Chapter 1

• Prologue
• Seven Years Ago — The Blackridge War
• The forest was surrounded by fire.
• Ashes spiraled in the air, settling on broken spears, torn banners, and bodies too twisted to name. A thousand wolves lay still. Fur soaked in crimson, steam rising from cooling blood.
• The snow had melted hours ago.
• Now, the ground was muddy
• The stench of burnt fur hung low, thick enough to choke. The wind didn’t carry it away, it held it there
• Lucien stood at the heart of it all, chest heaving, blade dripping red.
• Blood soaked his knuckles, stained the edge of his jaw, and ran in slow lines beneath the collar of his armor.
• The wolf inside him paced just beneath his skin and snarled to be let out again
• But it wasn’t over, not yet.
• A howl broke the silence. Distant. Raw.
• Then nothing.
• He turned toward the sound, but it didn’t come again.
• “Where is she?” he growled
• Behind him, the old priestess stepped through the smoke, her robes scorched
• She had no weapon.
• “She waits beyond the circle,” she rasped.
• Lucien didn’t turn to her.
• “The cost remains,” the priestess said.
• His jaw tensed.
• “I said name it.”
• “You’ve already offered your blood.”
• She nodded toward the open gash across his palm.
• “But the moon does not trade in flesh alone, Alpha. It demands more.”
• “What more?”
• She stepped forward. Her voice dropped.
• “The moon wants the part of you that cannot be regrown”
• Lucien didn’t hesitate.
• He stepped forward, into the ring of stone.
• The runes flared faintly under his boots, recognizing his blood before it hit the altar.
• He didn’t flinch as it fell, drop by drop onto the center of the stone circle.
• The symbols burned black.
• He knelt.
• “I give it,” he said.
• A vow.
• The sky cracked. A sharp noise split the night.
• The flame on the altar turned black.
• Somewhere inside him, the beast howled.
• Not in rage but fear.
• The priestess staggered backward.
• “Lucien, no…”
• But it was too late.
• The circle closed.
• The light went out and the bond inside him snapped
• The silence was deafening.
• Something older slipped through his blood and curled around his soul..
• It didn’t overtake, it settled.
• Coiled around the root of him like a second soul. A darker one.
• Lucien arched forward, eyes wide, breath torn from his chest.
• He didn’t cry out because the pain wasn't the kind that made you scream.
• It was the kind that marked you
• The priestess collapsed to her knees.
• “What have you done?”
• Lucien rose, slowly.
• His shadow stretched across the altar, long and twisted, moving when he didn’t.
• He looked up.
• The moon had turned red.
• Somewhere in the trees, a star winked out.
• And the wolves who survived that night would never again speak of the price that was paid.
• Only that their Alpha walked out of the circle alive and never came out the same.
• Long after he left the altar, the priestess remained kneeling. “The moon binds what man breaks,” she whispered into the ashes. “But it will unbind it too. One day… when she returns.”
• Far beyond the circle, past the blood-stained trees, a figure watched from the shadows. She said nothing, made no sound but when the wind blew, her scent vanished like it had never existed at all.