Silver and Starlight

The mark burned like a second heartbeat.

I sagged against Caleb's chest, gasping, fingers digging into his bare shoulders as waves of golden warmth pulsed from the bite on my neck through every vein, every nerve, every forgotten corner of my body. It was like swallowing sunlight after six years of darkness.

Then the bond opened.

Not gently. Not gradually. It split open like a wound, and Caleb's emotions flooded into me—a tidal wave so massive I nearly drowned.

*Rage.* Cold, calculated, bottomless rage toward every hand that had ever touched me. I felt him cataloging the faded scars on my wrists, the slight limp in my left ankle from a break that had never been set properly, the way I flinched when voices rose. He was memorizing every injury like a ledger. Like a debt he intended to collect in blood.

*Hunger.* Not for flesh or power. For *me.* A bone-deep, aching need to press his nose to my hair, to count my breaths while I slept, to stand between me and every shadow that had ever made me afraid.

And beneath it all, buried so deep I almost missed it—

*Terror.*

The Alpha who had torn apart three wolves without blinking was terrified. Terrified of losing me. Terrified that the moon had finally answered a prayer he'd been whispering since he was a boy kneeling beside a cold hearth, alone, wondering if the world had anything soft left to offer him.

My eyes burned. "I can feel you," I breathed. "Everything."

Caleb pulled back just enough to look at me. His pupils were blown, the silver reduced to a thin ring. Sweat gleamed on his brow. The temporary mark had cost him too—I could feel the drain through the bond, the raw energy it took to imprint on a Moonborn without a full claiming.

"Good," he said roughly. "Then you know I'm not lying when I tell you I will die before they touch you."

A branch snapped outside the cave.

Caleb was on his feet instantly, shoving me behind him. The gash on his ribs had barely closed, and I could feel through the bond that his wolf was burning through reserves faster than it should. Three kills, a partial marking, and a five-mile sprint carrying me—even an Alpha had limits.

"How many?" I whispered.

He inhaled through the cave mouth, nostrils flaring. His jaw turned to stone.

"Twelve. Full shift. Silver-tipped claws." A pause. "And Richard is with them."

My stomach dropped. Richard never joined hunts personally. He sat in his leather chair, sipped bourbon, and waited for his wolves to drag back trophies. If he was here, this wasn't a retrieval mission.

It was an execution.

"Caleb, you can't fight twelve with silver. Not after—"

"I said I would die before they touch you." He glanced back, and a ghost of that dark smirk crossed his face. "I didn't say I planned to die."

He pressed two fingers to his lips and whistled—a sharp, three-note pattern that cut through the night like a blade. Then he positioned himself at the cave entrance, legs braced, arms loose at his sides. Waiting.

The first wolf appeared between the trees.

Then the second. The third. They materialized from the shadows like a nightmare taking shape—massive, snarling, their claws glinting with the telltale shimmer of liquid silver coating. Behind them, still in human form, walked Alpha Richard.

My step-father looked nothing like the composed politician from the ballroom. His dress shirt was torn open, his face twisted with a fury so raw it bordered on madness. Veins bulged at his temples. His eyes locked on the cave entrance, on the faint golden glow of the mark on my neck, and something shattered behind his gaze.

"You marked her?" Richard's voice was a serrated whisper. "You fool. You absolute fool. Do you have any idea what you've just bonded yourself to?"

Caleb didn't flinch. "My mate."

"Your *extinction!*" Richard roared. Spittle flew from his lips. "The Moonborn aren't gifts from the goddess, you ignorant pup. They're abominations. Channels. Every century, one is born, and every century, they rip the veil between our world and what lies beneath it. Her mother nearly opened it before I put her down. The girl carries the same curse."

The words hit me like silver bullets.

*Curse. Abomination. Channel.*

Through the bond, I felt Caleb's reaction—a flicker of uncertainty, quickly smothered beneath iron resolve. He didn't turn to look at me. He didn't waver.

"Liar," Caleb said calmly.

"Am I?" Richard stepped forward, arms spread. "Ask yourself why the Moonborn were hunted. Not by rogues. Not by humans. By the packs themselves. By the original Alphas. Because every time a Moonborn reaches full power, something wakes up, Vance. Something old. Something hungry. And it uses them as a door."

My wolf whimpered. The golden warmth of the mark suddenly felt heavier, darker, like sunlight laced with shadow. Fragments of my mother's final words clawed at my memory.

*"Don't let them see what you are, baby. Not because they'll hurt you. Because you'll hurt them."*

I had always thought she meant the packs would fear me. But what if she meant something else entirely?

"Enough talk." Richard's voice dropped to ice. "Kill the Shadow Alpha. Bring me the girl alive. I need her blood before the next full moon."

The twelve wolves lunged.

Caleb shifted mid-leap, his black wolf erupting with a roar that shook pine needles from the canopy. He met the first three head-on, jaws snapping, claws raking. But silver burned where it touched. I saw the smoke rise from his fur, heard his snarl twist with pain as a silver-coated claw raked his flank.

Four wolves broke past him.

Straight toward me.

I scrambled deeper into the cave, my bare feet slipping on damp stone. The first wolf lunged through the vine curtain, yellow eyes locked on my throat. I threw my arms up instinctively, a scream tearing from my chest—

And the world turned white.

Light erupted from my palms—not fire, not electricity—*moonlight.* Pure, concentrated, blinding lunar energy that poured from my hands like water from a broken dam. It slammed into the wolf mid-air, and the creature didn't just stop. It *dissolved.* Fur and flesh and bone came apart like ash in a hurricane, scattering into silver dust that hung in the air like frozen stars.

The remaining three wolves skidded to a halt, yelping, scrambling backward.

I stared at my hands. They were glowing. Veins of liquid silver light pulsed beneath my skin, crawling up my forearms, branching across my collarbones like living constellations. The mark on my neck blazed so brightly it cast shadows on the cave walls.

Power. Ancient, terrible, intoxicating power surged through me, and my wolf didn't just wake up—she *ascended.* I felt her merge with something deeper, something that had been sleeping in my blood since birth, waiting for this exact moment.

Through the bond, I felt Caleb's shock. Then his awe. Then a fierce, primal pride that made my chest ache.

Outside, Richard stumbled backward, his face draining of color. "No. No, it's too soon. She hasn't reached the full moon yet. She shouldn't be able to—"

I stepped out of the cave.

The moonlight followed me. It clung to my skin, pooled at my feet, turned my silver-blonde hair luminous white. The wolves between me and Caleb cowered, pressing their bellies to the earth. Even Richard's knees buckled, though hatred kept him upright.

Caleb, bloodied and burning from silver wounds, shifted back to human form. He stared at me like he was seeing the moon itself walk the earth. Blood dripped from a dozen cuts, but he was smiling. That dark, savage, beautiful smile.

"There she is," he murmured.

The three-note whistle he'd sent earlier was finally answered.

From the northern ridge, shadows poured down the hillside—dozens of them, massive wolves in formation, moving with military precision. At the front ran a rust-colored wolf the size of a horse, flanked by two gray sentinels. Caleb's Shadow Pack.

Richard's wolves broke ranks. Some shifted back, throwing their hands up in surrender. Others bolted into the trees. But Richard himself stood rooted, staring at me with an expression I had never seen on his face before.

Not anger. Not greed.

*Fear.*

"You don't know what you are, girl," he whispered. "And when you find out, you'll wish I had killed you tonight."

He shifted—a stocky brown wolf with a scarred muzzle—and vanished into the darkness before the Shadow Pack reached us.

The rust-colored wolf skidded to a halt and shifted. A tall woman with close-cropped auburn hair, a jagged scar across her left eye, and arms corded with lean muscle stood where the wolf had been. She wore combat boots and a look of barely controlled fury.

"Alpha," she barked, eyes sweeping over Caleb's wounds. "You called a solo extraction without backup? Again?"

"I had it handled, Reyna," Caleb said, swaying slightly on his feet.

Reyna's scarred eye twitched. "You're standing in a puddle of your own blood."

"Flesh wounds."

"Three of them are *smoking,* you insufferable—" Her gaze landed on me. On the fading moonlight still dancing across my skin. On the mark glowing on my neck. Her expression went from fury to something unreadable.

"Moon above," she breathed. "She's real."

Caleb limped to my side, and without ceremony, pulled me against him. His arm draped over my shoulders, heavy with exhaustion but still possessive. Still anchoring.

"Reyna, meet Aria." His voice was hoarse, fading. "My mate. The last Moonborn. And apparently, she can disintegrate wolves with her bare hands."

Through the bond, I felt his heartbeat slowing. His wolf retreating. The silver poison creeping deeper. He was hiding how badly he was hurt.

"Caleb." I gripped his arm. "You're—"

"Fine." His knees buckled.

I caught him. All six-foot-four of him, collapsing into my arms like a fallen god. Reyna lunged forward, and together we lowered him to the forest floor. His eyes were dimming, the silver spreading through his veins in dark, spidery lines visible beneath his skin.

"Silver poisoning," Reyna hissed. "Multiple entry points. We need a healer. Now."

She turned to shout orders at the arriving pack, but I was staring at my hands. The hands that had just turned a wolf to dust. The hands still faintly pulsing with moonlight.

*Heal with a touch,* Caleb had said about my mother. *She could heal with a touch.*

I pressed my glowing palms flat against his chest.

"Don't you dare die," I whispered. "You said you wouldn't leave me. You said—"

The light poured out of me.

And everything went dark.