The moon was still watching.
I felt it before I understood it—the weight of silver light pressing against my skin, humming softly beneath my veins like a second heartbeat. My hands still glowed faintly, the air around them shimmering as if reality itself hesitated to touch me.
The rogue lay crumpled against the tree, unmoving.
The other two stared at me with wide, feral eyes, their snarls faltering into uncertainty. Rogues didn't fear omegas. They hunted them.
But they feared this.
I swallowed hard, forcing my legs to stay planted even as terror clawed at my spine. I had never fought anyone in my life. Never raised a hand in defense. My strength had always been endurance—quiet survival, learned invisibility.
This was something else entirely.
A pulse of heat rippled outward from my chest, and the silver glow flared brighter, as if responding to my fear, my anger, my will. I didn't understand it, but I felt it—an instinctive certainty that this power was not random.
It knew me.
The second rogue took a cautious step back, lips curling to bare his teeth. The third followed, their shoulders hunching as if expecting another invisible strike.
"Go," I said hoarsely.
The word surprised me as much as it did them.
My voice carried—stronger, steadier than it had ever sounded. The forest seemed to hush around it, leaves stilled, shadows tightening.
For a long moment, none of us moved.
Then the rogues broke.
They vanished into the darkness, branches snapping and undergrowth tearing as they fled. The forest swallowed them whole, leaving behind only silence and the heavy scent of fear.
I stood there, shaking, long after they were gone.
When the glow finally faded, it left me dizzy and weak, my knees buckling beneath me. I sank to the forest floor, pressing my palms into the damp earth as nausea rolled through me.
My hands looked normal again.
Too normal.
As if they hadn't just thrown a fully grown wolf through the air like a rag doll.
A hysterical laugh bubbled out of my throat before I could stop it. It sounded wrong—thin, cracked, edged with disbelief.
"I'm losing my mind," I whispered. "That's it. The rejection broke me."
But even as I said it, I knew it wasn't true.
The ache in my chest—the torn place where the bond had been—felt different now. Still raw, still tender, but no longer empty. Something had taken root there, coiling and alive, pulsing softly with each breath I took.
I pressed a hand over my heart.
The moment I did, images flashed behind my eyes.
Silver fire.
Ancient stones drenched in moonlight.
A woman standing alone beneath a sky full of stars, her eyes glowing with the same light now echoing in my veins.
I gasped, clutching my chest as the vision shattered.
"What are you?" I breathed—not to the forest, but to whatever slept inside me.
The forest did not answer with words.
It answered with presence.
The shadows shifted, not in threat this time, but in awareness. The wind stirred, carrying the scent of pine, rain, and something older—something that felt like recognition.
I was not alone.
A twig snapped behind me.
Every muscle in my body tensed as I spun, silver heat rising instinctively to the surface. I lifted my chin, refusing to cower, even as fear tried to take hold again.
"Easy," a voice said calmly. "If we wanted you dead, you'd already be on the ground."
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Three figures stepped into the moonlight, emerging from between the trees with deliberate ease. They weren't rogues—I could tell immediately. Their movements were too controlled, their eyes sharp but not feral.
Wolves.
Just… not pack wolves.
They wore no pack marks, no colors, no insignia. Leather, dark fabrics, weapons strapped openly at their sides. Their gazes swept over the clearing, lingering briefly on the unconscious rogue before returning to me.
The woman in front took another step forward. She was tall, with dark skin and a long braid streaked with silver. Her eyes—gray, like storm clouds—studied me with unsettling intensity.
"You crossed the Moonfall boundary," she said. "And you're still breathing."
I swallowed. "I didn't have a choice."
She tilted her head slightly. "No. You didn't."
The man to her left sniffed the air, his brows knitting together. "There's something wrong with her," he muttered. "She smells like—"
"Like the moon," the woman finished quietly.
Her gaze sharpened.
"And like a broken bond."
My stomach dropped.
"You can smell that?" I asked.
"All of us can," the third figure said—a younger man, barely older than me, with pale eyes and a scar across his cheek. "That kind of damage doesn't fade easily."
Shame burned hot in my chest, but I didn't look away.
"I was rejected," I said simply. "Exiled. I won't go back."
The woman studied me for a long moment. Then she glanced at the fallen rogue again, at the splintered bark and scorched earth where silver energy had struck.
"You did this," she said.
It wasn't a question.
My fingers curled. "They attacked me."
Her lips curved—not into a smile, but something close. Something like approval.
"That kind of power doesn't answer fear," she said softly. "It answers authority."
I frowned. "I don't have any."
She stepped closer, stopping just outside my reach. Up close, I could feel her presence—solid, grounded, like the forest itself had shaped her.
"You will," she said. "If you survive long enough."
The other two exchanged a glance.
"We can't leave her," the scarred man said. "Not like this."
The woman nodded slowly. Then she looked back at me, eyes gleaming with something that made my pulse spike.
"There's a place beyond pack law," she said. "A sanctuary for wolves who don't fit. Rogues, outcasts… and others."
"Others like me?" I asked.
Her gaze dropped briefly to my chest, where the moonlight lingered unnaturally.
"No," she said. "Others who became more."
My breath caught.
"Come with us," she said. "Or stay here and let the forest decide your fate."
I thought of Moonfall—of cold stares, sharp words, and the sound of Kael's voice rejecting me without hesitation.
I rose to my feet, unsteady but resolute.
"I'm not going back," I said.
The woman nodded once.
"Then walk," she said. "And don't look behind you."
I didn't.
But far away, across the invisible thread that still bound us in ways neither of us fully understood, Kael Blackthorn dropped to one knee as silver fire scorched his veins—his wolf roaring in fury and confusion.
Because the power awakening inside me was not meant to stay hidden.
And the moon never chose wrong.