Duskwind Hollow smelled like pine, smoke, and something far older than time.
Aria Monroe stepped off the last bus with a worn duffel bag slung over her shoulder and a feeling in her chest that she couldn't explain. Not dread exactly but something close. Like the air here didn't just move… it watched.
The town was buried deep in the forests of Blackridge County, a name she'd only ever heard in one of her mother's stories. A place filled with whispered bloodlines, cursed moons, and creatures that ruled the woods at night.
She never thought it was real until her mother died and the letter arrived, calling her back to a place she never knew she'd belonged.
She walked up the gravel path, boots crunching over dead leaves, until her aunt's house came into view an old Victorian manor curled in vines and silence. The windows stared like hollow eyes. The porch groaned beneath her step as she approached, but the key slid into the lock like it had been waiting for her.
Inside, the air was thick with dust and something sweeter like wildflowers and ash. Her fingers brushed the dusty banister as she climbed to the second floor. But before she could unpack or breathe, she felt it.
A sudden prickle up her spine.
The unmistakable sense that she wasn't alone.
She stepped out onto the back porch, her breath catching in the cold night air. The trees behind the house were a wall of shadow and mist. Somewhere beyond them, a low growl rolled through the silence. Not angry. Not animal. Warning.
And then she saw him.
Half in the trees, half in moonlight.
A man tall, shirtless, muscular. His dark hair fell over his brow in messy waves. His jaw was sharp, his chest rising and falling like he'd run here just to find her. But it wasn't his body that stopped her it was his eyes. Gold and glowing faintly, like fire behind frost.
He didn't speak. Just stared. And in that stare was something ancient.
Something primal.
Something that knew her before she even stepped foot in this town.
Aria swallowed hard. "Who are you?"
He stepped closer, slowly. The moonlight caught the curve of his shoulder, the claw like scars down his ribs.
"You smell like moonlight," he said, voice rough. "And danger."
She froze, her heart hammering. The space between them hummed, her skin burning without touch.
But then another voice.
Cold. Clear. Authority dripping from every syllable.
"Back off, Rafe. She's not yours."
A second man stepped out from the shadows, this one dressed in black. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows, exposing strong forearms and veins that twitched as he moved. He was taller. Broader. Calm in a way that demanded obedience.
Where the first man was wild heat—this one was ice and fire in perfect control.
Aria's breath hitched. "And who the hell are you?"
He gave her a slow, deliberate look like he was cataloguing her.
"I'm Lucien Blackthorn. Alpha of Duskwind Hollow."
The words made the air shift.
Alpha.
As if the forest bowed when he said it.
Lucien stepped closer until the distance between them was a heartbeat, maybe less. His hand brushed her hair back, fingers grazing the soft skin at her neck.
"You don't know what you are yet," he murmured. "But I do."
Aria's eyes narrowed. "And what exactly am I?"
His gaze fell to the curve of her collarbone, where the faint crescent-shaped birthmark glowed under the porch light. She noticed it flare warm for a second like it was responding to him.
"You were born for me," Lucien said. "You carry the mark of the Moon Goddess. You're my fated mate."
Aria took a step back, her body tingling with heat and confusion.
"You don't get to walk in here and claim me like I'm some prize," she said. "I don't even know you."
But it was Rafe who spoke next. His voice was rough, bitter. "That's because he's been hiding it. Keeping her from knowing who she is."
Lucien turned, slow and cold. "Don't speak of things you don't understand."
"Oh, I understand perfectly," Rafe snapped. "You think claiming her will fix everything—your cursed bloodline, the broken treaty
"She is the prophecy," Lucien growled. "She doesn't get to choose."
Aria's voice cut through them. "Excuse me? I don't get to what?"
Silence.
The tension was alive, coiling around her throat.
Rafe looked at her, softer this time. "The prophecy says the girl with the crescent mark will either unite the packs… or destroy them. It says she'll be claimed by the Alpha. But if she loves the wrong wolf…"
He didn't finish.
He didn't have to.
Lucien's stare burned into hers, unrelenting. "Don't listen to him. That mark is mine. That bond you feel? That fire under your skin? It only exists because we were chosen."
Aria's knees felt weak, her heart torn between two forces pulling her from opposite ends of fate. One wolf that claimed her by prophecy.
And another who called to her soul.
Whatever this was, it wasn't love.
Not yet.
It was danger.
And she had just stepped into the middle of a war that had waited centuries for her blood to spill.