🖤 Chapter 1: The Echo
"You are nothing but a memory."
The voice wasn't Lyra's. My wolf hadn't spoken in eleven years. Not a bark, not a whine, not even the phantom thought of a chase. But this voice was real. It was a cold, layered hiss that wrapped around my inner ear, settling like frost in the dark.
"A whisper in the earth."
I was curled into the corner of the stone floor, trying to make my bony frame disappear into the cold. My nails were ragged where I'd scratched at the wall, and the thin, dirt-stained tunic I wore offered no protection against the chilling dampness of my subterranean prison.
I didn't know my age—I guessed nineteen, judging by the blurry, half-remembered face I'd seen reflected in a puddle once—and I didn't know how long I'd been down here. Years bled into a single, lightless stretch of fear. My only clock was the slow, rhythmic drip of water from the ceiling, counting out the moments until I had to face the hunger again.
"We are more than a memory."
I pulled my knees tighter to my chest. Stop it. I commanded the hiss inside my mind. It was useless. The voice—The Echo, I'd started calling it—only grew stronger when I was weak, and I was always weak. It was a phantom, a predatory consciousness that shared the cage of my skull with Lyra, patiently waiting for me to break.
"We are the awakening." The voice chuckled, a sound like dry leaves scattering across stone. "And they are coming for us."
My breath hitched. They.
No, no, no. My inner panic was a frantic, wingless bird trying to escape my ribs.
For eleven years, my existence had been defined by the silent emptiness of this chamber. The forgotten air, the constant shadow, the terrifying understanding that I was a secret the world intended to keep buried. No one came here. No one ever had.
Until now.
A sound. Not the drip, drip, drip of the ceiling, but a scraping, heavy noise from the top of the stairwell, where the door—a thick slab of rusted metal bolted from the outside—kept the world out and me in.
My head snapped up. I couldn't see the door clearly in the complete blackness, but I felt the sound travel through the cold stone of the floor. It was a crunch, followed by the dull, metallic complaint of something ancient being forced open.
My heart hammered. Lyra, please. Talk to me. Tell me what to do.
Silence. My wolf remained locked away, a ghost in her own mind.
I pressed my back hard against the cold wall, trying to fuse myself with the rock. My mind, trained by years of hiding, screamed one word: Hide.
The scraping grew louder, then there was a decisive, heavy CLANG as the outer seal, the one I hadn't even known existed, was finally torn away.
This was wrong. This wasn't the usual silence. This was noise.
The Echo, however, was delighted. "Fresh fear. It smells like copper and storm."
A beam of light—a bright, blinding violation—shot down the narrow staircase. It was the color of fire and gold. I squeezed my eyes shut, a gasp tearing its way past my cracked lips. Sunlight? It felt like molten rock against my skin, and I flinched back, instinctively throwing my arms over my face.
A shadow fell over me, huge and heavy, blocking the light.
Then, the air shifted.
It wasn't just the smell of dust and stagnant water anymore. A new scent flooded the chamber, sharp and intense: pine, snow, and something deep and musky that vibrated in the deepest parts of my body. It was an Alpha's scent—pure, dominant, and utterly overwhelming.
A man was standing over me.
Even with my eyes partially covered, I could tell he was enormous. His boots were scuffed leather, his trousers were thick and dark, and a cloak the color of midnight hung off shoulders that seemed to take up half the doorway. He was a creature of the outside world, a King of the light, and he looked entirely out of place in my dirty, forgotten tomb.
His movements were slow, deliberate, as if he were approaching a trapped, wounded animal. He knelt down, the movement smooth and powerful.
"It's alright, little one," a voice rumbled, low and controlled, like distant thunder. "You're safe."
Lies. The Echo spat the word internally. No one is safe.
I wanted to run, but my muscles were locked in place. I wanted to scream, but my throat was tight with disuse. I could only stare, wide-eyed and shaking, as he reached out a hand.
His hand was large, scarred, and somehow gentle as it came toward me. But what held my gaze was the mark on the back of his wrist: a black, swirling crescent moon tattoo. A lunar mark.
The hand stopped mere inches from my shoulder. The intensity of his presence was crushing. This wasn't just an Alpha; this was the source of that incredible, snow-scented dominance.
He was the Lunar King. I knew it in the same terrifying, instinctive way I knew the sun was fire.
"Who… who are you?" I whispered, the sound raw and tearing. It was the first time I'd used my voice in years.
His gaze—icy blue and piercing—locked onto mine. They weren't the eyes of a compassionate rescuer; they were the eyes of a king who had finally found a piece of stolen property. He was cold, strategic, and utterly focused.
"I am Aric Varyn," he said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a quiet, unbreakable vow.
He didn't need to say the rest: The Lunar King. The one who was hunting you.
I shook my head, my dirty hair sticking to my wet cheeks. "I don't know you. You have the wrong person."
A deep, almost painful ache spread across my chest, the location of the mate-bond that I should have been feeling. But there was nothing. No recognition, no comforting click of destiny. He was a powerful stranger who had broken into my hiding place.
But then, The Echo stirred.
"Lies. We know him." The hiss was triumphant, a terrible secret unearthed. "He is the scent of the prophecy. He is the one who will set us free."
My blood ran cold. The creature inside me knew him?
Aric's eyes narrowed, his gaze suddenly tracking to the fear on my face, the fear I hadn't known how to hide. His pupils dilated momentarily, a sharp flash of the predatory wolf beneath the King.
He leaned in closer, his pine and snow scent enveloping me. His lips brushed my ear as he whispered, not a command, but a statement of absolute, terrifying certainty.
"I know who you are, Kaira Blackthorn."
He spoke my name—my full, forgotten name—like a sacred text. Like a promise. Like a brand.
The sound sent a tremor through my body. Kaira Blackthorn. It was the sound of a world I'd been stolen from, a world that was now reaching out a massive, inescapable hand.
Before I could react, before I could recoil from the intensity of his presence, he did the unthinkable.
His hand shot out, bypassing the layers of dirt and fear. It clasped firmly around my wrist, his thumb pressing directly on the thinnest, most fragile vein.
The contact wasn't painful, but it was electric. An immediate, searing heat jolted through my arm and into my chest.
This is it. The Echo screamed, suddenly powerful and loud enough to drown out my own thoughts. FIGHT. BREAK HIM.
In that instant, my body moved without my consent. My jaw unhinged in a silent snarl, my hidden fingernails extended, hardening into dagger-like claws. I lunged at the King, not with the strength of a malnourished girl, but with the brutal, targeted force of something ancient and purely predatory.
Aric Varyn didn't flinch. He just tightened his grip on my wrist, his gaze never leaving my eyes, watching the monster surface.
The last thing I heard, before the light outside flooded in and the world outside my prison began, was the King's final, soft whisper, spoken with a chilling mix of relief and dread.
"My Moon's Mate. We have found you."