Semua Bab The Stray Moon: Bab 11 - Bab 20

The moon breaks over the ridge, bleaching the pines into pale toothpicks and turning the packed snow to mirror glass. I stand at the edge of the forest and fill my lungs with the cold—let it burn all the way down, freeze out what’s left of doubt or softness inside me. The patrol forms up behind, boots crunching in synchronized rhythm, a sound as crisp as bone underfoot.We are six tonight, counting me. Four betas, muscle and hunger layered in quilted black and the kind of nervous energy that only comes when the moon is full and the law is at stake. Two scouts, lean and silent, both with scars that speak for them. I hand-picked every one for what happens next.“Eyes up,” I say, not raising my voice. I don’t need to.They snap to attention anyway, all but Erik—the youngest, barely into his twenties, wolf lineage stretched thin but compensated for with raw, dumb loyalty. He stares at the woods with a look I recognize from the first time I held a man’s throat in my hands: horror spiked wi

The last half-mile is pure instinct—every footfall calculated, every breath measured. The team stops using words; we move on hand signals and the occasional rumble in the throat, a language older than speech. The scent grows stronger, rich with sweat and terror and the sharp note of fresh blood. She’s close. I can feel it, a tension in the air that sets my molars on edge.We fan out, everyone taking their prescribed position. Tessa to my right, Luka to my left, the scouts already vanishing up the low ridge that fences the gully. Erik, to his credit, manages not to trip. I give a silent count—three, two, one—and they begin to close the circle.The forest is blue with moonlight, everything else drowned in shadow. I catch a glimpse of movement up ahead: a flick of gray against the dark, a vibration in the snow as something heavy skids, then rights itself. She’s lost control, no rhythm to her movement, just raw need to run or hide or kill. I raise a fist—universal sign for freeze—and the

The next minute is a test: of patience, of biology, of whose nerves fray first. The wolves hold their posts, hemming me in with a living, bristling fence—fifteen feet, then twelve, then eight. They don’t speak, not with words, but the message is loud as any bar fight invitation. You will not pass.My chest heaves with the effort of staying upright. Legs shake, the left one already spongy and weak. My heartbeat is so loud I wonder if they can hear it, each pulse a drumbeat that says, Run. Run. Run.So I do. Or I try.I fake left, then cut right, low to the ground. The wolf on that side—midnight-black and mean as winter—drops her front end, tail arched like a scythe. I try to bluff her, snapping at her muzzle, but she sidesteps, barely moving. The distance between us shrinks to nothing, and her teeth flash inches from my eyes, a warning shot that says: next time, I don’t miss.I reverse direction, tail tucked, and charge the circle opposite. This wolf is smaller, quicker—he dances back

The snap of bone isn’t the worst part. It’s the way she keeps fighting after—muscle memory, pure and simple, every inch of her still straining for air even as I bear down and make it clear there’s none left for her.My knee is wedged against her ribcage, just behind the foreleg. If I shift my weight a centimeter, she’ll break again, so I don’t. The other wolves ring us in a perfect kill circle, eyes bright in the dark, weapons loose at their sides but ready. Even the ones I trust most keep their hands in plain view. This is about law, but it’s also about theater.She thrashes, a cyclone of claws and teeth and snapping fur. I keep my left hand clamped in the ruff at her neck, thumb jammed behind her ear to keep the jaws away. My right presses into her shoulder until I can feel the pulse hammering underneath, equal parts terror and refusal. She’s lighter than I expected. The thought almost makes me laugh.Moonlight is the only witness—diluted through the pine branches, pooling over the

The world goes so quiet it’s like the whole forest has slipped into a coma.No wind. No rustle from the pack. Not even a mouse under the snow. Just me, kneeling in the center of a blast radius, hands locked on the shoulders of a woman I am now chemically, metaphysically, permanently bound to.My face is a battlefield—want at war with duty, every line carved deeper by the pressure of having to choose. The mate bond is not a gentle thing; it’s a violence. It splits the world into before and after, leaves you clutching the one thing you’re supposed to kill, unable to do either. I can still feel her pulse racing through my palms, in perfect sync with my own.Wren’s body is a map of trauma. She shivers, not just from cold but from the fever that comes after a first forced shift. Every joint looks too sharp, her knees cut and caked with old blood, the fine hairs on her arms standing up against the cold. The only thing about her that isn’t afraid is her eyes. They stay fixed on mine, equal p