Lena woke with the echo of a howl still vibrating in her bones.
Her eyes flew open, breath shallow, heart racing—not with fear, but with something far more confusing… recognition.
She sat up slowly, the dim light of dawn casting lavender shadows across the room. Her skin was damp with sweat. Not from heat, but from the ghost of something that felt… too real to be just a dream.
She looked down. The sheets were twisted around her legs, like she'd fought something in her sleep.
Or run from something.
Or toward something.
Her hands shook as she rubbed her face. Her head throbbed—not like a headache, but like… a pulse. A calling. A beat drumming in her blood that didn't match the quiet morning world around her.
Then she saw it.
On her wrist. Just below her palm.
A mark.
Circular. Faint. The color of newly healed scar tissue. So precise it didn't belong to a bruise or an accident. It looked almost like—
"No," she whispered.
Lena rubbed at it hard, then harder, panic rising in her chest. It didn't fade. Didn't smudge. Didn't hurt.
It was part of her now.
She stared at it, and in her mind—whether imagination, memory, or madness—she saw silver eyes glowing against a moon. A forest floor beneath her bare feet. A presence beside her.
A name.
Killian.
She clutched her wrist against her chest as if that might calm her heartbeat. But it only raced faster.
"Lena?" came Ethan's groggy voice from the bedroom doorway.
She flinched.
He rubbed his eyes, confused. "You're up early."
She turned her hand inward, hiding the mark. "Yeah. Couldn't sleep."
"Nightmare?"
She hesitated. "Something like that."
He sat beside her on the couch, draping an arm around her. "This move has been a lot. I know it. But once we're settled — once you get used to the rhythm here — you'll start to feel like yourself again."
Lena forced a smile.
But she didn't feel like herself.
She felt like something was cracking open inside her, letting in a light she didn't understand, and a darkness she'd only seen in stories she never believed.
"Maybe," she murmured.
Ethan pressed a soft kiss to her temple and got up to make coffee. She watched him go, her heart heavy, her body trembling like the air after lightning.
Slowly, she looked at the mark again.
Her fingers traced its shape.
She didn't know what it was.
But something in her whispered:
This was not the beginning.
It was a return.
Blackthorn Ridge's wolves didn't need a lunar calendar to know when the moon was angry.
They felt it.
In their bones.
In their blood.
In their Alpha.
Killian stood at the heart of the pack's territory — the clearing where laws were spoken and loyalty was sworn. But this morning, there were no rituals. No words.
Only eyes.
Watching.
Waiting.
He was silent.
His massive black wolf had shifted back into human form, and his blood was still thrumming with something ancient and dangerous.
Beta Marcus stood on his right. Two warriors — Tala and Rowan — hovered nearby, tense. Others lingered in the trees, uncertain.
"You need to talk to them," Marcus said quietly.
Killian didn't answer.
"Killian."
His head snapped to the side.
Marcus took a step back. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" Killian growled.
"Like I'm the enemy."
Killian inhaled sharply, eyes burning. "Everyone's the enemy when something like this happens."
"Like what?" Tala spoke up. "Because no one is giving answers. Half the pack heard your shift. Some felt the bond crack awake. Others say the dead Luna's scent is back."
Killian's jaw tightened.
"She's not back," he said. "Alina is dead."
"Then why does the bond still exist?" Marcus asked.
Killian didn't reply.
He didn't need to. They all knew.
Killian didn't break the bond.
He couldn't.
Five years ago, his wolf refused. And so the bond stayed — hollow, bleeding, rotting him from the inside out.
Until last night.
Until the scent.
Until…
Her.
Killian closed his eyes briefly, as if the memory itself hurt. "There is a woman in town. A human. But she is not Alina."
"Tell that to your wolf," Rowan muttered.
Killian's eyes flashed — dangerous.
"Watch your tone."
Rowan lowered his gaze. "Yes, Alpha."
Marcus stepped forward. "What are you going to do?"
Killian swallowed.
It felt like poison.
"Keep her away from the pack. And from me."
"You can't," Tala said softly. "It's fate."
Killian's head snapped toward her. "Wolves don't believe in fate. We believe in blood. We believe in consequence."
"And bonds," Marcus added. "And maybe… rebirth."
Killian's silence had weight.
"Call the council," he said finally, voice cold. "No one approaches the girl. No one speaks to the girl. No one touches the girl."
"And if she comes to you?" Marcus asked.
Killian's eyes darkened.
His answer was a whisper — a lie his wolf already knew he wouldn't keep:
"She won't."
Lena didn't go into town that morning.
She couldn't.
The mark on her wrist stared at her like a quiet truth. The truth that something was happening to her — something no planner or phone alarm or sensible fiancé could fix.
She showered. She dressed. She tried to clean the kitchen. Tried to answer Ethan's questions with normal, functional answers.
But every sound was drowned out by the rhythmic thump of… something else.
Something outside.
Calling.
By noon, she couldn't take it.
"I'm going out for a walk," she muttered.
Ethan frowned. "Alone?"
"Yeah. I just need air."
He nodded, distracted by a call from his work.
Lena stepped outside.
The forest loomed before her, quiet and heavy. She walked toward it without thinking, like a string inside her ribs was being pulled taut by someone else's hands.
The deeper she went, the more the world shifted. Sounds sharpened — a drop of water, the twitch of a bird's wing, the rustle of something big and four-legged in the distance. She felt alive. Overwhelmingly alive.
And then—
A snap.
A tree branch cracked somewhere ahead.
Lena froze.
Her wrist burned — not painfully, but like it was waking up.
She swallowed hard. "Who's there?"
Silence.
Then… the softest growl.
Low.
Predatory.
Yet not… threatening.
Her pulse quickened.
She backed up.
Her heel caught on a root.
But before she fell—
A hand caught her arm.
Steady. Strong. Too warm.
Lena gasped and spun around.
Her breath vanished.
It wasn't Killian.
But his eyes...
They were the same molten gold she'd seen in her dreams.