The silence after the alpha's departure was suffocating.
The barn doors had swung shut behind him, leaving only the smell of hay and dust, the faint shimmer of Elara's glowing veins, and the ragged breaths of those who remained. Outside, the ferals stayed quiet, held at bay by the noble pack. But inside, fear lingered heavier than any claw or fang.
Caleb lowered his crossbow at last, though his knuckles stayed white. He dropped to his knees beside Elara, brushing damp hair back from her face. "You're alive," he whispered, voice cracked with disbelief. "You're still you."
Elara pressed her forehead into his shoulder. The glow under her skin had faded to a faint pulse, but she felt it there, humming like a second heartbeat. "I shouldn't be," she murmured. "I should be gone, or worse."
Corin paced a short, sharp line across the straw, knife still clenched in her fist. "The alpha said it himself. The ferals will come for you now. They'll smell you like blood in the water. And Ravenholt—" Her mouth twisted. "If the council sees that glow, they'll slit your throat before they ask questions."
"They won't touch her," Caleb snapped, his voice fierce. "Not while I'm breathing."
Corin's glare cut back at him. "And when you're not? What then? We can't protect her from all of them."
"Enough," Torvee said flatly from where she crouched in the shadows, feathers still tangled in her hair. Her dark eyes were sharp, but her voice lacked its usual edge. "We're wasting breath. The question isn't what Ravenholt will do. The question is what she is now."
Elara's chest tightened. She didn't want to ask, didn't want to hear the answer again, but the alpha's words echoed anyway: The Luna-born.
"I don't know what I am," she whispered.
Caleb's hand gripped hers tight. "You're Elara. That's enough."
But the silence that followed told her the others weren't so sure.
---
The barn groaned in the night wind. Shadows shifted. For a moment Elara thought it was only the creak of wood, but then the door eased open again.
Caleb spun, crossbow snapping up. Corin's knife flashed.
Someone stepped inside.
Not the alpha. Not a hulking wolf-beast.
A boy.
Seventeen, maybe eighteen at most. Lean and wiry, with dark hair falling untidily across his brow. His clothes were rough, patched, strange — not quite like Ravenholt's, not quite wild either. His amber eyes, dulled to something softer than the alpha's, flicked up only briefly before dropping to the ground.
He looked awkward. Submissive. Out of place.
Caleb's voice was a snarl. "What the hell is this?"
The boy's gaze slid to Elara, then quickly away again. His voice was quiet, almost stammering. "He… the Alpha… he sent me."
Corin stepped forward, knife raised. "Why?"
The boy swallowed hard. His voice steadied, though his posture remained bowed. "The pack will see you back to your gates. They'll keep the ferals from following your trail."
He hesitated, then lifted his eyes to Elara.
"But inside…" His jaw tightened. "Inside, I will protect you."
The words rang through the barn like a strike of iron.
Caleb surged to his feet, fury in every line of him. "Protect her? From who? Us?"
The boy didn't flinch. His voice remained soft, but steady. "If they fear her. If they turn on her. I will not let them take her."
Elara's heart thudded hard. The barn seemed smaller suddenly, the air heavier.
Caleb's crossbow trembled in his hands. "You think I'd let that happen? You think I'd stand by while—"
"Caleb," Torvee cut in quietly, her gaze fixed on the boy. "Look at him. He's barely older than us."
"Doesn't matter," Caleb snapped. "He's one of them. He shouldn't even be here."
The boy finally spoke again, voice low. "My name is Luke."
The name was so plain, so human, it jarred. For a moment, the silence broke with confusion.
Corin narrowed her eyes. "Luke." She said it like she was testing the taste of it. "And we're supposed to trust that?"
Luke's shoulders hunched. He didn't argue.
Elara found her voice, thin though it was. "Why would your alpha send you?"
Luke's amber eyes lifted, locking with hers for the first time. There was no arrogance there, no command, just the quiet gravity of duty. "Because you are Luna-born. And because…" He hesitated, as though the words cost him. "…because I am the lowest. The one they can spare."
The admission cut strangely — a vow and a wound in one.
---
The group fell into argument after that, voices sharp in the dim barn.
"We can't take him," Caleb said, pacing like a caged animal. "The council sees him, they'll kill him. Or worse, they'll kill Elara for being near him."
"And leave him here?" Corin countered. "The alpha sent him. You think he'll just walk away if we refuse? He'll follow us, whether we like it or not."
"Then we cut him loose on the road."
"You really think that's safer? A lone wolf trailing us through the woods?" Corin's voice dripped with sarcasm. "I'd rather see him where I can watch him."
Torvee leaned against the plow bracing the doors, arms folded, watching Luke with hawk-like stillness. "He looks like us," she said at last. "Human enough, if he keeps his mouth shut. That's the problem, isn't it? How do we explain him?"
Luke shifted uneasily, clearly not used to being spoken about rather than spoken to.
"Explain him?" Caleb's laugh was sharp, humorless. "There's no explaining this."
Corin sheathed her knife with a sharp motion. "Then we make a story. He's a stray survivor. A boy we found on the road. No one has to know."
"They'll smell it on him."
"They won't if we keep him close," Corin shot back. "And if he doesn't give them reason to look."
Torvee's lips curved in a thin smile, though her eyes stayed sharp. "Could say he's my cousin. We're both strange enough."
Luke frowned, dead serious. "I am not your cousin."
The barn's tension cracked just slightly — Torvee's smirk widened, Corin snorted, even Elara's lips twitched despite everything. Caleb only looked more furious.
Elara's glow pulsed faintly, drawing all eyes back to her. She met Luke's gaze, uncertain, afraid, but also… relieved. He was the only one in the room who didn't flinch from the light.
Her voice came out quiet. "If we take you back, if we try this… will you swear it? That you'll keep me safe?"
Luke's head bowed, not in weakness, but in oath. "I swear it."
The vow settled over the barn like a weight.
---
That night, none of them slept much.
Luke stayed near the door, back against the wall, amber eyes half-closed but never truly resting. Caleb glared at him until exhaustion forced his lids down. Corin turned her knife in her hands until the straw was littered with fine cuts. Torvee muttered half-formed words to herself, as though trying them on her tongue: shifters… more than me…
And Elara lay with her glow faint beneath her skin, listening to the soft rasp of Luke's breathing, and wondering which terrified her more: Ravenholt discovering her secret… or what would happen if they didn't.