LilyLily couldn’t quite believe what she was doing as she walked down to the training fields. Her canvas sneakers squeaked with every step as they met dew-damp grass. Everything about this felt wrong, crooked somehow, distorted from the norm - from the way it should be.“I’m so proud of you,” her dad was saying, his chest puffed out and his eyes, so like hers, round with fondness. “Taking a stand with Alpha Atticus. It’s right, you know? You were destined to be his Luna, after all.”Lily swallowed hard. “I just agreed to train with him this morning, that’s all.” Her voice wavered; she swallowed again, hating the quiver of uncertainty. “I don’t… I don’t know what I’m going to say to him yet. And as for being his Luna…”He clapped her shoulder with a calloused palm. “I know, you’ve got that Alpha Elijah now. But this is your home, Lils. This is where you belong.” He paused; Lily turned to look at him as his eyes flicked up to the sun-streaked dawn sky. “I think this had to happen. It’s

LilySlim fingers knotted together. Lily paused, the pads of her fingertips brushing over naked skin where once a garnet ring had sat. Still she missed the feel of it, the metal warm from her body heat, the red stone glinting in the summer sun. That sun was long lost now, as well. Autumn was settling in, the leaves as red as the garnet had been; some drifted slowly to the grass, twirling downwards, back and forth, with a sad air to them that she couldn’t quite place. A leaf couldn’t be sad – could it?She bit her lip and turned away from the window. The kitchen felt too still and too quiet. Lily turned her eyes away from her father, latching them onto the flowers at the table’s centre. Her heart warmed momentarily, thoughts of her mother easing the tension she could feel rising rapidly between them. It formed an invisible wall, thickening with every second that passed in silence.Her dad knew what she was going to say. It had settled into every crease of his face, from the crinkles a

LilyIt was strange, Lily thought, as she retraced the same steps she’d taken before, so many months ago now, that her father was with her. He walked with a permanent scowl, though it was neither malicious nor unkind; it was a scowl of defeat, of questioning a choice too long after it had been made to do anything about it now.“I’m glad you came,” she said, eyeing him sideways. “So am I,” he replied, too quickly.Lily smiled wryly. “No, you aren’t.”He sighed. “It’s getting dark. And I just realised…”“That you have no real bed?” she finished for him.“Exactly.”“We have a tent. And bedrolls. And blankets.” She shrugged. “We’ll be fine.”He wrapped his arms around himself. “It’s autumn.”“And?”“And it’ll be cold. We can’t light a fire, I know, but…”“I know, Dad. I’m sorry.”“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” His mouth twisted. “I wasn’t going to let you go alone.”Lily let the silence swallow them both. She knew what he wanted her to say: let’s go home, Dad, and I’ll force

LilyLips pulled back from teeth, yellow and warped. Blood oozed from wounds, recent and old, dribbling down the creature’s furred chest. Lily’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even blink.Time froze around them. Locked in its gaze, her mind flailed for a way out, considering a thousand useless ideas and tossing them aside in that elongated instant. Everything seemed important: her dad’s pulse throbbing violently against her palm, the pull of skin over her knuckles, the way her knees locked and the shallow amount of air left in her lungs. The flicker of a leave overhead, glistening gold in the gossamer sunlight, marked a cool breeze curling through the woods. With it came the stale scent of decay, pungent and rotting as it swarmed Lily’s nostrils.She inhaled, only to exhale hastily, the smell making first bile and then saliva pool on her tongue. She blinked, half hoping that the creature would disappear when she opened her eyes again. It didn’t.Her dad r

LilyThe portal loomed ahead. Jared had found his way back to it effortlessly, taking turns that made no sense and going back on himself just as much as he’d walked forward. A part of Lily was glad that he’d found them and taken them captive, even though her shoulder throbbed and blood still seeped into the hastily-made bandage wrapped haphazardly round it. Without him, she doubted they would ever have found their way to Red Ripper’s magical territory.She squinted up at the trees. Half of their branches were bare, gnarled and knobbly as aged fingers. The others were too deep into autumn for the season, painted in dark reds and fading browns. One drifted to the ground in front of her, and she reached for it. It fluttered onto her palm and crumbled into ash. “Hurry up,” snarled Jared, saliva flicking from his distorted snout. It was almost impossible to make out the words, so thick and throaty was his voice. Rather than individual sounds, it was a growl split into syllables that hardl