stopped at the edge of the tree line. He didn't turn around, but he tilted his head slightly, listening to my voice.

​"I don't even know your name," I sobbed softly, tears of pure relief flooding my eyes as I looked at the food and medicine he had left behind. "How can I thank you if I don't know who saved my life?"

​The stranger stood silent in the gloom for a three agonizing seconds.

​"Live, Nyx," he murmured, his voice barely louder than the rustling leaves, yet carrying a weight that sent a shiver straight down my spine. "Just live."

​Before I could ask how he knew my name, the masked warrior leaped into the high branches of the pine trees, vanishing into the gray fog as if he had never existed at all.

​"Wait!" I yelled into the empty forest, but only the cold wind answered.

​I lay back on the riverbank, holding the clean white bandages against my chest, staring up at the darkening sky as the first drops of rain began to fall.

​I was still exiled. I was still hunted. I was still the Cursed Luna that the entire kingdom feared.

​But as I reached out with a trembling, bloodied hand to open the food he had left for me, a tiny, quiet realization settled deep within my chest.

​I wasn't completely alone in the dark anymore.