The Bloodfangs came back with the setting sun.
Luna felt them before she heard them.
The forest along the western border went unnaturally still, as if even the wind were holding its breath. Birds that should have been calling at dusk fell silent. Leaves froze in mid-rustle.
Her skin prickled.
"They're here," she murmured.
Rhea, standing at her shoulder on the wall-walk, lifted her nose and inhaled.
"Blood and stubborn," she muttered. "Perfect."
Below them, the western gate bristled with wolves. Warriors in half-shift paced the packed dirt, claws sinking into old bloodstains from battles past. Youngers held spears with white-knuckled hands, trying not to stare too long at the crack that split the gate's arch like a black vein.
Orion strode along the parapet, eyes sharp, checking stations, murmuring to each squad. He'd put extra warriors on the inner corners, where the curse-claw marks in the stone were deepest.
Luna stood in the center of the wall, palms pressed to the stone. The rock thrummed under her fingers with a low, irritated hum, echoing the land's exhaustion.
"We can't keep meeting them here," Rebel said from her other side. "Every time we do, we feed the cracks."
"I know," Luna said. "But we're not going out there again, not tonight."
The Bloodfangs wanted to drag them back to the thin line between territories, where Luna's power and Moonshadow's structure both felt less certain.
Tonight, if it had to fall, it would be on *her* ground.
A howl rose from the shadowed trees. Long. Low. Mocking.
Raze.
The Bloodfang Alpha stepped into view as the last light bled out of the sky.
He padded into the clearing in front of the gate in full wolf form—rangy, scarred, his fur a patchy mix of grey and rust. He stopped just beyond bow-range, lifting his head to look up at the walls.
More shapes melted out of the treeline behind him—two dozen, then three, then more. The Bloodfangs fanned out in a loose half-circle, jaws parted, eyes gleaming in the dim.
"By the moon," Elia muttered under her breath. "He brought family."
Luna's wolf rose, hackles lifting—not in fear, but in sharp, hot focus.
*This one,* it growled. *We finish this one.*
Raze shifted as they watched, fur receding, limbs lengthening, bones cracking and twisting until he stood on two legs, bare-chested in the chill air. Old scars mapped his skin like a history: bites, claw marks, burns.
He spread his arms wide toward the wall.
"MOONSHADOW!" he called, voice rough and ringing. "We've come to collect what's owed!"
Luna stepped up onto the parapet edge, ignoring Rhea's quick, startled curse behind her.
She looked down.
The last time she'd seen Raze this close, he'd been laughing as his wolves snapped at retreating Moonshadow heels, confident that the curse would finish what they started.
Tonight, his eyes narrowed when he saw her.
"Storm-runt," he drawled. "You made quite the mess out at the line."
"You're welcome," Luna said.
Murmurs rippled along the wall.
"Get down from there," Maera hissed from behind, scandalized. "You'll fall—or they'll pick you off."
Luna ignored her.
She let the wind she'd been holding at bay rise up around her, tugging at her braids, curling over the edge of the wall and lapping at the Bloodfangs' paws like invisible water.
"You said we could do this all season," Luna called down. "Testing. Measuring. Bleeding. I'm tired of it."
Raze's grin showed broken teeth.
"Oh?" he said. "What's the alternative? You open the gate, invite us in for stew, ask us nicely not to tear chunks out of your pups?"
Luna's jaw tightened.
Beside her, Orion's hand hovered, as if itching to grab her arm and haul her back behind cover.
He didn't.
"Challenge," Luna said.
The word dropped into the clearing like a stone into still water.
Silence warped around it.
Raze blinked.
"What did you say?" he asked.
"You want Moonshadow's land," Luna said, voice clear. "You want to test our strength until something breaks. Fine. Test *me.* Alpha to Alpha."
Rhea sucked in a breath.
Rebel swore softly.
Behind her, Maera spluttered.
"You are *not*—" the elder began.
"Quiet," Orion snapped, shock flaring in his scent as well. "Let her speak."
Luna's pulse hammered so hard she could feel it in her throat.
This was insane.
This was necessary.
Raze cocked his head, studying her.
"You're not their Alpha," he said.
His gaze flicked to Orion, then back.
"You're not even their Luna."
His eyes hardened, amused and cruel.
"You're a rejected mate with some shiny new tricks and a pack too desperate to refuse," he went on. "You think that makes you enough to face me? To speak for *all* of them?"
Wind clawed at Luna's cloak.
She let it.
"I'm the one holding your curse back from eating this forest alive," she said. "The one who fused that crack above this gate back together with my bare hands. The one who pulled pups your rot had already half-claimed."
She spread her arms.
Thunder rolled distantly, even though the sky was clear.
"If you want to break Moonshadow," she said, "you go through *me.*"
Gasps rippled along the wall.
Bloodfangs shifted their weight, some licking their chops, others watching with new, wary eyes.
Raze's grin faded.
He lifted his chin.
"Alpha to Alpha?" he repeated. "You think naming yourself so makes it true?"
Luna let the wind rise around her, swirling in a loose spiral.
Lightning flickered over her fingers, thin and bright.
"The Goddess did that," she said. "Not me."
A murmur rolled through both packs.
The Bloodfangs weren't devout.
They weren't fools, either.
Curses in the walls.
Cracks in the moonstone.
Storms shaped by a runt.
Everyone could smell divine interference.
Raze's eyes narrowed.
"You win," Luna said, pulse tripping over the words. "You get the border you're clawing for. A strip of land. A... buffer. No more tests. No more hit-and-run nonsense. You take it, you hold it, you keep your teeth off our walls and our pups."
Murmurs exploded behind her.
"Elia," Maera hissed. "You hear this? She can't—"
"She *can*," Elia said flatly. "You heard her. The Goddess named her. That overrides your little seating chart."
Luna's heart pounded louder.
"You lose," she told Raze, "and you pull your pack back beyond the river. You stay there. You hold *your* line. You don't step paw onto Moonshadow land again without invitation. You break that, and I come to your den, and I do to your walls what I've been doing to mine. Only in reverse."
Raze barked another laugh, incredulous.
"You threatening to *break* my home?" he asked. "You, who was thrown out of yours like table scraps?"
The old wound flared.
She didn't flinch.
"You're not the only one who learned how to thrive without a roof," she said.
Their eyes locked.
Behind him, some Bloodfangs were murmuring to each other, tasting the idea of land they could claim without constant skirmishes.
Behind her, Moonshadow wolves muttered anxiously, some furious, some... hopeful.
Orion stepped closer to Luna, voice low at her ear.
"You're offering them *territory,*" he said. "You realize that?"
She didn't take her eyes off Raze.
"They already have it," she said. "They've been taking it drip by drip. Wolves with nothing to lose will always chew a border until it frays. This ends it. One way or another."
Orion's jaw flexed.
He swallowed whatever argument he wanted to make.
"Council should decide—" Maera started.
"We don't have time for a council," Luna snapped, finally turning enough to meet Maera's outraged glare. "You want to debate the politics of a pack that doesn't exist anymore, or do you want to stop more of your warriors from dying at this gate?"
Silence fell again.
Rhea stepped forward, shoving past Maera to slap her fist to the stone.
"I'll back it," she said. "She beats him, we get fewer Bloodfangs chewing our fences. He beats her..." She swallowed. "Then we're dead anyway. This way at least we go down seeing what the moon made of our runt."
Rebel grunted.
"I've been wanting to see someone knock that bastard's teeth in for years," he said. "If she can do it and save us a season's worth of skirmishes, I say let her try."
Luna's chest tightened.
Support.
Faith.
From warriors who'd once watched her scrub their boots.
She turned back to Raze.
"Well?" she called. "Or are you afraid of losing in front of your pack to someone you call 'runt'?"
Bloodfangs shifted.
A low, anticipatory growl rippled through them.
Raze's eyes flashed.
"You've got a sharp tongue," he said. "Be a shame not to tear it out."
He rolled his shoulders.
"Fine," he said. "Alpha to storm-pet. One fight. Your terms."
A hum went up along the wall, pitched somewhere between horror and thrill.
Orion's hand finally closed around Luna's forearm, grip tight.
"You're sure?" he asked under his breath. "He kills you, the Goddess' gift goes *with* you. The cracks—"
"She knows the risk," Elia cut in. "Let her choose it."
Luna met Orion's gaze.
Saw the fear there.
The regret.
The helplessness.
She placed her free hand over his, pried his fingers off her arm gently.
"This started when you stood in this courtyard and said no to Her," she said quietly. "To me. If one fight can keep another pack from bleeding out for your mistake and mine, I'm taking it."
His throat worked.
He let go.
"Then I stand for your terms," he said, voice carrying.
The words sent a fresh ripple through both packs.
An Alpha publicly backing a challenge he had not called, for territory he would not personally win.
Luna stepped off the parapet.
Gasps erupted.
Air surged around her at her call, catching her cloak, her body, slowing the fall into something more like a glide.
She landed in a crouch in the trampled dirt outside the gate, knees bending, palm slapping the ground for balance.
The earth thrummed under her hand.
"This is your ground," it said, wordless but clear. "Make your claim."
She rose.
Raze watched her approach, expression sharp, hands loose at his sides.
Up close, he smelled like old rage and fresh blood and something else—faint, dark, familiar.
Curse.
It clung to him like a second skin, settled deep in the old scars.
"Take your wolf," he said. "Or your two legs? I don't care. I'll break whichever shape you pick."
Luna inhaled.
Her wolf howled inside, wanting to meet him on four paws, teeth to teeth.
But this wasn't just about dominance.
This was a *statement.*
She let her wolf rise *with* her, not instead of her.
Bones cracked.
Not into a full shift.
Her spine lengthened; her muscles thickened; claws pricked through her fingertips; her teeth sharpened.
Half-shift.
The in-between place where her human mind and wolf-instinct could meet the storm together.
Wind coiled tighter around her, whipping her cloak in a circular current.
Lightning skated over her forearms, bright enough to make some of the nearest Bloodfangs flinch.
Raze's nostrils flared.
"So the stories are true," he said softly. "The Goddess made a joke and turned it into a weapon."
"You talk too much," Luna said.
Then she moved.
Raze was fast.
He'd spent his life honing his body as his only weapon, his only armor.
He lunged, claws out, aiming for her throat.
Luna dropped, not back, but *in*, turning the forward momentum into a tight spiral.
Wind grabbed his arm, tugging just enough to throw off his angle.
His claws grazed her shoulder instead of her jugular.
Pain flared, hot and immediate.
She used it.
Her free hand flashed out, lightning crackling along her knuckles as she drove her fist into his ribs.
The shock leapt into him, muscles seizing.
He grunted, staggering.
Not enough power to stop his heart.
Enough to send a warning through bone.
He recovered quickly, swinging a wild backhand aimed at her jaw.
Luna slipped under it, wind boosting her sidestep.
Her foot shot out, connecting with his knee.
It buckled.
He dropped to one knee, snarling.
"Dirty," he spat.
"We're fighting for lives," she said. "Not honor stories."
He lunged again, this time lower, grabbing for her legs.
She felt the intent a heartbeat before impact—the subtle tug of air displaced by moving muscle, the twist of his shoulders.
She stomped.
Not on him.
On the ground.
Earth answered.
The dirt under his feet went momentarily soft, sucking at his ankles.
He mis-stepped, momentum carrying him forward faster than he'd intended.
Luna pivoted, driving her elbow down between his shoulder blades as he pitched past her.
He hit the ground hard, air whooshing out of his lungs.
A roar went up from the walls.
Bloodfangs snarled, some half-lurching as if to rush forward.
Raze rolled, coughing, spitting blood and dirt.
He looked up at her, eyes burning.
For a瞬, Luna saw something beyond the fury.
Bone-deep exhaustion.
A wolf who had clawed his pack into survival by doing exactly what she was doing now—taking stupid risks because there was nothing else left.
"Get up," she said, voice rough. "We're not done."
He laughed, a harsh, rasping sound.
"You think I'm beaten because I ate a little dirt?" he panted. "Alpha isn't who hits hardest first, girl. It's who still has teeth when the others are too tired to bite."
He pushed up slowly.
Luna's muscles already ached; her shoulder throbbed; her storm hummed too hot.
He was right about one thing: she'd been leaning on power. He'd been leaning on stubborn flesh his whole life.
He feinted left.
She moved with the wind again, anticipating the right.
He went *straight* instead, dropping low and slamming his shoulder into her midsection.
Air left her chest in a rough *oof* as she hit the ground on her back.
The wind abandoned her for a瞬.
Raze was on her, hands closing around her throat, nails biting into half-shifted skin.
"I have watched packs like yours turn their backs while ours starved," he snarled inches from her face. "I have dragged my wolves through winters your elders pretended not to see. You think a crack in your wall makes your suffering equal?"
His grip tightened.
Black edged her vision.
Her lungs burned.
Her wolf thrashed.
Her storm snapped.
Luna didn't try to pry his hands free with her own.
She shoved her power *inward* instead, into the places his fingers bit.
Into his skin.
His veins.
Lightning leapt, not in a showy bolt, but along the narrowest, most immediate path.
From her throat, up his arms.
He screamed.
His fingers spasmed open.
The smell of singed flesh hit her nose.
She rolled, sucking in air, coughing.
He stumbled back, cradling his hands, skin reddened and raw where the lightning had run.
"Enough tricks," he gasped. "Fight me like a wolf."
She pushed to her feet, chest heaving.
Her eyes burned.
"Elemental wolves?" she rasped. "Are *wolves.*"
She advanced.
He backed up a step, then snarled and came at her again, this time in full shift, fur bursting along his shoulders in a rough wave, spine bowing.
He hit four paws before he reached her, a grey-and-rust blur.
She let her wolf rise the rest of the way to meet him.
Bones broke and reformed in a screamless instant.
Her hands became paws, her cloak fell away, her vision sharpened.
She hit the ground as a wolf a heartbeat before his jaws snapped at where her human hip had been.
She was still smaller.
Always smaller.
But not as much as before.
Power had filled what flesh had lacked.
Her fur bristled black, shot through at the tips with faint silver sparks that danced along each hair.
Their bodies collided.
They tumbled in a snarling knot of teeth and claws and flashing lightning.
He went for her throat.
She twisted, his teeth closing on the thick fur behind her shoulder instead.
Pain flared; she yelped; instinct screamed to rip free.
She forced herself *in* instead, shoving her weight into him, claws digging for purchase in his ribs.
Her jaw snapped for his neck.
He jerked his head, avoiding a kill-bite by a breath, her teeth closing on his ear instead.
She bit down.
Hard.
He howled, wrenching back.
Blood spattered the dirt.
They broke apart for a瞬, circling, panting, fur matted with blood and mud.
"Moon," Rhea breathed from above. "She's holding him."
Raze feinted right, then left, then lunged straight at her chest.
She dropped low, letting him sail over as her paws dug furrows in the ground, wind giving her a fraction more speed.
As he passed above, she lashed out with her hind legs, kicking.
Lightning flared with the impact.
He hit the ground hard, skidding, paws scrambling.
Before he could fully regain his stance, she called.
Not to sky.
To *earth.*
The ground under him heaved, a small, localized swell, like a wave under a single ship.
He lost balance as it lifted, paws sliding in newly slick mud.
She was on him.
She drove him down, her weight on his shoulders, teeth finding his scruff and *pinning.*
He bucked.
Snarled.
Twisted.
She dug in, claws raking his sides enough to hurt, not enough to tear organs.
Lightning flickered along her teeth, a buzzing, warning sting where her jaws held him.
His growl turned to a pained, involuntary whine.
He froze.
Silence fell.
The Bloodfangs bristled, some crouching, some trembling.
Moonshadow wolves leaned over the wall, breath held.
Luna held Raze there, muscles shaking.
She could kill him.
Right now.
A little more pressure, a little more current, and his spine would snap.
His blood would soak her fur.
His pack would either scatter or descend in a frenzy.
Chaos.
Death.
Maybe it would buy Moonshadow a season's peace.
Maybe it would just scatter the Bloodfangs into smaller, more desperate packs.
Hungry wolves with no leader turned on patrols with a different kind of ferocity.
Her wolf urged.
*Finish.*
Her storm hummed.
*Choose.*
Her heart—remembering pups caught in borders, wolves cast out by rigid elders, anger that had nothing to do with land and everything to do with hurt—burned.
She opened her jaws.
The lightning at her teeth flared.
She snarled into his ear instead of breaking his neck.
"Yield," she commanded. "Or I will end you."
His body trembled under her.
His pride warred with his survival.
He could let himself die to prove a point.
He could throw the fate of his pack on the dice of his last, stubborn breath.
Slowly, she felt the fight go out of his muscles.
Not all.
Enough.
His throat rumbled.
Not in defiance.
In something like... bitter, furious acceptance.
"I... yield," he growled.
The words came out rough, torn from him.
The air seemed to shudder.
A strange, subtle snap rippled through the clearing.
Not her lightning.
Something older.
Some pact older than either of their packs, written in the bones of wolves: dominance established, challenge met, terms binding.
Luna eased her jaws.
Didn't fully let go.
Above, the Bloodfangs shifted.
Some snarled.
Some sagged.
On the wall, Rhea punched the air.
"Ha!" she shouted. "Did you see that? She bit his *ear* off!"
Elia smacked her with the back of a hand.
"Shut up," she hissed. "Don't jinx it."
Luna released Raze's scruff and stepped back, chest heaving, blood—his and hers—dripping from her fur.
He rolled slowly to his side, then to his belly, sides heaving.
His remaining ear flicked raggedly.
He lifted his head, eyes blazing.
"You've made a mistake," he snarled, voice rough. "Wolves like mine don't respect mercy."
Luna's wolf form rippled, bones cracking as she shifted just enough that her throat and jaw could work around proper words again.
Teeth sharp.
Fur bristling.
Lightning still dancing faintly at her paws.
"I didn't do it for *you*," she rasped. "I did it for them."
She jerked her head toward his wolves.
Toward the line of tense, half-starved, half-too-eager faces.
"You think I don't know what it is to be cast out because you don't fit someone's pretty picture?" she went on. "To be told you're too small, too weak, too... wrong to deserve a place?"
She shook herself, sending a spray of blood from her fur.
"I could kill you," she said. "I might need to, someday. But if I tear your head off right now, what happens to them? You've held them together by rage and fear. You let that snap, and they'll explode."
Some of the Bloodfangs bristled, offended.
More looked... uncertain.
"I'm not your savior," Luna said. "I'm not theirs. But I am *done* with letting old Alphas and broken packs use wolves like you as battering rams."
Her gaze swept both sets of watching eyes—Moonshadow and Bloodfang.
"Raze yielded," she said, voice rising. "By teeth and by old law. The terms stand. You cross into our land again uninvited, you break that, and I will come for you myself. No more games. No more skirmishes. No more picking at wounded edges."
Her eyes hardened.
"To the river," she finished. "Stay beyond it. Hold *your* ground. Or next time, I don't stop at your scruff."
Wind coiled tighter, emphasizing her words, carrying them clearly.
Raze bared his teeth.
"You talk like you're above us," he spat.
"I talk like someone who is very tired of cleaning up messes we didn't make," she shot back. "Go. While I still care more about the Wolves you lead than whether your heart keeps beating."
They stared at each other.
For a heartbeat.
Two.
Then, with a snarled curse, Raze pushed himself shakily to his feet.
He didn't bow.
He didn't thank her.
He turned his back on her and limped toward the treeline.
His wolves parted to let him through, then fell in behind him, a ragged, bristling, confused mass.
The ones at the back lingered a little, staring at Luna, at the glow still humming faintly under her skin.
One, a thin she-wolf with a scarred muzzle, met Luna's eyes and dipped her head the barest fraction.
Not deference.
Acknowledgment.
Then she, too, vanished into the trees.
Silence crashed down.
Then sound returned in a rush.
Howls tore from Moonshadow throats, victorious, disbelieving.
Some shouted her name.
Others howled wordless, high and fierce.
On the wall, Rhea was jumping up and down like a pup, slapping Rebel's back so hard he winced.
Elia sagged against the parapet, laughing breathlessly, tears glinting in her eyes.
Luna's legs wobbled.
Her half-shifted body trembled as she forced bone and flesh fully back into human form.
Pain flared in her shoulder, at her throat, along every place teeth and claws had found her.
She swayed.
Air caught her.
Orion's arms did the rest.
He was suddenly there, solid and warm and smelling of fear and pride and regret.
He caught her under the shoulders, pulling her back until her heels found ground.
"Easy," he murmured, voice rough in her ear. "You did it."
She let herself lean into him for a heartbeat.
Just one.
His chest rose and fell against her back.
His heart hammered.
"Storm," he said, equal parts awe and something like grief. "You *did* it."
She straightened, gently but firmly easing herself out of his grip.
"Not alone," she said.
She nodded toward the walls, where her pack watched—eyes wide, fur bristling, hearts pounding in the same rhythm.
Our pack, her wolf corrected.
She swallowed.
Maybe.
Someday.
For now, they were wolves who had watched her stand on blood and hold a line with teeth and lightning both.
They'd seen her face a traditional Alpha and win.
They'd seen her spare his life when ending it would have been easier.
The politics that would spin from that choice would be messy.
The Bloodfangs would go to the river.
Whether they stayed there would depend on hunger and fear and Raze's pride.
The other packs would hear of this challenge.
They'd whisper.
They'd weigh.
Some would fear her.
Some would want to use her.
Some would want to break her before she broke what they'd built.
Luna squared her shoulders despite the pain.
Storm still hummed under her skin, quieter now, banked but not gone.
Cracks still threaded the walls behind her.
The curse still breathed in the stone.
But for the first time in too long, the border to the west was quiet.
The Bloodfang Alpha had yielded to a wolf who didn't fit any old rulebook.
She'd proven—to them, to herself, to the watching Goddess—that she was more than the runt they'd thrown out.
More than an element gone wild.
She was a force traditional wolves would have to reckon with.
And this was only the first enemy they had in common.