CHAPTER ONE
The night air was cool and heavy with mist, wrapping itself around the forest like a living thing. The scent of pine needles and damp earth clung to each breath, mingling with the faint metallic tang of blood. Far above, the moon hung low and swollen, its pale light spilling across the treetops and breaking into silver fragments through the shifting canopy. The forest was still, holding its breath as though it, too, waited for something to happen.
Beneath the shadow of ancient trees, a massive wolf lay trembling. His thick fur, a proud coat of dark ash streaked with silver was matted and stiff with blood. His body was a ruin of torn flesh and deep gashes, each one telling a story of teeth, claws, and rage. His sides rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths. Even unconscious, there was power in his presence, a predator's weight, the quiet pull of dominance that marked him as more than just any wolf.
Ethan, Alpha of the Redclaw Pack, was no stranger to pain. He had fought rival Alphas beneath the glow of a hundred moons, led his pack through famine, storms, and bitter winters. He had known the agony of transformation, the splintering of bones, the burning stretch of sinew and skin. But this was different. This pain was not clean. It was the slow, gnawing ache of something unnatural, something that dug deeper than flesh.
The curse had been growing inside him for months, a disease that flared under the full moon. At first it was only a whisper, a flicker of lost control, a flash of rage that faded as quickly as it came. But with each moonrise, it grew hungrier, clawing at his mind until reason splintered beneath it. And when the change came now, it did not end with the hunt. It ended in blood. This night, the blood had been his own pack's.
They had dragged him here, two of his strongest, half-carrying his limp weight through the forest. His paws had left smears of red on the leaves. His breathing had faltered, broken into shallow gasps. There was only one place they could take him, though every instinct rebelled against it, to the healer of the River Pack.
Clara was known for her rare gift, one that could knit not just torn flesh, but broken spirits. The elders whispered that her touch could coax a fever from the body, that her words could draw darkness from the soul. She had saved wolves on both sides of ancient feuds. But she had made one thing clear; she would never tend a Redclaw.
When they laid him on the moss before her door, Clara froze. The sight of him was almost unreal. She had heard stories of Ethan, the Alpha whose presence could silence a room, whose power rippled through the very air around him. But here he was, broken, his strength bleeding out into the soil. His breath came in rattling pulls. His great head lolled weakly to the side.
Her first instinct was to turn away. He was the enemy. He was her enemy. She had no reason to keep him breathing, no debt to pay to his kind. She told them as much, her voice like ice.
But then she saw his chest stutter, saw the way his claws twitched faintly as though even unconscious he fought to survive. She had spent years learning to listen to that quiet pull, the line between life and death, and she knew in that moment that he stood right on it. A single choice could send him either way.
Her hands betrayed her heart. Against her will, she reached for her satchel, pulled out bandages, herbs, and vials. She bound the worst of the wounds with strips of clean cloth, her fingers steady despite the turmoil boiling beneath her ribs. She murmured the old healing chants taught her by the River Pack elders, the words falling from her lips like water over stone. She poured cool river water over the blood and dirt, watching it swirl away into the moss.
When the bleeding slowed, she hauled him with effort to the edge of the moonlit river. The water shimmered under the silver light, its surface trembling with the faint night breeze. She eased his body into the shallows, letting the current lap at his fur, washing away the heat of fever. Moonlight painted him in silver, hiding the worst of the wounds beneath its glow.
It should have ended there, just another act of reluctant mercy. But as she worked, an old memory rose like a tide, pulling her under.
Her brother's laughter. The way his eyes crinkled when he grinned. The weight of his promise, I'll be back before dawn, you'll see. The smell of smoke and blood when they brought news of the hunt gone wrong. She had been told the Alpha lost control that night. The Redclaws spoke of a frenzy, of how he had torn into his own. Her brother had been among the dead.
Her breath caught. She looked at the wolf in the water, at the rise and fall of his chest.
The Alpha. This Alpha. Ethan.
Her pity evaporated, leaving only cold clarity. The weight in her hands was no longer that of a wounded creature, it was the weight of her brother's killer.
She would heal him, yes. But not for his sake. She would make him strong again so she could destroy him herself. So that when she looked into his golden eyes at the end, he would know who had ended him, and why.
The thought rooted deep inside her, sharp and unshakable. And then another followed, darker still: Why wait?
Her fingers slid to the obsidian knife at her hip. It was not large, but it was sharp enough to pierce a heart in a single thrust. The moonlight kissed its edge, turning it into a sliver of night itself. She held it steady, feeling the cool weight of it in her palm.
The river murmured beside her. The forest remained silent. She leaned closer, her shadow falling over him. His breathing was shallow but steady now, his body limp in the water. One clean strike to the throat would do it. One motion, and the curse would die with him.
Her heartbeat was slow, deliberate, matching the rhythm of her breath. She pictured her brother's face. She pictured Ethan's body sinking beneath the current, carried away into the dark. She raised the knife.
And then his eyes flickered open.
Golden. Burning, even in weakness. They locked onto hers, and for a heartbeat she could not move. Pain lived in that gaze, but also rage, and something else she could not name. The moment stretched, the knife trembling faintly in her grip.
It would be so easy. She could end him now. But a strange hesitation gripped her. Killing him like this, half-dead, barely conscious, felt wrong. Too merciful. He needed to feel the weight of what he had done, needed to know whose hand ended him.
Slowly, she lowered the blade. The current tugged at her sleeves as she slid the small knife back into its sheath. Not tonight.
Her lips curved into a cold smile, a promise more than an expression.
"Rest now, Alpha," she whispered, her voice soft as frost. "Your time will come."
The moon drifted higher, its light spilling over the river and the wounded wolf within it. The healer and the cursed Alpha remained there, two lives drawn together by fate and hate. One sought redemption. The other craved revenge. And somewhere between them, the night itself seemed to hold its breath.