Prologue I - Shattered
One night changed everything; that night their world ended.
The Sol-Luna Gathering was alive with firelight and laughter. Wolves from both packs , La Manada del Sol Radiante (The Radiant Sun Pack) and La Manada de la Luna Eterna (The Eternal Moon Pack), had gathered in the clearing just outside the small town in Texas, a rare night of unity under the full moon.
Tents glowed with lanterns, drums echoed through the trees, and the smell of roasted meat, maize, and smoke carried across the square.
The forest breathed with the sounds of summer: cicadas droning, leaves rustling, and the distant hum of the Sol-Luna Gathering in the clearing beyond.
For Isabella “Isa” Reyes, nine years old, it was perfect. Finally, a chance to escape the throng of wolves celebrating under the full moon. Her amber eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Come on!” she called, tugging at her tiny twin siblings. Lucía and Diego, barely eighteen months, waddled after her, chubby hands gripping hers.
They squealed with delight, wobbling over roots and moss-covered rocks. Isa had been tasked with keeping them safe, and she took it seriously ….more than seriously; it was everything.
Beside her, Alejandro “Alex” Cruz, eleven, son of the Beta, kept pace silently. Protective, steady, always calm, Alex had already learned to shield the younger ones without being told. He had a quiet authority that even the adults respected.
Mateo Delgado, now Mateo Ortega, thirteen, the Gamma’s adopted son from the allied pack and secretly the hidden Alpha heir of La Manada de la Luna Eterna, walked with slow, brooding focus.
His dark eyes scanned the periphery, calculating and wary, always watching the children and thinking three steps ahead.
Beside him, his younger sister Camila Ortega, eight, moved with soft grace, her intuition sharper than most adults’.
She noticed everything: the rustle of a leaf, the twitch of a tail, the heartbeat of the forest.
Isa darted ahead, laughing. “Bet you can’t catch me!” she shouted, dodging through the tents and into the trees. The twins giggled, wobbling as they tried to follow.
Alex and Mateo exchanged a glance….neither needed words. They would follow, silently, ready to protect. Camila trailed behind the group, her gaze flicking nervously to the treeline.
Isa’s grin widened as she turned into a thicker grove. “I found it!” she whispered. She led them to a hidden gem, a small clearing where a natural spring bubbled from a mossy stone formation.
Sunlight filtered through the canopy, painting the water in gold and silver. “No one knows about this spot,” she boasted, pride swelling in her chest. “I found it on my run last week!”
She set the twins down on soft moss, letting them crawl and play. “Be careful,” she warned Alex and Camila. “Stay close.”
Mateo crouched beside her, his hands brushing a fallen branch. “Nine years old and already leading the pack,” he murmured, half-teasing, half-warning. “Don’t get cocky, Isa. You still have a lot to learn.”
Isa shot him a sharp look, lips curling. “I’m turning ten in two weeks. I’ll learn fast enough. You’ll see.”
She had no idea how fast they would all learn that night.
The first scream came suddenly, slicing through the forest like a knife.
At first, Isa thought it was part of the music, a shriek of joy, maybe. But the second one was raw. Wet. Terrified. Then came the snarls, low and jagged, slicing through the air.
The sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart echoed all around, punctuated by desperate cries that made her stomach twist.
Mateo froze, his head snapping toward the noise. “Stay here,” he ordered, voice already rough with the edge of a coming shift. “Don’t move.”
“Mateo—”
He didn’t wait. His clothes tore as his body contorted, fur and muscle overtaking skin, until a massive dark wolf stood where the boy had been. He turned his golden eyes toward Isa once, steady, commanding, before vanishing into the trees.
Isa’s heart thudded in her throat. The twins whimpered. Her parents, her Alpha mother and father, were still at the center of the gathering.
She could smell blood now, sharp, metallic, real. She froze for a moment, panic rising, before instinct took over. She scooped up her tiny twin siblings, placing each in Alex’s and Camila’s arms.
She turned to Camila and Alex, her voice shaking. “Take them! Don’t let them go. If I don’t come back soon, you run… really far away from here, okay?”
Before they could stop her, Isa shifted. Her small frame stretched and broke into her wolf form… light brown fur streaked with gold, her father’s coloring.
She took off after Mateo, paws pounding against the forest floor, her lungs burning with the scent of fire and death.
The clearing came into view. Smoke curled toward the sky, tents smoldering, and chaos everywhere. Bodies strewn like fallen leaves.
And then she saw them….her parents, the Alphas of La Manada del Sol Radiente, lying motionless on the ground. Two massive wolves stood over them, jaws locked around their necks, tearing without mercy.
The sound that tore from her chest was part snarl, part scream
“No!” Isa howled, but before she could reach them, a shadow slammed into her from the side.
Mateo.
He pinned her down, his massive wolf body shielding her, his jaws grazing her neck to silence the scream that rose from her throat.
His body trembled with rage and grief, but his eyes, goddess his eyes, told her one thing only: don’t die here.
When the noise finally faded, when the air was thick only with smoke and silence, Mateo shifted back into human form.
His claws retracted, his fur vanished, and the boy , no, the young man, who had been a wolf moments ago stood tall, chest heaving, muscles taut from exertion.
Naked, blood-streaked, trembling, he gathered Isa’s wolf into his arms. “We have to go.” His voice broke. “We have to keep them safe.”
She was limp against him, small and trembling, her amber eyes wide and glassy, staring into nothing.
She couldn’t speak. The scream had lodged somewhere deep in her chest, blocked by shock and grief.
Her mind refused to process anything but the horror she’d just witnessed: her parents, the Alphas of her pack, ripped from life by the claws of a rival pack.
Every nerve felt raw, every heartbeat a drum of panic and fear.
Back at the hiding place, the others waited….small, wide-eyed, terrified. Alex and Camila, the twins clutched in their arms. “Isa…” Camila’s voice was tentative, soft, gentle. “What happened?”
Isa’s gaze didn’t focus. She could barely see through the haze of shock, her lips parted as though to speak, but no sound came.
She wanted to scream again, wanted to cry, wanted to undo what she had just seen, but the forest offered no comfort, only darkness and distant echoes of snarls.
Camila looked to Mateo, her voice faltering. “Mateo… tell us.”
Mateo’s golden eyes flicked toward them, a look so heavy it froze Camila in place. His jaw tightened, and she understood instantly without him speaking.
She understood the weight, the finality. She understood the loss, the reason for the rigid control in his posture, the tight line of his shoulders.
Alex’s face went pale. His voice was almost a whisper, but the edge of steel in it cut through the forest stillness. “Everyone?”
Mateo nodded once. Silent. No words. Nothing could bring the dead back, nothing could undo the horror.
“We have to go,” he said finally, voice low but firm. The order wasn’t up for debate. Survival came first.
One by one, they shifted again, moving quickly. Isa, still numb and silent, lifted Diego onto her back, holding him against her as though he could somehow shield her from the memory.
Mateo carried Lucía, tiny and trembling, close against him. Alex and Camila flanked them, steady and protective, guiding the way.
The six of them ran through the night, feet pounding against roots and rocks, lungs burning, hearts hammering with fear and adrenaline.
The smoke from the destroyed gathering hung in the distance, a dark reminder of what they had lost. Every sound of the forest made them tense, every crackle a potential threat.
They ran without looking back, carrying the weight of family, loss, and responsibility in every stride.
Everything they had ever known, their homes, their families, their pack, their childhood…was gone.
And yet, in that flight, in that desperate, panicked sprint through the forest, they became something new.
Something unbreakable. Something that would endure.
They became the New Moon Pack, forged in blood, fire, and the unspoken promise that they would survive… but none of them knew the truth buried in that night would haunt them forever.
