The mark activated at 03:17 a.m.
Nyra Vale woke choking on heat.
Not pain—pressure. The kind that came from inside the bone, inside the blood, as if something ancient had reached into her veins and claimed space. Her body reacted before her mind caught up, muscles locking as a low, feral tremor rippled through her chest.
Then the scent hit her.
Iron.
Ash.
Moon-cold air.
Her eyes snapped open.
A translucent interface hovered above her forearm, its glow pale silver—not blue, not white. Lunar.
[BLOOD PROTOCOL: INITIALIZING]
[SPECIES CONFIRMED: LYCANTHROPE — DORMANT]
[HOST COMPATIBILITY: 97%]
Nyra's breath stuttered.
"No," she whispered.
Werewolves didn't awaken like this.
Packs initiated bloodlines. Alphas approved bonds. Lunas were recorded before birth, tracked before their first shift.
The system pulsed again.
[ERROR — RECORD NOT FOUND]
[HOST STATUS: UNREGISTERED]
Cold replaced the heat.
Unregistered meant unclaimed.
Unprotected.
The mark burned into existence along her skin—a crescent fractured by claw-scored lines. It wasn't decorative. It was functional. Alive. Her wolf—something deep and long suppressed—stirred for the first time.
Images slammed into her mind.
Hidden pack territories layered beneath the city. Alpha zones soaked in dominance. Hunters moving through shadows. Wolves wearing human skin—and humans who weren't prey.
Nyra sucked in a sharp breath as the vision snapped shut.
Her phone vibrated on the nightstand.
Unknown Number.
She didn't touch it.
The interface updated instead.
[EXTERNAL OBSERVATION DETECTED]
Her jaw tightened.
"So," she murmured, staring at the glowing mark, "you found me first."
The wolf inside her bared its teeth.