Keal's POV
bonuse chapter.
The forest had never been this quiet.
Not even during the blood winters, not even when the rivers froze and the old trees groaned like dying beasts. This was different. The silence wasn't emptiness it was pressure, folding in on itself until my ears rang with the weight of it.
I could hear Lyra breathing beside me, sharp and shallow, the way prey breathes when it knows the predator is close. Her fingers brushed mine once
a silent question and I didn't answer. I couldn't.
Because I could feel it.
The presence in the dark.
It wasn't Shadowborn. No, those things reeked of hunger and old rot. This… this smelled like rain just before it falls. Clean, almost sweet nbut wrong, because the air under it was burning cold.
A flicker of light broke between the trees ahead.
Not fire. Not moonlight. Something older.
"Keal…" Lyra's voice was a whisper, almost stolen by the wind.
"I see it."
We moved together, slower now, every step sinking into the moss without a sound. My wolf was restless under my skin, claws pressing against my palms as if it wanted out but I kept him caged. Too soon. Whatever waited ahead didn't feel like something teeth alone could kill.
The glow swelled, drawing shapes in the shadows.
A stone arch stood in the clearing, swallowed by vines and carved with runes that pulsed faintly, like the heartbeat of something sleeping.
The Moon's Edge.
I'd heard the name whispered by old warriors when they thought no one was listening. A place you never went unless the Moon herself called you. A place where oaths were tested… and broken.
And now we were standing in front of it.
Lyra's hand found my wrist, holding tight. "Keal, this wasn't here before."
"I know."
I stepped closer. My pulse matched the rhythm of the runes, faster with every heartbeat. There was a pull a tether between the arch and the bond in my chest.
And then the voice came.
*Come forward, Moonbound.*
5It was neither male nor female, neither loud nor soft. It just was. Like the forest itself had decided to speak.
Lyra gasped, stumbling back. "Did you hear—"
"Yes." My throat was dry. "Stay here."
"No"
But I was already moving through the arch.
The world shifted.
The air thickened, the ground tilted, and for a heartbeat, I wasn't standing in the forest anymore — I was somewhere between night and dawn, between breath and silence.
And she was there.
Not Lyra.
Not the Moon.
Something… else.
Her skin shimmered like moonstone, her eyes a deep storm. She smiled not kindly.
The bond you carry is not a gift, Alpha. It is a blade. And you are holding it wrong.
I opened my mouth to speak to ask what the hell that meant but the ground cracked beneath me. The shimmer faded.
And on the other side of the arch, I saw Lyra.
She was screaming.
Something black was pulling her into the trees, fast , too fast.
"LYRA!"
I ran
but as I crossed back through the arch, the forest was gone.
So was she.
Only the silence remained.
The Weight of the Moon
The air was colder than before. Not the kind of cold that bit at your skin it was the kind that seemed to press into your bones, heavy and unrelenting. Every step I took sank into the damp earth, the weight of my body amplified by something unseen, something watching.
The shadows here weren't like the ones in the forest. These moved. Breathed. Waited.
Somewhere behind me, I could hear Lyra's soft breathing, uneven but steady enough to tell me she was still fighting. I didn't look back. If I did, I might lose the will to keep moving forward.
Because the path ahead wasn't a path—it was an opening into something older than the forest itself.
The scent hit me first. Ash. Blood. And a faint, metallic tang I'd only smelled once before the night I'd first shifted under the Moon's Mark.
I tightened my grip on the blade. It hummed faintly in my palm, as though recognizing where we were.
Something shifted in the dark ahead. Not footsteps. Not even the sound of breath. It was more like a ripple in still water, subtle but impossible to ignore.
I slowed, angling my body to shield Lyra from whatever was in front of us.
She whispered, "Keal… it's here."
I didn't ask what she meant. I could feel it too. The air in the clearing ahead was thicker, as though the shadows had been pulled together and woven into one.
My wolf stirred uneasily inside me. Not ready. His voice was low, uncertain a rare thing.
"Doesn't matter," I muttered under my breath. "We don't have a choice."
We stepped into the clearing.
The clearing was wrong.
It shouldn't have been here. The forest had been tight with trees, suffocating and endless and now, without warning, there was space. Too much of it.
The moonlight pooled unnaturally at the center, so bright it looked like water. Around its edge, the darkness pressed close, rippling as though it wanted to spill inward.
And then it moved.
At first, I thought it was just a trick of my eyes a shifting shadow. But no… this was flesh. Or something pretending to be. It had no shape, only hints of one: a long arm, a hunched back, a head that seemed to twist the wrong way. Every part of it flickered between solid and smoke.
My wolf bristled. Shadowborn.
Lyra's breath caught. She clutched my arm, and though her grip was slight, it grounded me.
The thing spoke.
Its voice was not one sound but a hundred, layered over each other male and female, young and old, all whispering at once.
"Moonbound."
The word slid into my head like a knife. My pulse kicked.
I stepped forward, keeping my body between it and Lyra. "You're not supposed to be here."
Its head cocked, and the air around it seemed to hum. "Neither are you."
The ground shifted beneath my boots. I didn't move but the clearing tilted all the same, as though the thing's presence alone bent the world toward it.
I raised my blade. "You're standing in the wrong place for threats."
It didn't answer with words this time. The shadows behind it split open, spilling out smaller figures three, four, maybe more. All shaped like wolves, but wrong. Their bodies sagged where the bone should've been, and their eyes glowed faint white, as if the moon itself had forgotten them.
Lyra pressed closer to me. "Keal…"
"I see them." My voice was steady, but inside, my wolf paced and snarled.
The first of the creatures lunged.
I moved without thought. Blade up, twist, sliceits body split into two trails of black smoke before dissolving. But as soon as it vanished, another replaced it. Then another.
The clearing became a storm of motion. My blade caught in something's ribs. A claw ripped across my shoulder. I heard Lyra scream not in pain, but in warning and spun just in time to see the largest of them charging straight for her.
I didn't think. I moved.
The world narrowed to the space between that thing's teeth and her skin. I threw myself forward, tackling it mid-leap, and we hit the ground hard. My blade was gone, knocked from my grip. We rolled, my hands locking around its throat if you could call that black, shifting mess a throat.
It hissed, and the sound made my vision flicker.
Something was wrong. My limbs felt heavy, my heartbeat slowing. The thing was pulling at me, draining not my strength, but something deeper.
I heard Lyra's voice, faint but urgent: "Keal, the light!"
The moonlight in the center of the clearing it wasn't just light. It was warm. Calling.
I shoved the creature off me and staggered toward it, pulling Lyra with me. The Shadowborn didn't follow immediately. They stood at the edge, watching, as if unsure they were allowed to cross.
When my boots touched the edge of the moonlit pool, the weight in my chest eased. My wolf's voice roared in my head, stronger now. Here. This is where we fight.
But then the thing the first one, the voice of a hundred stepped forward into the light.
And it didn't burn.
Its head tilted toward me, and in the shifting blur of its features, I saw something that froze my blood.
My own face.