The night it happened, Lyra wasn't looking for trouble—but trouble found her anyway, wearing a wolf's skin and a hunger that felt ancient.
The forest pressed close around her, thick with mist and the scent of rain-drenched earth. She should have never taken the shortcut. Should have listened to the warning in her gut. But stubbornness had always been her sin. And tonight, fate punished it.
A howl shattered the silence. Not the distant kind she'd grown used to hearing echo from the mountains. This one was close — far too close — and full of a violence that made her spine go rigid.
She ran.
Branches tore at her coat. Mud sucked at her boots. The chill sank deep, but she barely felt it over the thud of blood in her ears. Her breath came in ragged bursts, panic clinging to her lungs like smoke.
Then came the growl.
It wasn't human. It wasn't natural. It was deep and guttural, vibrating through the air like the snarl of something that had hunted before — and killed. The sound froze her mid-step. She turned.
And it was there.
Massive. Gray-black fur. Eyes that glowed molten gold. The beast stepped from the trees like a nightmare, muscles ripping under its pelt, teeth bared in something too knowing to be animal.
Lyra didn't scream.
She ran again.
But she wasn't fast enough.
The weight of it slammed into her, knocking her flat to the forest floor. She hit the earth hard, the breath wrenched from her lungs. Claws raked her side — not deep, but enough to rip cloth and skin — and she tasted copper on her tongue. Its breath was hot on her neck, and for one blinding moment, she thought it would tear her throat out.
Instead, it bit her shoulder.
Not a killing bite.
A claiming one.
Pain exploded through her — burning, twisting, reshaping her nerves from the inside out. She thrashed beneath the beast, crying out as something else took root inside her. Not just pain — heat. A searing fever that drenched her in sweat,that tore moans from her throat she couldn't control. She felt like she was drowning in something primal.
And then the world backed away.
Her vision swam. The forest blurred and bent as the world tilted beneath her. She caught only fragments: paws shifting into boots, a growl melting into a low, masculine voice, and eyes — those same molten eyes — now staring at her from the face of a man.
He was beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful. All hard edges and restrained power. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Tattoos curling across his chest and down his arms, dark hair tousled and damp from the mist. But it was his presence — feral, commanding, Alpha — that arrested her.
He looked down at her like he owned her.
"You weren't supposed to be the one," he muttered, his voice gravel rough.
Lyra tried to sit up, but her limbs felt foreign, too hot, too sensitive. The man — no, the wolf — knelt beside her and pressed a hand to her chest to keep her down. The heat of his palm burned through her shirt.
"What the hell did you do to me?" She rasped.
He didn't answer.
Instead, he leaned in and inhaled her scent like it meant something. His eyes darkened. His expression shifted — something fierce and feral curled his lips.
"You're marked now," he said. "And I'm the one who did it."
Lyra's pulse thudded in her throat. "Then unmark me."
"You think it works like that?" He growled.
His hand moved, fingers trailing down the curve of her neck, slow and possessive. She hated the way her body responded — how her skin tingled beneath his touch, how a strange, wicked ache bloomed in her core.
"I didn't choose you," he murmured, voice thick with something dangerous. "But the moon did. And now you're mine."
She slapped his hand away. "Fuck your moon. I'm not yours."
The growl that rumbled from his was low, primal and full of hunger.
"You will be."
He stood, and for a moment, she thought he'd leave her in the dirt like a broken thing. But instead, he scooped her into his arms with infuriating ease. Her body was still weak, trembling from the bite, but rage surged through her veins.
"Put me down."
"You won't make it ten feet," he said. "The fever's only just begun. You'll burn. You'll beg."
"I'll die first."
His smile was pure sin. "You say that now."
The world blurred as he carried her through the trees. She saw the blood moon through the branches — full, red, and pulsing like a heart.
And something inside her pulsed back.
She didn't know what was worse: the searing pain spreading through her limbs, or the brutal truth in his voice. She'd been marked by a bite that wasn't meant for her. But now it was too late.
The claiming had begun.
And she didn't know if she'd survive it — or want to.