By dawn, the trees were already screaming.
Not with voices—yet—but with the restless language of wind through branches, leaves shivering in a way that had nothing to do with the chill.
Luna stood at the western treeline, boots cold with dew, watching fog coil through the underbrush like low-lying shadow.
Behind her, Moonshadow roused.
Armor straps creaked.
Metal buckles clinked.
Wolves muttered to each other in low, tense voices in the half-light.
The Bloodfangs had tested the walls in the dark.
Today, they were coming for the land itself.
"This line," Rebel said, stabbing a finger at the crude map scratched into the damp earth, "is where we've held them for two seasons. They push, we push back. They slink off, lick wounds, try again. Only now they've got more teeth and less fear."
He straightened, grimacing, looking out into the thin mist.
"The cracks rattling their den too," he added. "They're desperate. And desperate rogues don't negotiate."
Luna studied the line he'd drawn.
It sliced through the forest like a wound: the old border between Moonshadow and the no-man's land the Bloodfangs had claimed after being cast out by their own packs.
On Moonshadow's side, the trees grew tall and thick, still mostly green despite the creeping shadow.
On the other: thinner trunks, bark scarred by old fires, shadows pooling deeper around exposed roots.
The land remembered rejection.
It wore it.
Her storm pricked under her skin, restless.
Elia tugged Luna's cloak straighter around her shoulders, eyes narrowed on the treeline.
"You sure you want to meet them *here*?" she asked. "Wide open. Lots of space for you to get torn up if they decide to dogpile the pretty lightning."
"We can't lure them closer to the walls," Luna said. "The cracks like conflict. They'll spread faster if we fight on stone."
Elia grunted.
"Fair," she said. "Still don't like it."
Rhea clapped Luna's shoulder, armored fingers ringing softly against the leather.
"We're not throwing you out there alone," she said. "We know how to dance on this line. Just... give us a little more thunder than usual, yeah?"
Luna's lips twitched.
"I'll see what I can do," she murmured.
Orion approached then, shifting from wolf to human as he walked, fur receding, limbs re-knitting into familiar lines.
He wore light armor, designed to be shed quickly if he needed to shift mid-fight.
His hair, damp with morning mist, was tied back at his nape.
His eyes—silver-shot, wary—met Luna's briefly, then slid to the warriors gathering behind her.
"Positions," he called. "Rhea, take the left flank. Rebel, right. Youngers in the middle, between seasoned fighters. No one advances alone. We hold the line; we do not chase. If they try to pull us deeper into their woods, we let them *fail*."
A rumble of assent rolled through the ranks.
Luna watched the way the wolves responded to him: not as blindly as they once had, but with something like stubborn loyalty.
He saw them.
He'd always seen them.
He just hadn't known what to *do* with what he saw.
Now, with the cracks biting at their heels, he was learning faster.
His gaze came back to her.
"Your circle's first... field test," he said quietly.
Luna snorted.
"I'd hoped for something less... sharp," she replied.
"Sharp gets the point across," he said, the barest hint of a smile flickering before it faded.
He lowered his voice so only she would hear.
"Stay where they can see you," he said. "It will steady them. And... be careful."
The last words slipped out unguarded.
Her heart gave an unhelpful lurch.
She nodded once.
"Same to you," she said.
The forest shivered again.
This time, there *were* voices.
Low, mocking howls rolled through the mist, answered by a ragged chorus.
Bloodfangs.
Their scent slid ahead of them: unwashed fur, old blood, sour anger.
Luna drew in a slow breath.
Let it out.
Reached for her power.
Earth answered first.
She sent it down through her feet, into the damp soil, feeling the roots of the nearest trees, the stones buried shallow beneath the loam, the bones of wolves long dead and forgotten.
They thrummed, sleepy and stubborn.
She woke them.
Wind came next, already jittery in the branches.
She coaxed it closer, circling around the Moonshadow line like a living thing, carrying their scents *out* and the rogues' scents *in*.
Flame, for now, she left banked.
This was dense forest.
Fire would eat friend and foe alike if she lost her temper.
The first Bloodfangs appeared between the trees: lean, scarred wolves with wild eyes and yellowed teeth bared.
Some were in wolf form; others padded forward half-shifted, hands hooked into claws, hackles bristling down bare spines.
Their Alpha—if that word still meant anything among them—was a rangy brute with a ragged ear and a jagged scar down his muzzle.
He stepped forward, shoulders rolling, eyes glittering with vicious amusement.
"Well, well," he drawled, voice rough. "Moonshadow finally sends the runt to do their barking."
A low growl rippled through the Moonshadow ranks.
Luna smiled without humor.
"I'm not here to bark, Bloodfang," she said. "I'm here to remind you whose soil you're drooling on."
He threw his head back and laughed, a harsh, ragged sound.
"You hear that?" he called over his shoulder. "The little lightning stick thinks she owns the earth now!"
Snickers and snarls answered.
Luna didn't look away from him.
"The land remembers who defends it," she said. "And who burns it for sport."
His eyes narrowed.
"So you've walked our side," he said. "Seen what they did. What *you* all let them do to us before you pushed us into these scraps."
Old bitterness sharpened each word.
"We didn't cast you out," Luna said evenly. "Your own packs did."
"All of you," he snarled. "Alphas. Elders. Every smug little wolf in a proper den. You looked at us and saw mistakes. Problems. Things to push beyond your treelines." He spat. "Now your walls crack, and you come crawling to *us* to negotiate?"
Luna shook her head.
"I'm not here to negotiate," she said.
For a瞬, confusion flickered in his eyes.
Then rage replaced it.
"So it's teeth, then," he snarled. "Fine by me."
He lowered his head and *howled*.
Bloodfangs surged from the trees in answer—a wave of fur and teeth and claws.
Luna's heart kicked.
"Hold," Orion snapped.
The front line tensed.
Wind whipped at their faces.
Luna lifted her hands.
Her storm rose.
The first rogues hit the Moonshadow line with a crunch of bodies and a roar of snarls.
Luna felt the impact through the earth.
She didn't dive into the melee.
Not yet.
She centered herself behind the front ranks, where she could *see*.
A young Moonshadow wolf on the left faltered as a Bloodfang twice his size barreled into him, teeth snapping inches from his throat.
Luna thrust a hand toward them.
Air compressed around the Bloodfang like a fist, slamming him sideways into a tree.
Bark cracked.
He yelped, stunned.
Rhea took the opening, lunging forward to rip into his exposed side.
On the right, three rogues tried to flank, slipping through a thinner patch of underbrush.
Luna stomped her heel.
The earth there heaved, roots wrenching upward like grasping hands, tangling around rogue paws and ankles.
They went down in a tangle of limbs and curses.
Rebel's squad was there a瞬 later, falling on them with efficient brutality.
Hot, coppery scent of blood filled the air.
Her storm snarled, wanting more.
She leashed it.
This wasn't about slaughter.
It was about holding.
Holding land.
Holding line.
Holding wolves.
The Bloodfang Alpha—Raze, she remembered now; she'd heard the name hissed in Council meetings—dodged around the worst of her interference, eyes locked on her.
"Hide behind your pack, little storm?" he taunted, weaving through snapping jaws with cruel grace. "Typical Alpha toy. Let the others bleed for you while you play with tricks."
Luna's jaw clenched.
"Rebel, Rhea—keep them off the flanks," Orion barked. "Luna, if you've got a plan, this is the time."
She did.
It was insane.
And it would take more power than she should spend.
Her gaze flicked upward.
Branches interlaced above them, thick enough in some places to block out half the light.
Leaves shivered.
"What are you thinking?" Elia's voice came from somewhere behind her, strained as she held back a lunging rogue with a staff.
"Trust me," Luna called back.
Elia swore creatively in reply.
Luna lifted both hands.
Wind howled in answer, sweeping up from the ground into the canopy.
Leaves tore free in a rushing spiral, flung into the faces of snapping rogues.
For a heartbeat, confusion rippled through the fight.
Then Luna called to the trees.
Not with words.
With *need.*
With a memory of the Moonstone Grove, where trunks had bowed in greeting and roots had bent aside for her feet.
*Help,* she pulsed down into the soil. *They burn what you are. Help me stop them.*
The nearest trees shuddered.
Roots groaned as they shifted.
Branches swayed unnaturally, creaking, dipping lower.
Luna gritted her teeth, sweat breaking along her spine.
The forest answered.
Not fully.
Not as easily as the Grove had.
This land was wounded.
Cautious.
But it remembered old pacts.
Old rhythms.
Branches dipped suddenly, sweeping across the Bloodfangs' front like giant arms.
Three rogues were knocked clean off their paws, sent sprawling back into their own ranks.
One yelped as a branch snagged his shoulder, holding him just long enough for a Moonshadow wolf to slam into his side.
"By the moon," someone gasped. "She's—"
"Steady!" Orion roared. "Eyes on your opponents, not the clouds!"
Bloodfangs snarled, snapping at the moving branches.
Axes and claws slashed bark.
Sap bled.
Luna hissed, feeling the sting as if it were along her own skin.
Fine.
If they wanted to hack at the forest, she'd give the forest sharper teeth.
She spread her fingers.
Lightning blossomed above the tree line, sheet-quiet at first, then louder, a drumbeat roll of distant thunder.
Raze's eyes flicked upward.
"Too cowardly to come down here?" he shouted, breath coming in harsh pants now. "Going to hide in the sky and throw pretty lights until we're bored?"
Luna smiled grimly.
"Don't worry," she called back. "You'll feel this."
She pulled.
The charge she'd built in the canopy raced down at her call, skittering along branches, leaping from leaf to leaf.
She angled it, not straight into the thickest mass of bodies—that would cook friend and foe together—but toward the Bloodfangs clustered at the tree line, those still waiting to surge.
The lightning tore down like a curtain.
It hit the ground in a jagged line, exploding earth and leaf-litter in a crackling, blinding flash.
Wolves yelped, flinched, stumbled back.
The scent of ozone bit hard at the back of her throat.
Those closest weren't killed—she'd held back, forced the bolt to spread, not pierce—but they were stunned, muscles seizing uncontrollably, paws skidding.
Moonshadow's line roared and surged forward—*just enough* to drive rogues back to their side of the drawn border.
"Hold!" Orion barked again, sharp enough to cut through the red haze.
They halted, like a wave obeying the moon.
Luna swayed.
Her vision doubled for a瞬.
Elia's hand was suddenly at her back, shoving a canteen into hers.
"Drink," Elia snapped. "You fry yourself and I'll drag your smoking corpse back to the Goddess personally."
Luna gulped water.
Her head cleared a little.
Raze shook himself, fur smoking slightly along his shoulders.
He stared at her with a mixture of fury and... grudging respect.
"You're no runt now," he panted. "I'll give you that."
She swallowed hard.
"Then stop treating me like one," she shot back.
He barked a harsh laugh.
"Oh, I'll treat you exactly as you are," he said. "An obstacle. An opportunity. A banner."
His eyes flicked to the Moonshadow warriors behind her, then to the cracks faintly visible spidering up the bark of some of the oldest trees at the border.
"You hold your line today," he said. "Bravo. But your walls are still cracking. Your pups are still slipping. And when the curse eats its way a little deeper, your 'pack' will panic. Run. Turn on you. That's when wolves like me clean our teeth."
He spat blood onto the soil.
"We're not leaving," he added. "We're shifting. Tasting. Testing. Every time you come out here to hold this rotten ground, you bleed a little more. We can do this all season. Can you?"
The taunt slid under Luna's fur.
Not because it wasn't true.
Because it was.
"Raze," she said, letting his name roll between them. "You keep sending your wolves to die on this line, they'll be too thin to go anywhere when the real storm hits."
He snorted.
"You think *you're* the real storm?" he mocked.
She shook her head.
"The cracks," she said. "The curse. It's not just here. It's in your den. Your bones. Your pups. I've felt it. You think you've chosen freedom. You've just chosen a different cage."
Something flickered in his eyes then.
The faintest, quickest shadow of unease.
He covered it with a snarl.
"We survive how we must," he spat. "Without elders telling us who to bite and when. Without Alphas selling us for advantage."
His gaze flicked, sharp and cutting, to Orion.
"Without rejecting what the Goddess gives just to keep a pretty bed warm."
The pack tensed.
Orion stilled beside Luna, jaw a hard line.
Shame rolled off him like heat.
Luna's temper flared.
"Careful," she said softly. "You're not wrong about what he did. But you talk much about Alphas while you throw your wolves at walls just to make a point. You're not free. You're just... feral in a smaller cage."
A few Bloodfangs snarled at that, but others shifted uncertainly.
Raze's lips peeled back from his teeth.
"High words for someone who came crawling back here," he sneered. "You think they'll keep you when you've patched their walls? You think they won't throw you to the cracks the second your magic costs more than it saves?"
The words hit too close to old wounds.
Luna's wolf flinched.
She bared her teeth.
"I didn't crawl," she said. "I walked in. And if they try to use me and cast me aside again, they'll find out exactly how it feels to be thrown to the dark."
Behind her, a few Moonshadow wolves shifted their weight.
Uncomfortable.
Uneasy.
Awed.
Raze's eyes gleamed.
"There it is," he said softly. "The bite under the blessing. Good. Hold onto that, little storm. You'll need it."
He glanced up at the still-shivering branches, at the faintly smoking strip of earth.
"Enough for today," he called to his wolves. "You got what we came for."
"What was that?" Rebel shouted. "A beating?"
Raze smiled a thin, bloody smile.
"A measurement," he said. "We know how hard she hits now. Next time, we'll aim where she's soft."
He whistled sharply.
Bloodfangs retreated, some limping, some snarling, all backing away without turning their backs completely.
The forest swallowed them.
The howls faded.
Silence crashed down—thick, ringing, full of ragged breaths and the soft, pained whimpers of wounded wolves.
For a few heartbeats, no one moved.
Then Rhea let out a long, shuddering breath.
"Still on *our* side of the line," she said tightly. "I'll take it."
Rebel spat blood and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Could've used one of those lightning tricks a few moons ago," he muttered.
"You'd have yelled at me for singeing your fur," Luna said, voice hoarse.
Elia shoved the canteen at her again.
"Drink," she repeated. "And sit. You're weaving."
Luna realized she was.
Her knees trembled.
The world tilted faintly.
She sank down onto a fallen log, the bark damp under her fingers.
Wind eased.
The trees settled, their branches creaking softly as they slowly let go of the tension she'd asked them to hold.
Faintly, she felt their... grudging approval.
She'd protected them.
They'd protected her.
A start.
Orion stood in the middle of the trampled earth, eyes scanning the treeline, chest heaving.
He scent-checked the air one last time, making sure no rogues lurked nearby.
Then he turned back to the pack.
"Check the wounded," he called. "No one walks back alone. Pairs. Keep your eyes open for shadow."
Wolves moved, groaning, supporting each other.
The morning light strengthened, burning off some of the mist.
Luna watched as a younger wolf—Tomas's older brother, she realized with a jolt—offered his shoulder to an older warrior with a bitten leg.
Small things.
New patterns.
Orion approached her, footsteps slow.
He crouched across from her, forearms resting on his thighs, hands loose.
Up close, she could see lines of fatigue along his mouth, a smear of blood—someone else's—on his jaw.
"You turned the forest against them," he said quietly.
"Not *against*," she corrected. "With us. It remembers who tends its roots."
He nodded slowly.
Silence stretched.
She sipped more water.
Finally, he spoke again.
"Raze is right about one thing," he said, voice low. "Our walls will not hold forever if we only ever react. He'll keep testing. The curse will keep eating. We can't fight *everyone* on this line every day."
Luna's shoulders sagged.
"I know," she said.
Her mind churned.
Fighting off rogues.
Holding cracks.
Placating elders.
Navigating Selene's venom.
Courting the Goddess' favor.
She was one wolf.
Even with a circle, even with her power, it would not be enough if everything kept pressing harder.
"We need... allies," she said slowly.
Orion's mouth tightened.
"Other packs," he said.
The thought made his scent spike with wary tension.
Alpha politics were ugly at the best of times.
Right now, with Moonshadow cracking and Luna glowing with a blessing no one understood?
Worse.
"They're already watching," he added. "Smelling weakness. Some will offer help out of fear of the curse spilling. Others will... see opportunity."
Luna nodded.
"We can't hide what's happening," she said. "Raze will shout it from the treetops if we don't. And the cracks don't care about borders. Better to set the terms before someone else does."
Elia groaned softly.
"Goddess save us from councils of Alphas," she muttered. "More politics. Just what you needed."
Rebel snorted.
"I'd rather fight ten Bloodfangs than sit in a room with five Alphas and their egos," he said.
Rhea rolled her eyes.
"Get in line," she replied.
Luna closed her eyes briefly.
The thought of more posturing, more narrow faces weighing her worth, made her stomach turn.
But this field, littered with fresh blood and flattened brush, made the choice for her.
If they fought the curse and the Bloodfangs *and* the other packs alone, Moonshadow would shatter.
"I'll go," she said.
Orion's head snapped toward her.
"To a council of Alphas," she clarified. "When it happens. If they call it. I'll stand in that circle and tell them what's coming whether they want to hear it or not."
He studied her.
Fear.
Respect.
Regret.
All tangled.
"You'll walk into a den of wolves who see you as a threat," he said slowly. "As a prize. As a... warning from the Goddess they don't want."
Luna opened her eyes.
Met his.
"I walked back in *here*," she said. "Into the den that rejected me. I'm still standing."
His mouth twisted.
"You're..." He shook his head, a small huff escaping him. "You are braver than I was, Luna."
Her chest squeezed.
She looked away, throat tight.
"This isn't about bravery," she said. "It's about necessity."
Wind tugged at her hair, cooling the sweat on her neck.
The forest settled into a cautious quiet.
Behind them, Moonshadow wolves began the slow, painful work of carrying their wounded home, their steps heavy but their backs unbroken.
They had held their line.
Kept their land.
For today.
Tomorrow, the Bloodfangs would test again.
The cracks would widen again.
The other packs would stir, sensing blood in the air.
Luna ran a hand through the damp grass at her feet, grounding herself in the cold, in the solidity of earth.
Storm, politics, territory—all of it wound together now.
This was more than a border skirmish.
It was a rehearsal.
For bigger battles.
For choices that would demand more than lightning and roots.
She rose, legs still shaky but bearing her weight.
"Let's get them home," she said.
Elia snorted.
"Listen to her," she muttered. "Already sounds like she thinks this place is worth dragging back to its feet."
Luna glanced toward the trees one last time.
The line between Moonshadow and Bloodfang land shimmered in her vision, not as a scratch in the dirt, but as a living, pulsing wound in the forest's skin.
She touched the air above it with her fingertips.
"Hold," she whispered—not to the wolves this time.
To the land.
To herself.
"We're not done yet."
The wind answered with a low sigh.
The trees rustled.
And Luna turned her back on the scarred border, walking with her pack toward the cracked den she had chosen, against all reason, to save.