I looked down at my hands.
Faint light pulsed beneath my skin, silver and rhythmic, keeping time with the frantic beat of my heart. It wasn't bright enough to illuminate the forest floor, but it was there alive, threading through my veins like liquid moonlight.
The scratches along my arm had already begun to close.
I watched as torn skin knit itself back together, the faint glow weaving across the shallow wounds until there was nothing left but smooth, unbroken flesh.
No scar.
No pain.
Just warmth.
My reflection stared back at me from a shallow puddle gathered in the hollow of a stone.
My face was unchanged.
But my eyes
They weren't green anymore.
Not fully.
Metallic silver stared back at me, luminous and unsettling, glowing with an inner light that had nothing to do with the moon overhead.
Not grey.
Not pale blue.
Silver.
Pure and unnatural.
As I watched, the color flickered silver draining away to reveal green beneath, only to surge back again like my body couldn't decide what it was supposed to be.
"What…?"
My fingers brushed my cheek, half-expecting my reflection to shift again.
"What am I?"
The question slipped into the quiet and vanished without answer.
I retrieved my bag and forced myself to keep moving, though everything felt different now.
The forest that had seemed suffocating moments ago felt almost… subdued.
Tame.
I could sense the life around me creatures hidden beneath the undergrowth, birds tucked into their nests, the slow, steady rhythm of the woods themselves breathing in the dark.
And beneath it all
Something else.
A pull.
Like an invisible thread fastened somewhere deep in my chest, drawing me forward.
Toward answers.
Toward truth.
Toward whatever had been locked away inside me for eighteen years.
My feet followed that unseen tether without hesitation.
The glow in my hands faded, but the power remained, humming quietly beneath my skin as though waiting for permission to rise again.
I'm not broken, I realized.
The thought almost made me laugh.
I'm something else.
Something they've never seen before.
Something they won't be able to control.
The trees began to thin ahead, the dense press of branches giving way to a narrow clearing.
Through the gaps, I saw it.
A structure.
Small.
Weathered.
A cabin crouched low among the trees, smoke curling lazily from its chimney into the night sky.
Light burned warmly behind its windows.
Someone lived here.
In the Forbidden Woods.
Where no pack laid claim to territory.
Where no sane wolf would make their home.
I should have been cautious.
Should have hidden, assessed the situation, circled the clearing from a distance before deciding whether to approach.
Instead, I walked straight toward it.
The pull in my chest had grown stronger an unshakable certainty settling into my bones with the same instinct that had guided me through the fight earlier.
This was where I needed to be.
I lifted my hand and knocked.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
The door creaked open to reveal an old man with steel-grey hair and eyes that held the weight of centuries.
His face was lined with scars, his posture steady in a way that spoke of survival rather than age.
We stared at one another.
His gaze dropped briefly before snapping back to my eyes.
Recognition flared there shock following close behind.
My eyes must have flickered silver again.
"You," he said at last, his voice rough with disuse. "You're the Veythorne girl. The one who couldn't shift."
"I'm Aurelia," I replied, lifting my chin. "And I can do more than shift."
A slow smile creased his weathered face the first genuine smile I'd seen in what felt like years.
"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, you can. Come inside, child. We have much to discuss."
He stepped aside, gesturing me into the warmth of the cabin.
I hesitated only a moment.
Behind me lay my old life the pack that had rejected me, the mate who had called me defective, the family that had watched me fail without lifting a hand to help.
Ahead lay uncertainty.
Danger, most likely.
Answers, possibly.
Power.
Real power.
The kind that had let me tear through five corrupted wolves as though they were nothing.
I stepped across the threshold.
The door closed behind me with a soft click that sounded far too much like finality.
"You're not defective," the man said once we were inside. "You never were. The reason you couldn't shift is because you were sealed."
"Sealed?"
The word felt strange in my mouth.
"By who? Why?"
"That," he replied, his expression turning grave, "is a very long story. One that begins with your real parents and the bloodlines they passed down to you. Bloodlines that haven't walked this earth in over a thousand years."
He leaned forward slightly, the firelight casting shifting shadows across his scarred features.
"Tell me, Aurelia. Have you ever heard of the Moon Blessed?"
I shook my head.
"No."
"Good answer."
He moved toward a worn armchair and settled into it with a quiet sigh.
"My name is Zane," he said. "And I'm going to tell you a truth your family has kept from you your entire life."
I sat across from him, my pulse hammering with anticipation.
And dread.