Evil doesn't wear a face, sometimes it hides behind the eyes of the innocent…
SELENE
The air had changed.
Ever since the maid's body was found in the lower garden, the entire house felt colder. Quieter. Everyone moved carefully, like the walls had grown ears.
And the eyes, those were the worst part.
Maids who used to smile now dropped their gazes when I passed. Guards stiffened at my presence. Conversations stopped when I entered a room. The whispers followed me like shadows clinging to my heels.
No one said it out loud.
But I could feel it.
They blamed me.
LUCIAN
I returned to the packhouse just after sunrise, the weight of a week-long journey heavy on my shoulders. Dust clung to my boots. My coat was travel-worn. I didn't even make it to my room before I heard the news.
A maid, dead.
A girl barely old enough to shift.
And the timing? Too perfect to be coincidence.
"She warned the Luna,"a warrior whispered to me before I stepped inside. "Just hours before she was found."
That was all I needed to hear.
I stormed through the halls, the scent of blood still faint in the air, even after the mess had been cleaned.
In the courtyard, I found Kieran speaking to a patrol leader.
And standing a few feet away, was her.
The so-called Luna.
The girl who arrived in chains, bearing the bloodline of our greatest enemy.
I didn't care how pretty she was. Or how quiet she looked now, eyes turned to the ground like she didn't want trouble.
Trouble followed her like a curse.
SELENE
Lucian's voice cut through the air like a whip. "This is her fault!"
I froze, lifting my eyes just as he stormed toward me. His dark hair was pulled back, face set in a hard glare.
Kieran stepped in front of me before Lucian could get too close.
"She had nothing to do with it,"Kieran said, calm but firm.
Lucian laughed bitterly. "Of course you'd defend her. You bought her. You brought her here. You can't even see what she's doing to us."
"She's not the enemy."
"Then why is she the only one people are dying around?"
Silence fell like a blade.
I felt every eye on me. Every breath held back in the crowd.
Lucian looked at me with something close to hatred. "First, she runs. Then she returns and death follows her. Mark my words, Kieran. If you don't control her, we'll have a war inside these walls."
KIERAN
Lucian was angry. Too angry. I knew he had lost someone on this trip, his cousin had died in a border skirmish, and grief was a dangerous beast.
But what worried me more than his shouting was how the others began to listen.
Fear was starting to bloom in the hearts of my people.
Selene stood still through it all, eyes unreadable, lips pressed tight.
I wanted to reach for her. To tell her she wasn't alone.
But I also knew, if I touched her in front of them, it would only make things worse.
So I said nothing.
But I watched her walk away.
Alone.
SELENE
I didn't cry.
Not when Lucian shouted. Not when the maids flinched away from me in the hallway. Not even when a child, no older than Lia, hid behind her mother when I passed.
I just kept walking.
Past the walls.
Past the garden.
Into the sunlit clearing behind the house, where the wind was warm and the grass was high. A place no one seemed to visit anymore.
I needed to breathe.
To feel the earth under me. To remember I was still real.
I lay down on the ground and closed my eyes, the soft wind brushing over my face. For the first time in days, my muscles relaxed.
The quiet wrapped around me like a lullaby.
And then,
Snap.
The shift in the air was sudden.
Too sudden.
I opened my eyes.
Too late.
A shadow fell across my face, and hands, rough, strong, closed around my throat.
I gasped, but the air was already gone.
Fingers tightened, cutting off sound, cutting off everything. My legs kicked, my nails clawed at the air, but I couldn't see their face. Only darkness.
A voice, low and cold, hissed into my ear.
"You should have stayed in your cage."
Darkness.
It closed in around me, thick and suffocating. My lungs screamed for air as the pressure on my throat tightened.
I couldn't scream.
Couldn't fight.
My legs kicked helplessly, fists clawing at the hands crushing my windpipe. The grass scratched my back as I struggled. My vision flickered, black creeping in at the edges.
This is how I die, I thought.
Alone.
Blamed.
Unwanted.
And then,
A snarl ripped through the air.
Not human.
Not even fully wolf.
A roar of fury followed, and suddenly the weight vanished from my chest. I gasped, coughing violently, turning onto my side as air flooded painfully back into my lungs.
Through blurred eyes, I saw him.
Kieran.
He stood over me, chest rising and falling, his claws fully extended, a growl still rumbling in his throat. His eyes burned gold, his wolf barely held back.
The attacker lay sprawled in the grass a few feet away, unmoving.
Kieran crouched beside me. "Selene," he said, voice rough. "Are you…?"
"I am okay,"I rasped, throat sore and shaking. "I think."
He gently touched my chin, tilting my face up to check the bruises forming along my neck. Rage simmered behind his eyes. "I shouldn't have let you be alone," he muttered.
"I didn't think anyone would come out here,"I whispered.
"Apparently someone did."
KIERAN
I stood, stalking toward the body of the attacker.
He was male, young, maybe seventeen, wiry. His shirt was torn, dirt caked beneath his fingernails. He wasn't a stranger. He was one of ours. A kitchen helper. A quiet one. I remembered his name.
Tomas.
But there was something wrong with him.
His eyes were wide open, clouded white. Unseeing.
"Selene," I called softly, "stay back."
I knelt beside him, checking for injuries. He was breathing, barely but he didn't respond when I touched his face or shook his shoulder.
Then I noticed something that made my blood run cold.
His pupils didn't react to light.
He wasn't blind by birth.
He had been blinded by force… or something else.
"He's blind," I murmured. "But that's not all…"
Selene had pulled herself up to sitting, her arms wrapped around her knees. She looked dazed, but she was listening.
"What do you mean?"
I looked again. This time closer.
There was something moving beneath his skin. A flicker beneath the surface like shadows crawling through his veins.
I pressed two fingers to his forehead and whispered the old words. Words I hadn't spoken in years. Words I barely believed in anymore.
And that's when his body arched unnaturally and a voice that didn't belong to Tomas came hissing out of his mouth:
"The Luna must not awaken."
Selene gasped. I leapt back.
Tomas collapsed again, unmoving.
For a long time, neither of us said anything.
Then Selene broke the silence, voice low and trembling.
"That wasn't his voice."
"No," I said. "It wasn't."
SELENE
My hands were still shaking. Not from fear, but from something else.
A memory.
The voice from the dream. The same cold hiss.
I looked at Kieran. "He was possessed."
He nodded slowly, frowning down at the unconscious boy. "There's a darkness moving in this pack, Selene. I thought I could control it. I thought I could protect you from it. But this…"
"This is bigger," I said. Isn't it?"
He didn't answer.
But he didn't need to.
I could see it in his eyes.
And then he said the words that made everything worse: "This is only the beginning."
Later that night, the pack healer examined Tomas.
She confirmed what we already suspected, he couldn't remember anything. He had no memory of attacking me. No memory of anything at all from the last three days.
As they carried his unconscious form away, I noticed something in his clenched fist.
A mark burned into his palm, twisted, dark, and strangely familiar.
I bent down, heart hammering.
It was a symbol.
A spiral of black ink coiled around a sharp, jagged sun.
And the moment I saw it, a flash of memory hit me
A stone altar.
A woman screaming.
A child with the same mark burned into her shoulder.
Me.