The moon bled that night as usual.
But this time it happened to be different because Isolde had never seen anything like it. Red and huge, it shone bright above the trees. It looked much bigger and brighter this time.
She stood in the pack grounds, Isolde could feel her bare feet digging into cold earth, her heart was racing fast. This felt strange and awkward. The wind smelled like ash, dried leaves and frost. Behind her, the village buzzed with nervous excitement, they were used to it. Infact they were prepared for it because it was the kind that always came with the Blood Moon.
The elders called it sacred and powerful. A night of revelation and reckoning, the waking and arising of power in the bones of mature wolves.
Isolde said "I am just an omega, the lowest in the pack." She has always been fed with that mentality since she was born.
Suddenly she reached for the necklace her mother left for her when she was born. She pulled it out of her clothes and looked at it. A single crescent fang, silver, old, always warm against her skin. She had been wearing it since she was six.
She even wondered where her mother could hqve gotten it from.
"Isolde!"
She jolted back to life after hearing her name called.
But who called her?
It was Brinna and she stood in the shadows behind her, arms crossed, wrapped in a thick wool cloak which spelt of genuine friendship.
Brinna smiled and said, "You're not supposed to be this close to the forest." She joined in looking at the red glow showering in the wild.
"The Ceremony starts in few minutes time. We will be fished out if we don't arrive early." Brinna told her.
Isolde looked at her best friend—loyal, clever, and painfully human in a world full of supernatural hierarchy. Brinna, the golden omega didn't understand what it was like to be labelled "invisible". Always overlooked. Always last. Seen as a nobody.
"I feel weird! you know; it's like something is wrong with me but i can't figure it out" Isolde spoke softly. "I can feel it in my skin, I feel somehow."
Brinna's gaze softened. "It's normal, don't read meaning to those reactions". The Blood Moon does that to everyone. You should know. Brinna told her friend.
Isolde nodded and ignored the weird feeling.
But the pull of the forest was stronger.
She followed the the path into the trees was soaked in moonlight—red, like wine spilled across the earth. Isolde followed the traces.
Deeper and deeper!
Past the hunting trail. Past the boundaries of the ancient border. This was difficult for her because all of a sudden her breath grew sharp. Her vision flickered—once, twice.
Suddenly she heard it loud and clear.
A howl!!!
She thought out loud. And certainly she knew it wasn't from the pack.
Isolde stood still, her heart pounding fast!
The trees groaned under the weight of wind and old magic. The howl echoed again, low and deep, like it had traveled from another world.
She should've have come this far but now due to her curiosity, she came very close to unraveling the mystery.
Yes!
She saw it and was dumbfounded with the sight what she was seeing.
"The clearing opened like a mouth—wide, silent, waiting. Silverpine trees formed a ring around it, their bark glowing faintly under the Blood Moon."
It appeared all of a sudden, In the center, standing utterly still, was a wolf.
It wasn't like any wolf she'd seen before. Taller. Sleeker. Its fur was silver-shot black, and its eyes glowed with the same color as the moon above. Red and ancient.
Isolde stepped forward. Her breath caught.
The wolf didn't move.
The weird feeling came back this time and it was intense.
Inside her.
Suddenly, her skin started itching her.
This was Isolde moment!!
She gasped and dropped to her knees. Her body arched, and agony tore through her limbs like lightning. Her vision blurred. Bones cracked. Her back curved unnaturally.
Pain. Searing, white-hot pain.
Her scream echoed into the trees—and then turned into something else.
A growl.
A snarl.
She collapsed forward, breathing hard, chest heaving.
And then she rose.
Not on two legs.
Four.
She looked down and saw paws.
Claws.
Fur.
Her body shook. Her senses exploded—every sound, every scent, every texture improved. She could feel the pulse of the earth. Hear the insects in the soil. Smell the blood still drying in the leaves from some forgotten kill.
She looked up.
The wolf was nowhere to be found.
She was alone.
No.
Not alone.
Isolde has been Awaken.
Somewhere deeper in the forest, another howl echoed. This is another wolf, Isolde assumed.
She wasn't the only one who felt the shift.
The Blood Moon had awakened something.
And not all of it was good.
She ran away but this time it was different. A combination: Of learning. Of falling and rising. Her limbs were longer in this form, faster. She leapt over roots and streams, dodged between trees, heart thundering with power she had never known.
She didn't know how far she went until she reached the edge of the cliff of the Pack's boundaries.
There, panting and wide-eyed, she stared over the valley.
Her valley.
The pack grounds shimmered below, lanterns flickering like stars.
For the first time, she looked down on it all—not from the shadows, not from below.
But above, the very top.
She threw back her head and howled.
It ripped from her throat like a prayer and a promise all at once. She was overwhelmed.
The moment the sound faded, another howl answered.
Then two more.
Then silence.
Then—she heard her name.
"Isolde."
The voice was close. Human.
She turned.
Kael stood in the trees, shirt torn, a shallow cut bleeding down his cheek from an ambush he escaped .
"Shift back," he said quietly. Not commanding. Not cruel. Just… watching.
She tried.
Her body resisted at first. Then the pain came again, sharp and heavy. Her bones snapped and twisted. Her breath caught.
And then she was on her knees again. Naked. Shaking. Looking so helpless.
Kael took off his clothes and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Kael is the first born of the Alpha's triplets. He is the pack enforcer and strategist. He's also very protective of those he cares for.
"I felt it," he said. "Your first shift. The mark lit up." Kael told Isolde.
Isolde blinked up at him. "What mark?"
He reached forward, gently took her wrist, and turned it over.
There—faint, glowing silver—was a crescent sigil.
It pulsed once.
And then went still.
"Welcome back," Kael whispered with a smile.
"To what?" Isolde asked in confusion.
He met her gaze.
"To the part of you that was always meant to wake."
The moon had dipped lower when they finally walked back toward the pack. The woods were still, quiet in the way old places get when something sacred has happened.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" she asked.
"Yes."
"What does it mean?"
Kael was silent for a long moment before revealing to her a mystery she wasn't expecting to know.
"There's a legend," he said, voice low. "Of a wolf born under the Blood Moon. Marked by silver. Tied to the old ways. To the Moonbound."
"The Moonbound?"
Yes. Kael replied.
"The first wolves. The ones who were more spirit than flesh. They vanished centuries ago. But their blood never died. Just... faded."
She stopped walking. Her heart pounded.
"You think I'm one of them." Isolde asked Kael.
"I think the mark doesn't lie." Kael replied Isolde.
She touched her wrist, the warmth of it thrumming faintly.
"Why me?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I'm going to find out."
They reached the border of the village. Isolde hesitated.
If she stepped across, everything changed. Secrets revealed. Questions asked. And she still had no answers.
But something had already changed!
A transformation you may call it deep in her bones.
She wasn't just an omega anymore.
She was something older.
Something new and fascinating.
And the Blood Moon had only just begun.