My lungs were on fire.
I'd been running for hours, pushing through trees, jumping over roots, not caring about the branches tearing at my face and arms. Every step felt like knives stabbing into my legs. But I couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop.
Behind me, howls cut through the forest. Getting closer, then farther. They were hunting me like an animal that escaped its cage.
Well, screw them.
I headed straight for the one place I knew they'd think twice about following the Ashveil Borderlands. Everyone knew the stories. Pack law didn't mean shit there. Rogues, exiles, criminals, that's who lived in Ashveil. People went there to disappear or die. Sometimes both.
My parents used to warn me about it when I was little. "Never go to Ashveil, Aelara. Nothing good lives there."
Guess I was about to test that theory.
The trees started changing the deeper I went. Darker. More twisted, like they'd grown wrong on purpose. The air felt heavier too, pressing down on my chest. The rejection wound still throbbed with every heartbeat, a constant reminder that Kaelen had ripped something vital out of me and thrown it away like garbage.
You're nothing.
"Shut up," I muttered to his voice echoing in my head. "I'm not nothing. I'm alive. And you're never getting me back."
The sun was dropping lower, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple through the twisted branches. I needed to find shelter soon. Water too. I'd been so focused on running I hadn't thought about what came next.
Real smart, Aelara.
I slowed down, trying to catch my breath. My throat was dry as sand. My stomach cramped from hunger I hadn't eaten since yesterday morning, and that had only been some stale bread.
That's when the memories slammed into me. They always came when I was tired and my guard dropped.
My parents. The Moon Scholars.
They'd been part of this ancient group that studied prophecies and moon magic. Boring as hell, really. They spent most nights with their noses buried in old books, muttering about what the Moon Goddess wanted. I used to fall asleep at the table listening to them drone on about celestial patterns and bloodline prophecies.
Then one night, everything changed.
Soldiers came. Burst through our door like they owned the place. Dragged my parents out along with the other Scholars, maybe fifteen people total. Said they were traitors. Said they'd been keeping dangerous secrets that threatened the packs.
They killed them all before the sun came up.
I was sixteen. Still waiting for my wolf. Suddenly orphaned and branded as a traitor's daughter. The pack let me stay, but barely. Shoved me in the servants' quarters and pretended I didn't exist unless they needed someone to scrub floors or empty chamber pots.
The official story, the one everyone believed, was that the Lycan King himself ordered the execution. King Vaelor Noctyrr, ruler of all packs, decided the Moon Scholars were too dangerous and had them wiped out. No trial. No questions asked. Just dead.
Heat flooded through me, sharp and bitter. I hated the Lycan King. Hated all rulers who thought they could just kill people because it was convenient. Hated the pack laws that turned people like me into property the second we became inconvenient.
I was so lost in my anger that I almost didn't see him.
My foot caught on something and I stumbled, barely catching myself. I looked down.
A boot. Attached to a leg. Attached to a man slumped against a tree trunk.
"Holy shit!"
I jumped back, heart slamming into my ribs. For a second I thought he was dead. Then I saw his chest move barely a rise and fall, but there.
He was massive. Even collapsed and unconscious, I could tell he was huge. Broad shoulders that looked like they could carry a full-grown wolf. Long legs stretched out in front of him. Dark clothes torn and soaked with blood. So much blood.
I should've kept walking. Should've run faster. This was the Borderlands stumbling across dying men was probably a daily occurrence here. He could be anyone. A murderer. A rogue. Someone even more dangerous than what I was running from.
But my feet wouldn't move.
Maybe it was because I'd spent the whole day being hunted. Maybe it was because I knew exactly what it felt like to be alone and dying while the world walked past. Maybe I'd just gone completely insane.
I took a step closer, then another.
His skin was way too pale, almost gray. Sweat covered his face even though the air was getting cold. I could see the wounds now deep gashes across his chest and arms, the edges turning black.
Poison.
"Damn it," I whispered.
I looked around, half-expecting bandits or worse to jump out. Nothing. Just trees and lengthening shadows and the sound of my own harsh breathing.
The smart move the sane move was to leave him here and keep running. He could be anyone. Could be dangerous as hell. Probably got those wounds doing something he deserved to get hurt for.
But when I tried to make my feet move away, they wouldn't budge.
My mom's voice echoed in my head, soft and sure like she was standing right next to me. "The Moon sees everything, Aelara. She remembers who showed mercy and who walked away."
"Mom, if you're watching, you better be right about this," I muttered.
I grabbed him under the arms and pulled.
Holy hell, he was heavy. Like dragging a boulder uphill. My muscles screamed in protest as I hauled him deeper into the trees, away from the path where anyone passing might spot us. I found a thick cluster of bushes and managed to get him behind them, then collapsed next to him, gasping for air.
He didn't wake up. Didn't even groan.
I ripped a strip off my already-ruined dress and used it to wipe away some of the blood, trying to see how bad the damage was. Pretty damn bad. The poison was spreading. I could see black lines like twisted veins creeping under his skin, moving toward his heart.
My tiny water bottle was almost empty, but I poured what was left over the worst wounds, washing away dirt and blood. Then I tore more strips from my dress. It was destroyed anyway and wrapped them around the deepest cuts, pulling them tight.
It wasn't much. Probably wouldn't save him. But it was something.
I sat back against a tree, breathing hard. My hands were sticky with his blood. Great. Just great.
That's when the sky opened up.
Rain came down in sheets, cold and relentless. Thunder boomed overhead, so loud it rattled my teeth. Lightning flashed, turning everything stark white for a heartbeat.
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stay warm. The rain soaked through my clothes in seconds. Cold seeped into my bones. I was exhausted, starving, sitting next to a dying stranger in the most dangerous territory in the realm.
"What the actual hell am I doing?" I asked the storm.
The storm didn't answer. Just kept dumping rain like it had a personal grudge.
Another flash of lightning lit up the world.
In that brief, harsh light, I got my first real look at his face.
My breath caught in my throat.
He was... god, I didn't even have words. Beautiful didn't cover it. Stunning didn't touch it. His face was all sharp angles and strong lines, high cheekbones, a jaw that could cut glass, a mouth that probably made people stupid when he smiled. Dark hair plastered to his forehead from rain and sweat. Even half-dead and covered in blood and mud, he was the most breathtaking man I'd ever seen.
And absolutely terrifying.
There was something about him that made every survival instinct I had scream *danger*. Like standing too close to a fire that could turn into an inferno without warning. Like he was something wild and deadly that didn't belong in the same world as regular people.
His eyes cracked open just a sliver. Silver. They were pure liquid silver, glowing faintly even in the darkness.
I froze like a deer that just spotted a wolf.
He looked at me but didn't seem to really see me. His gaze was unfocused, hazy with pain and fever. His lips moved, barely a whisper that I had to lean in close to hear over the pounding rain.
"Little moon."
My heart did this weird stuttering thing in my chest. Nobody had ever called me that. The words sounded important somehow. Precious. Like they meant something I didn't understand yet.
"Hey," I said quietly, keeping my voice soft. "You're hurt pretty bad. Just... just try to hang on, okay? Don't die on me."
His silver eyes focused on me for one brief moment. Something passed between us. I felt it like a shock of electricity running across my skin, making every hair stand up.
Then his eyes rolled back and he was gone again, swallowed by unconsciousness.
I pressed my hand against his chest, checking for a heartbeat. Still there. Faint and unsteady, but there.
"Don't you dare die," I told him, even though he couldn't hear me. "I didn't drag your heavy ass all the way over here just so you could give up and quit on me."
The rain kept coming down like the sky was trying to drown us. Thunder kept shaking the ground. Lightning kept flashing, brief glimpses of a world gone mad.
And I sat there in the mud and blood and rain, next to a stranger who might not live to see morning, wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into.
My chest still ached from the shattered mate bond. My body was beyond exhausted. I was soaked to the bone, freezing, probably being hunted by an entire pack of pissed-off wolves.
But sitting there with him, I didn't feel completely alone anymore. Which was weird and probably stupid, but there it was.
Lightning flashed again, brighter this time. In that harsh white light, I saw his face clearly peaceful now, like he was just sleeping instead of dying.
"Little moon," I repeated softly, testing how the words felt in my mouth.
They felt right. They felt like they belonged to me.
I was about to lean back against the tree when I noticed something on his wrist. The rain had washed away some of the mud and blood, revealing a mark on his skin.
I grabbed his wrist, wiping away more dirt with my thumb.
My heart stopped.
It was a tattoo no, not a tattoo, embedded in his skin like it was part of him. A crescent moon wrapped around a crown, done in silver ink that seemed to glow with its own faint light even in the darkness.
I knew that mark. Everyone knew that mark.
The royal seal of the Lycan King.
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no."
This man wasn't just anyone. He was connected to the throne. Either he was royalty himself or he worked directly for the King. Either way, he was tied to the bastard who'd ordered my parents' deaths.
I should've dropped his wrist like it burned. Should've gotten up and run and never looked back. Let him die here in the mud where he belonged.
But I'd already saved him. Already stopped the worst of the bleeding. Already wasted precious time and resources keeping him alive.
And something in my instinct, I didn't understand, said this man was going to change everything.
Thunder crashed directly overhead, so loud it felt like the world was splitting open.
I looked down at his face again. Beautiful and deadly and unconscious in the rain.
"Who the hell are you?" I whispered.
His lips moved again, barely perceptible. I leaned closer.
"Little moon," he breathed. "Mine."
That single word of mine sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
I sat back, mind racing. The royal seal. The silver eyes. The way he'd called me even in his delirium.
This wasn't just some random injured man I'd stumbled across.
This was something bigger. Something dangerous.
And I was already in too deep to walk away.
The rain showed no signs of stopping. I looked around, squinting through the downpour. There maybe twenty yards away I could just make out the dark shape of a cave entrance in the rocky hillside.
"Come on," I muttered, grabbing him under the arms again. "Let's get you somewhere dry before we both freeze to death."
Dragging him to the cave was the hardest thing I'd ever done. My muscles screamed. My lungs burned. But I got him there, inch by painful inch, and pulled him inside.
The cave was small but dry. Old burn marks on the ground showed someone had used it before. Hunters, probably.
I found a stack of dry wood against the back wall thank god and used the flint from my bag to start a fire. It took forever with my shaking hands, but finally a spark caught.
The fire grew, filling the cave with warmth and flickering light.
I looked at the man and really looked at him in the firelight. Even now, even like this, he was stunning, dangerous. So dangerous.
But he'd called me little moon like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And I couldn't shake the feeling that finding him wasn't an accident.
The Moon Goddess had never answered my prayers before.
Maybe she was answering now.