The night sky burned red.
Clouds drifted like torn silk across the face of the Blood Moon, staining the valley in shades of crimson. Every creature in Moonveil territory hid behind doors and prayers, for when the Blood Moon rose, the balance between beasts and men trembled.
Selene Vale ran through the forest, her breath sharp against the cold air.
She wasn't supposed to be here not on this night. But her little brother hadn't come home, and the last place he was seen was near the old boundary stones, where the Lycan lands began.
Branches scratched her arms as she pushed deeper into the woods.
"Eli!" she called, her voice breaking in the wind.
Only silence answered. Then
A low, guttural growl.
The sound crawled through her bones. Her lantern flickered. Something massive moved between the trees eyes glinting like molten gold. She stumbled back, clutching a broken branch as if it were a sword.
When it leaped from the shadows, she barely saw it a blur of claws and teeth. The lantern shattered. Firelight burst, and the forest became chaos.
Then another shadow crossed her vision.
A blur of black and silver intercepted the beast midair.
She heard the snarl of a predator meeting its equal. The creature was thrown aside, crashing into the underbrush with a broken whimper.
And from the smoke, he appeared.
A man tall, cloaked in the scent of rain and wild moonlight. His eyes glowed like burning gold, his skin streaked with blood and dust. He looked almost human, but not quite.
He turned toward her, his gaze sharp as a blade.
"You shouldn't be here, human."
Selene tried to speak but the world spun. Pain surged across her shoulder a deep, burning wound. The creature had struck her before it fell.
He knelt beside her, pressing a hand against the wound. His touch burned not with pain, but with something ancient, electric.
Silver light flared beneath his palm. The air hummed.
"What are you.." she gasped, but her voice faded as warmth flooded her veins.
The glow spread across her skin, tracing veins of light to her neck. A mark shaped like a crescent moon shimmered there, pulsing faintly.
The man froze, eyes widening.
"Damn it… I didn't mean to mark you."
Selene's vision blurred. "Mark me…?"
He looked at her one last time regret hidden behind power.
"When dawn comes, forget this night."
Then he vanished into the crimson mist.
Selene lay there, her pulse echoing in rhythm with the moon above. The mark throbbed softly beneath her skin, like a heartbeat that didn't belong to her.
And somewhere, far beyond the forest, the Alpha Council felt the surge of forbidden magic.
A human girl, marked under the Blood Moon.
The wind shifted. The scent of iron and rain filled the air.
Selene's heartbeat slowed, then quickened again uneven, unnatural. The glow on her neck pulsed like something alive beneath her skin.
She pressed her palm against it, shivering.
It felt warm.
Too warm.
"Wh..what did you do to me?" she whispered, but the man the creature had already turned away, his cloak flicking with the wind.
He paused for only a breath, enough for the red light of the moon to reveal the sharp line of his jaw, the faint scar near his throat. His voice came low, restrained almost painful.
"I broke a rule that can't be undone."
And then he was gone disappearing into the mist as if the forest itself swallowed him.
Selene staggered to her feet, dizzy. The forest was eerily silent again, save for the distant sound of wolves howling in unison long, haunting notes that rolled like thunder across the valley.
She stumbled toward the old boundary stones, clutching her shoulder. Every few steps, the mark on her neck flickered, whispering faint echoes in her mind not words, but instincts. Images of silver eyes and a moon split in two flashed behind her eyes.
She reached the clearing near the riverbank and collapsed beside the water.
Her reflection rippled. The moonlight revealed the faint crescent glowing at the base of her throat beautiful and terrifying.
"What are you, Selene?" she whispered to herself.
For a moment, the surface of the water shimmered, and she swore she saw another face beside hers a man's, half-shadowed, watching from the reflection. His golden eyes met hers, as if distance meant nothing.
Then the image broke.
When she awoke, it was morning.
Her mother's cries echoed through the cabin.
"Selene! Where have you been? We searched all night.."
Selene tried to speak, but her throat was dry. She looked down. The wound on her shoulder was gone only faint silver scars remained, curling like vines.
And the mark on her neck
She covered it quickly with her hair.
Her mother froze, eyes narrowing.
"Did you see something last night?"
Selene hesitated. "No... only fog and... shadows."
She lied, though the lie tasted like smoke in her mouth.
Far away, in the moonlit citadel of Draven Keep, Kael stood before the great window of obsidian glass. His body was healed, but his thoughts were not.
The Blood Moon had set hours ago, yet the mark's glow still haunted his senses.
He could feel her.
The girl. The human.
Through the invisible bond, her heartbeat echoed faintly in his chest fragile, uncertain.
He clenched his jaw.
"You marked a human, Kael Draven,"
the voice of his Beta snarled from behind him.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?"
Kael's golden eyes flickered with restraint. "She was dying. I had no choice."
"Every Alpha says that before the curse begins."
Kael turned away, fists trembling.
He could still remember her eyes terrified, and yet luminous beneath the red sky.
Something about her blood had answered his, as if an ancient part of him had known her long before they met.
He whispered to himself,
"No one must know. Not yet."
That night, Selene dreamed again.
She stood in an endless field of silver grass, the Blood Moon high above.
A woman cloaked in light appeared her hair white as frost, her eyes glowing with eternity.
"Daughter of two worlds," the woman said, her voice echoing through Selene's bones.
"The mark upon your skin is not a curse... but a key."
Selene tried to speak, but the woman was already fading.
"When the moon bleeds again, seek the heir bound to you for your bloodline will awaken what even gods have forgotten."
Selene gasped awake.
The mark on her neck burned faintly in the darkness.
Outside her window, the moon was pale again no longer red, but watching.
End of Chapter 1
"A human girl marked under the Blood Moon.
A prophecy reborn through forbidden blood."
As the last echo of the prophecy faded, a distant howl split the night
not one, but many.
Silver shadows raced across the treetops, moving fast, too fast, drawn to the pulse beneath Selene's skin.
And miles away, Kael's breath caught.
Someone else had felt the bond awaken.
And they were already hunting her.