For attempting to steal the scroll from the elder's library, Lyra was lashed and forced to go into the forest with warriors as punishment.
The forest breathed in silence, broken only by the crunch of Lyra's bare feet over frozen leaves. The full moon hung low, veiled by torn clouds, casting broken light across the clearing.
Her arms ached with firewood. Each step stung the earth under her foot.
She wasn't meant to be this deep, she was too young to be in this part of the forest.
But punishment never cared for safety.
She bent to gather a final branch when the wind shifted with a sharp, coppery. Wrong, atmosphere
A howl rose in the distance, and she heard it.
And she knew it was not from Moonfang, and was not of the Moonfang pack.
Her breath was caught immediately. The woods answered closer, colder. Another crack. Not from her. She turned slowly. The trees watched.
Then they stepped out.
Shadows in the shape of men and wolves, limping between both forms. Their eyes gleamed yellow, teeth too sharp, movements too still.
They were rogues of the borderlands.
One sniffed the air and growled low. Another stepped closer, long limbs twitching. They moved like smoke. Hungry smoke, to devour what they could get their hands on.
Lyra backed up, clutching a branch to her chest. Her heart pounded loudly, drowning out the forest.
"You shouldn't be here," one rasped, voice like wet stone, with his gaze unforgiving.
"She doesn't know," another whispered. "Look at her… doesn't even know what she is."
The first stepped into the moonlight. His skin bore ancient scars. His eyes glared like silver fire.
"Moon Child," he said.
The words clung to her like ice.
Lyra shook her head. "I… I don't know what that means."
The rogue tilted his head.
"No," he said softly. "But you will."
And then
The wind howled.
Something else was coming.
The first rogue lunge, its claws stretched wide, when a blur burst from the trees.
Mira.
Who was now Old. Limping. Snarling like the storm had given her breath, trying to protect Lyra at all costs
She slammed into the rogue's side with a crunch of bone. Her fangs sank into his throat, shaking until he gurgled.
Lyra screamed out of fear, she had never seen Mira this way.
More rogues turned and came to Mira.
Mira didn't stop.
She tore through two, ducked a claw, leapt at another with a cry that shook the clearing.
Blood sprayed across the snow, hot and sharp. Lyra tried to move, but her feet sank in fear; he could only stand still and look at what was happening.
Then it happened.
A rogue bigger than the rest slammed Mira to the ground, and she fell immediately, with her old body going through the snow.
Her teeth flashed.
Blood poured.
Lyra watched Mira's throat open under fangs. The old twitched paw was outstretched, and her voice was choking.
"Run!" she gasped.
Lyra couldn't breathe.
Hands grabbed her while she was down claws dug into her old wrinkled wrists.
One rogue yanked her by the hair, dragging her backward.
Snow and blood mixed in her mouth. Her scream broke into sobs.
Another reached for her neck but stopped.
A growl.
Low.
Not from the rogues.
The wind stopped.
Trees bent.
The ground trembled.
Every rogue turned toward the treeline.
Lyra blinked, blood in her eyes and pity in her heart for Mira.
Something stepped into the moonlight.
Something that should not exist.
Branches shattered.
Snow exploded.
Kaelen burst through the trees half-shifted, with his body caught between man and beast.
His eyes glowed gold, hot with fury. His breath steamed in the cold like smoke from a fire just lit.
He saw her, the omega girl who was served unjustly in the pack.
Lyra, crumpled in the snow, blood on her cheek, a rogue's claw dragging across her arm.
Kaelen roars. He had secretly accompanied the warriors into the forest without the approval of his mother, Luna Marissa, the head of the pack.
He was definitely older than Lyra and was stronger, too, so he moved to protect her.
His fist cracked against the rogue's jaw, bone snapping like dry wood.
He slammed the creature into a tree once, twice, until the trunk cracked. Another lunged for him. He spun, caught its throat mid-leap, and ripped.
Blood soaked his hands.
The rogues hesitated.
They knew who he was.
They know he was the beta of the moonfang pack.
But they didn't care.
But neither did he.
His growl rolled through the clearing, deep and full of something ancient. He stood over Lyra, chest heaving, fangs bared. A protector's stance.
The law forbade it. An omega's life was not to be placed above a warrior's oath.
He'd just broken it.
Lyra looked up at him through blood and tears.
He didn't speak.
Didn't have to.
His body shielded her. His claws dripped with defiance. In the distance, a hunting horn called sharply furiously.
The pack was coming.
Kaelen didn't move.
He only growled louder.
The world was blurred to Lyra.
Screams behind her. Growls tearing through the trees.
Blood soaked the snow beneath her knee as Lyra crawled, teeth clenched, dragging her leg through frost and dirt.
Her breaths came sharp and short, every sound a knife to her ears.
She saw it.
The altar.
A slab of black stone, half-swallowed by roots and silence. The one from her dream, the one that whispered to her when the moon was full.
She pulled herself toward it.
Branches cracked behind her. A snarl too close.
She slipped under the stone just as shadows passed.
Darkness swallowed her, and she couldn't do anything.
Her hand scraped the cold earth. She pressed herself tight, not daring to breathe. Her fingers trembled as they touched stone, moss, then something else.
A crack.
Thin. Hidden, not known to so many wolves.
She slid her fingers in, heart thudding like a drum. Something gave way. A hollow space inside the altar. She reached in.
Her skin touched something dry. Paper. Ancient.
She pulled it from there and it was a scroll which the moon goddess wanted to have.
A scroll. Brittle. Wrapped in faded string. Marked with a crescent moon drawn in red.
The symbol pulsed under her thumb; she knew it was from the moon goddess.
She stared.
The altar no longer felt cold.
It hummed after she took the scroll.
Outside, the rogues howled again. But in the dark beneath the stone, Lyra held something older than their fury.
Something meant for her.
The air was cold and still.
Snow clung to the branches like frozen lace, and the scent of blood hung thick in the forest atmosphere. It was sharp, metallic, unshakable.
Lyra dragged herself forward, nails tearing at the ground, breath catching in her throat.
The altar loomed behind her like a shadowed god, but it was the body crumpled beside it that pulled her heart into splinters.
"Mira…"
Mira layed on the floor of the cold forest, wounded from rogue attacks with injuries her old body could not old up to.
The old she-wolf lay still, blood soaking the roots around her.
Her silver hair was matted, her chest barely rising. Lyra reached her, hands trembling, tears hot on her cheeks as they hit the snow and vanished.
Mira's eyes fluttered. Clouded. Weak. But when they found Lyra, they sparked a dying star trying to burn one last time, to give Lyra a ray of hope.
"My little moon…" Her voice cracked like frost on stone. "You were never meant to stay hidden."
Lyra sobbed. "Don't speak. I'll get help for you now."
"No." Mira's fingers, wet and cold, found Lyra's cheek. "Listen."
The forest held its breath.
"Your wolf will wake… when the blood moon rises," Mira whispered. "And the pack… will pay in blood…"
Her words sank like stones. Heavy. Ancient.
Lyra froze, the chill reaching deeper than bone.
Mira's hand trembled, then slipped away. Her last breath misted the air between them. Gone.
She had given up the ghost in the forest, leaving Lyra alone.
Silence.
Only the altar and the moon hidden in the skies watched. Only the wind wept.
And Lyra, broken and bloodied, cradled the woman who once raised her.
The snow began to fall again. Soft. Slow. Like the sky mourning him, he is too.
Ash floated through the clearing like gray snow. The fire was out.
The screaming had stopped. Only the wind moved now, whispering through broken trees and blood-soaked leaves.
Lyra didn't breathe. She stayed curled beneath the fact that Mira was no more; she was all she had in the moonfang pack.
Shadows covered her like a second skin. Her heart was loud in her ears.
Kaleen stood alone. His eyes hung low, around her, with his gaze focused on her in dripping red. Around him, the rogues lay still, some burned, some torn, all silent.
He looked down at Mira's body. His jaw clenched, but his eyes… they were storms.
Without a word, he sank to his knees. Not in grief. Not in prayer.
Lyra pressed herself deeper into the dark, but his gaze found her.
His voice was low. Raw.
"We will have to take her back to the pack…"
A pause of moments was felt among both. Lyra was just an omega who had just lost her guardian; they were far apart in the hierarchy of the pack.
His fingers brushed the snow. A smear of Mira's blood stained the edge.
He made a promise to Lyra, telling her that when he becomes head of the pack, no rogues will disturb the moonfang pack
A vow.
A warning.
A promise soaked in guilt and fury.
He rose slowly. The wind pushed his cloak back. The storm in his eyes did not fade.
Then he was gone, footsteps fading into the trees.
Lyra stayed hidden, the cold creeping into her bones. Her breath shook.
The snow fell in slow spirals, soft as ash.
Lyra knelt alone in the clearing, blood drying on her skin, her fingers locked around the ancient scroll, which she took.
Her heart thudded like a drum too big for her chest.
The trees watched, silent, waiting.
She felt it. A pull. A break. A beginning.
Her throat burned. Not from tears, not from screams, from something deeper. Older.
Something waking.
Her lips parted, but no sound came. Just breathe white and trembling.
Mira was taken back to the moonfang pack and buried with all rites, for she is no ordinary wolf.
Lyra was back at the pack again, and this time, with Mira gone, she knew her life wouldn't be the same again.
Kaleen was being sent to partake in his training to become the next Alpha of the pack, as it was soon time for his mother, Luna Marissa, to step down.