Chapter 1, Baby of the Blood Moon
The moon was the color of a fresh kill.
Above the jagged spires of the Lake District, the Blood Moon hung heavy, casting a bruised crimson light over the canopy. The High-Ridge Pack moved through the undergrowth in a ghost-silent, lethal formation. As the Beta, Arthur led the western flank, his silver fur shimmering like mercury against the dark loam. Beside him, two seasoned warriors, Kael and Tora, moved in perfect synchronization.
"Status report,” Alpha Silas’s voice boomed through the mind-link, sharp and demanding.
"The Northern edge is quiet, Alpha," Arthur projected. ”But the air is heavy."
Suddenly, the wind shifted. It wasn’t the scent of pine or the metallic tang of High-Ridge musk that hit Arthur first. It was the scent of starlight and sweet milk, and right behind it, the freezing stench of Varg.
Arthur froze, his hackles rising into a rigid silver ridge. He peered toward a cluster of ancient rowan trees right on the forbidden border line, the stones that marked the limit of High-Ridge safety. In the center of the roots, he saw it.
It wasn’t a trap of silver or steel. It was a giggle.
‘Alpha. Luna. There is... something in the Dead Woods,’ Arthur projected, his mind-link vibrating. ‘On our side of the stones. A pup.’
The link exploded with panicked chatter until Luna Elara’s voice cut through. ‘Bring the child to me. No soul is left to the forest on a night like this.’
Arthur lunged through the brambles. There, nestled in a bed of white furs, lay a baby. She wasn’t crying; she reached out with tiny, pale fingers, her eyes reflecting the crimson moon as she laughed at the shadows.
He is watching me, Arthur realized. He could feel Varg’s presence, a singular, crushing weight in the darkness. He gathered the furs into his mouth and bolted.
The moon vanished as thick clouds swallowed the light. A howl tore through the trees, vicious, guttural, and bone-deep. It was Varg, calling the mountains to witness the blood he was about to spill.
‘NIGHT-STALKERS!’ The sentinels screamed.
Arthur reached the village perimeter, skidding past the scouts and dropping the bundle into Luna’s arms. ”Here she is,” he gasped through the link, before spinning around and sprinting back to the line.
What he found was a massacre of pride.
Varg’s men weren’t trying to take the baby back. They were dismantling the High-Ridge warriors with surgical precision. They weren’t aiming for throats; they were shredding hamstrings and crushing bones.
Varg himself stood on a ridge of black stone, a monstrous obsidian shadow. He waited until Arthur arrived back at the line, breathless and bared-for-war, before he let out a single, sharp chuff. In perfect, terrifying unison, the Night-Stalkers melted back into the Dead Woods. Varg had punished the pack for the border disturbances, and left the High-Ridge lamed.
Arthur shifted back to human form the moment he crossed the threshold of the Great Hall. His bare skin was stained with mud and the blood of his brothers. He stood before Silas, his chest heaving. The Alpha didn’t look impressed. He looked annoyed, his icy blue eyes fixed on the bundle of white furs on the table like it was a bill he didn’t want to pay.
“Six dead, Silas,” Arthur rasped. “Ten more in the infirmary. Varg... he didn’t even try to kill us. What the fuck was that about?”
Silas didn’t move. He finally looked up, his gaze raking over Arthur’s battered frame with a dismissive grunt.
“I do not know, Arthur,” Silas muttered, his voice a low, grumpy rumble. He flicked a hand toward the child. “But what I do know is that he just handed us a mouth to feed and lamed my best hunters in the process. I hope saving this foundling was worth the blood on the grass, Beta. Because right now, she’s just an expense we can’t afford.”
