Chloe's Strike's

Reya’s POV 

The scream ripped through the command tent before I even registered the smell of blood.

"Luis!" I bolted out the flap, heart slamming, instincts clawing to the surface.

Chaos. Warriors shouting. A Lycan guard slumped against the wall, throat slit. Blood soaking the ground. My daughter's cries pierced the air from the safehouse nearby.

But Luis was gone.

"What the hell happened?!" I roared.

Xander appeared at my side, eyes wild. "Reya... it's Chloe. She took him. Disguised herself as a medic. Slipped right past our guards."

"No. No, no, NO!"

The world tilted. My knees nearly buckled.

I felt it. The bond. My connection to my son. Distant. Flickering.

"Track her," I snapped. "Now."

A scout stumbled forward, holding a bloodied cloth. Luis's blanket. My wolf thrashed inside me, howling for blood. For vengeance. For my child.

Lycan Xander’s voice was tight. "We picked up her trail heading east. Toward the Alpha Wyvern borderlands."

Of course. Chloe wouldn’t take him to Tristan. She was delivering him to Alpha Wyvern. The monster who wanted me dead.

Rage snapped through me like lightning. And something else.

Heat.

Power.

My pulse thundered. My skin burned.

"Reya," Lycan Xander said carefully, backing a step, "You're glowing."

Literally. My hands were pulsing with silver-blue energy. My veins lit like stars.

I didn’t care.

"Ready the hunt squad. Five minutes. Anyone who can’t keep up, stay the hell out of my way."

The forest tore past in a blur.

Every step felt like fire in my veins. My senses sharpened to deadly precision. I could smell Luis’s scent. Feel the faint tug of his presence.

But deeper, something ancient stirred in me. Something feral and furious.

We crested a ridge. Below, a black SUV tore across the clearing.

"There!" one of the Lycans shouted.

I didn’t wait.

I leapt.

Air cracked as I shifted mid-air, slamming onto the roof of the moving vehicle in full wolf form. My claws tore through the metal. Chloe screamed inside.

The SUV swerved wildly. I held on, ripping open the roof with a snarl.

Luis was in the backseat. Tied. Gagged.

Something inside me snapped.

I launched through the opening, shifting mid-leap.

"DON'T TOUCH MY SON!"

I crashed into the driver—a rogue shifter. Snapped his neck. Chloe screamed, grabbing a dagger.

I caught her wrist.

She tried to fight. I broke her arm.

Luis whimpered. "Mommy!"

I yanked him into my arms, shielding him as the SUV slammed into a tree and flipped.

Pain.

Smoke.

Flames licked at the wreckage. I crawled free; Luis cradled to my chest.

He was breathing. Conscious.

"I've got you, baby. I've got you."

Chloe stumbled out, limping, bloodied. Laughing.

"It’s too late, Reya. You think you’ve won? Alpha Wyvern will never stop hunting you. He wants your son. He wants the Bloodline—"

My scream cut her off.

But it wasn’t human.

It was pure power.

Silver-blue light exploded from me, knocking trees flat in a circle around us. The earth cracked. Chloe flew back thirty feet, hitting a boulder with a sickening crunch.

The power surged uncontrollably, storming through my blood like wildfire. Wolves in the distance howled in terror.

Lycan Xander arrived moments later, frozen at the edge of the blast zone.

"Reya..." His voice trembled. "What... what are you?"

I stared down at my hands.

Smoke curled from my fingertips. The grass beneath me was scorched in the shape of a crescent moon.

Luis clung to my neck, whispering, "You burned the bad lady, Mommy."

I held him tighter.

"Good."

We returned to the outpost just before dawn.

Whispers spread before I even stepped inside.

The guards stared. The warriors bowed.

Not just to me.

To what I had become.

I placed Luis in Jessi’s arms. My daughter ran to hug him, crying.

Lycan Xander approached quietly. " Alpha. Wyvern will come. Chloe was just the opening move."

"Let him."

He eyed the moon-shaped scorch on my forearm. "Your power... it’s awakening faster than we expected."

"Because he took my son. And I won’t let that happen again."

He nodded. "They’re calling you something. The younger Lycans... the scouts who saw what happened."

I raised a brow.

"They call you the Blood Moon."

Later that Night

A raven landed on my windowsill. A scroll tied to its leg.

I read the note in silence.

Then burned it to ash.

Alpha Wyvern had declared war.

And he wanted blood.

He would get it.

But not mine.