Chapter One: The Luna’s Death

Nico’s Point of View

My arms were folded tightly across my chest, not just in irritation but in sheer disgust.

Tell me—how would you feel if there were dead bodies scattered across your living room?

Not that I needed an answer. The stench of blood was enough to choke me, and the sight was worse.

I forced myself to point at the lifeless wolves sprawled across the floor. Their bodies were still warm, too fresh to be from long ago. It felt like the killer was still here in the kingdom, watching us, taking notes, waiting for the next strike.

But it wasn’t just death. It was desecration. Their eyes had been plucked out, their bellies ripped open so that their intestines spilled out onto the blood-stained floor. My throat tightened, and I turned away before bile rose in my mouth.

“Is this all the bodies for today?” The Alpha’s voice boomed from behind. None of us had heard him enter the warehouse.

“Yes, Alpha,” the servants stammered, bowing quickly when they realized it was Alpha James.

His gaze was cold, heavy, and it landed on me. “How many deaths since these killings began?”

“Fifty, Father,” I answered, careful to keep my tone respectful.

Alpha James didn’t tolerate mistakes, and I wasn’t in the mood to land in his bad books. I was far from the perfect daughter as it was.

He cleared his throat, brushing invisible dust from his cloak. “I’ll summon the council of chiefs.”

I gave a stiff nod, then turned to leave the warehouse, desperate to get away from the suffocating stench and the silent accusation in every pair of empty wolf eyes.

But even as I walked away, I knew—this was only the beginning of a greater calamity.

My mother’s chambers had always been my safe place, the only spot in the entire palace where I could breathe. Painted in dark browns and greens, with emeralds glinting faintly on the walls, the room carried an elegance that whispered of her Luna title.

But tonight, the elegance felt heavy, suffocating.

I pushed the door open and slipped inside. My heartbeat hammered in my chest so violently I thought it might rip me open from the inside. I couldn’t explain it, but dread had sunk its claws into me long before I reached this door.

“Mother?”

My voice cracked in the silence.

Nothing.

“Luna Emerald?” I tried again, softer, like maybe she would scold me for disturbing her.

No answer. Only silence thick enough to choke me.

I stepped further inside, perching on the edge of her bed, trying to convince myself I was imagining things. Then I heard it—the faint rush of water from the bathroom.

Relief surged through me. She was there. She was fine.

But when I opened the bathroom door, the world fell apart.

My mother lay sprawled across the white tiles, crimson soaking everything. The water was still running, mixing with her blood and turning the floor into a river of red.

Her chest wasn’t rising. Her lips were blue.

“Mother!” My knees buckled as I crashed to the floor beside her. “Luna Emerald!”

I shook her, hard, as if I could jolt life back into her body. My hands were soon slick with blood, her blood, but I didn’t care.

She had to wake up. She just had to.

Tears blurred my vision, hot and heavy, streaming down my face unchecked. For a fleeting second, I told myself that if I filled my head with other thoughts, if I just distracted myself, maybe when I looked back she would be alive again. Breathing again.

But she wasn’t.

And no amount of shaking or praying or begging would change that.

Finally, my arms gave out, and I laid her gently back on the cold tiles, a sob tearing free from my throat.

The Luna of the Moonshadow Pack was dead. My mother—my irreplaceable, fierce, beautiful mother—was gone.

Fifty wolves murdered, and now her.

The next could be me. Or the Beta. Or even my father, the Alpha. No one was safe.

I hugged my knees tightly to my chest, rocking against the bathtub, my hands sticky with blood. My heart screamed with grief, but my mind churned with questions I couldn’t answer. Why her? Why now?

The door banged open.

“What the hell—” Beta Ozor froze in the doorway, his eyes widening as they fell on the Luna’s body. He didn’t ask how I knew. He didn’t ask what had happened. He simply bent down, lifted her lifeless form into his arms, and carried her out.

I stumbled after him, my vision swimming, my whole body trembling.

The Luna was the queen of this pack, the one who kept everything together. And without her, the walls of Moonshadow would crumble, just as surely as the walls of Jericho.

“When did you find her like this?” My father’s voice cut like a blade. The Alpha’s gaze was sharp, suspicious, as if he thought I might have held the knife myself.

“I… I just found her, Alpha,” I whispered, forcing my voice to stay steady. His eyes lingered on me a moment too long, heavy with doubt, but I refused to flinch.

She had to be buried quickly. The wound in her chest proved that much. Whoever had killed her had done it clean, deliberate.

Before I could say another word, a scream split the air from downstairs.

Another death.

Another victim.

And suddenly I knew—we were standing at the edge of something far darker than anyone in Moonshadow had ever faced.