Hollow Moon

They returned like gods: bloodied, loud, and triumphant.

Desert Moon warriors surged into the village beneath an iron‑purple sky, the last veins of sunset still bleeding along the horizon. Dust coated their paws, clung to their coats, settled into the creases of their nostrils. It looked like glory. It smelled like it, too: sweat and iron and smoke, sharp enough to sting the back of the throat.

Tamsin watched them approach. Some wolves limped. Some carried scraps of meat between their teeth. Every muzzle was wet. Every paw stained red. Her stomach twisted.

And if the blood wasn’t evidence enough, the spoils of war they carried were. Bundles of supplies were strapped to their backs, a line of wolf-drawn carts filled to the brim with goods made up the rear of the procession. Even the carved wooden markers that had once designated Dark Moon’s territorial boundaries were brandished like trophies. Spoils. Proof of a genocide completed.

Already the younger wolves were running to greet the returning warriors, children squealing with delight as fathers shifted into their human forms, naked as the day they were born, and lifted the pups onto broad shoulders. Pack elders emerged from doorways, nodding approval. Someone was rolling barrels of ale and Liquave from the storehouse. Wood was being stacked for a bonfire on the beach.

They dumped it all at the stone altar in the center of the marketplace, right on the edge of the beach: Dark Moon blades nicked and blackened, supply crates split open, a banner torn clean down the middle and scorched at the edges. The sigil was still visible beneath the burn marks.

She recognized it. That made her breath hitch.

Laughter thundered through the camp, raw and booming. Someone started beating a drum, slow at first, then faster, the rhythm crawling under her skin. A keg cracked open with a sharp hiss, foam spilling over eager hands.

The pack erupted.

Tamsin stood at the edge of the celebration, half-hidden by a stack of firewood, her breath locked tight in her chest like she’d swallowed a stone. She didn’t cheer. Couldn’t. Her throat refused to make the sound.

The air was thick with smoke curling low, metal and blood riding the heat, power vibrating through it all. Victory had a taste. Bitter. Electric.

She knew what they’d done.

Not a skirmish. Not a raid. They’d erased an entire pack. Genocide.

She remembered a little girl from Dark Moon. Not her name, just the way the child used to braid shells into her hair at the midsummer markets. The way she’d laughed when Tamsin tripped over a fishing net.

That girl would be gone now. Burned. Torn apart. Or buried under sand that would never remember her.

Tamsin swallowed.

Not just the warriors. Not just the leaders. All of them. Children. Mothers. Elders.

Gone.

They called it justice. She knew better.

The horror sat heavy in her chest, a stone she couldn’t swallow. And still, beneath the horror, something inside her stirred, coiling through her belly like something alive and separate from herself. Power recognizing power. And with it…

Something unfurled inside her. Not desire. Not at first.

A pressure. A tightening. A heat that did not belong to her grief.

Her hands curled into fists at her sides, nails biting into her palms. She didn’t feel it. Her body was too busy reacting to something else. Something traitorous and alive and terrifying. Something she hated, yet craved.

Her body ached with it already. A deep, relentless craving that had nothing to do with the conquering and everything to do with what would follow the celebration. After the bonfire. After the drinking. After the warriors were drunk on ale and victory and bloodlust, they would want release.

They would want her.

They always wanted her.

And she, gods help her, gods damn her, she wanted it too.

Because the ache was already cramping in her lower belly. She was already wet with want. She could already taste sweat and salt and something darker. Feel the phantom weight of hands, mouths, bodies crowding her until she couldn’t think.

A rush of wetness pooled in underwear. She could smell herself.

The realization hit her like a slap.

Desert Moon roared like champions. The bonfire flared to life behind her, flames leaping high, licking at the sky like offerings to something ancient and hungry. Sparks spiraled upward, vanishing into the dark.

Her thighs clenched.

The shame came immediately after, hot and sharp, flooding her chest. Her skin prickled as if everyone could see it, smell it, know exactly what her body was doing in response to massacre.

What is wrong with you?

She edged backward into the shadows, every step deliberate. Half-hoping they wouldn’t notice her yet.

Half-hoping they already had.

The ache pulsed low in her belly, deep and insistent, like a second heartbeat. Heat coiled there, spreading outward, down her thighs, up her spine. She hadn’t even been touched. Hadn’t even been looked at. Not properly.

Yet.

Her fingers dug into the bark of a half-charred coconut tree at her back. The wood was rough, splintering under her grip. Sharp points bit into her skin, lodged beneath her nails. She welcomed it. Let it sting.

It didn’t help. Couldn’t touch the real hurt.

Or the heat.

Something is wrong with me.

The thought came again: unbidden, tight with panic. She bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. Pain cut clean and immediate. Grounding.

Normal women didn’t feel like this, did they?

Normal women had self-control.

Normal women didn’t crave the aftermath of slaughter.

None of the other unmated females threw themselves at males the way she did. Why? Why couldn’t she stop herself?

They didn’t pulse with need while the stench of ash and gore still clung to the air, while screams still echoed in memory, even if they hadn’t heard them themselves.

But her skin felt too tight, too sensitive, like every nerve had been turned outward. Her pulse skidded and raced. Her body betrayed her, already imagining the weight of them… one, two, more… crowding her, hands rough, mouths hot, voices low and pleased.

Using her.

Praising her.

Teeth at her throat. Growls in her ear.

Her stomach rolled. She swallowed hard, bile burning the back of her throat.

“You’re disgusting,” she whispered, the words barely louder than the crackle of fire.

The night answered with a breeze. It slipped through the camp, cool against her flushed skin, carrying fresh scents with it.

Male. Familiar.

Gavin, the Beta’s son. All leather and ale, sharp and clean; Devlon, smoke and steel; Jace, warm, animal, unmistakable.

Her body reacted instantly. A shudder traced her spine.

She’d had them all.

The storeroom flashed in her mind without warning. Cool stone at her back. A barrel pressed into her spine. Gavin’s breath hot on her neck as he pinned her wrists. Jace and Devlon behind her, taking turns, crowding her space, filling her until she couldn’t think.

She’d barely walked afterward. But she couldn’t stop smiling.

That had been the third time that week. Different combinations. Same outcome. Always saying yes. Always aching for more.

She hated how easy it was to remember. How vividly her body recalled every sensation. How little shame it held onto when the wanting rose.

Her mother was livid. Of course she was. Although why she was still surprised at Tamsin’s sexual antics was beyond her understanding. It’s not like this is a new thing. She had been insatiable for the last three years. Since her metamorphosis into a woman at fifteen.

She recalled her mother’s reaction that day, nearly flinching at the voice that cut through the memory like a blade, as if she was here, now.

“Three men in one afternoon. Again.”

Ilyra had been waiting when Tamsin slipped back into their little abode at the edge of the pack, hair tangled, skin flushed, dress wrinkled beyond saving, reeking of sex. She stood rigid in the doorway, spine straight, hands clenched so tight her knuckles had gone white.

She had looked like she was holding herself together by force alone.

Tamsin remembered the bruises on her knees. The soreness between her thighs. The faint, lingering warmth that made her feel loose and light and unrepentant.

She hadn’t cared.

“You might be a werewolf, but you’re not an animal, Tamsin,” her mother had said, voice tight, trembling despite her control. “You’re my daughter.”

The words had bounced off something hard inside her.

“I can’t help it, Mother. I need it. You know that!”

She’d meant it. Every word.

Something in Ilyra’s eyes shifted then, shock giving way to something darker. Maybe because it was the first time that Tamsin hadn’t tried to deny any of it. Or fear, maybe. Or recognition she didn’t want to claim.

“Didn’t you feel the same?” Tamsin had pressed, reckless, bitter. “Didn’t you enjoy it when those soldiers had you?”

The slap had come fast.

Had cracked through the room like thunder. Tamsin’s head had snapped to the side. Her cheek had burned. Her ears had rung.

Her heart hadn’t moved.

“No, Tamsin.” Ilyra’s voice had shook, the control finally splintering. “What they did to me was wrong. Wrong. Against my will. But you… you’re cheapening yourself deliberately. Stop giving yourself away like you’re worthless.”

The words had dug deep.

“Maybe I am.”

The silence that had followed was deafening.

That had shut her mother up.

Tamsin had walked away then, spine straight, steps steady. She hadn’t looked back.

But her chest had stayed tight. Constricted. Like something vital had been squeezed too hard and never quite recovered. She was bastard-born. Audun, Desert Moon named their bastards. She’d heard it whispered since she was old enough to understand tone.

No one knew who’d fathered her. Not even Ilyra.

Maybe that was the curse.

Or maybe—

She stared at the bonfire, at the warriors circling closer now, eyes bright with drink and victory.

Maybe she was just broken. Or maybe she was exactly what this pack had made her.

She stepped into the ring of the bonfire light, plastering a smile on her too-pretty face.