Chapter 1 The Night of Ash and Embers
Aria's pov
"Run."
The word didn't come from a voice, but from the very air itself, thick and tasting of ozone.
I woke to the sound of screaming. Not the exciting screams of children playing, but raw cries that tore through the stillness of the forest. My heart slammed against my ribcage before my feet even hit the ground. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
There was a heavy, metallic stench that made my stomach heave. Blood.
"Maeve!" Her name was a jagged glass shard in my throat.
Flames licked the edges of our homes, scattering ashes into the night.
Shadows danced across the wreckage, moving like predators that knew exactly where to strike. The pack was screaming, shoving, clawing, trying to fight back, but it wasn’t enough.
I knew we were outnumbered.
I saw her then. My cousin Maeve was backed against a burning timber, clutching a broken branch as if it could stop the monsters lunging from the dark.
"Maeve! Get down!" I lunged, my fingers inches from her tunic, but a wall of heat and a sudden surge of bodies forced us apart.
"Aria!" she shrieked, her eyes wide with a terror I’ll never forget. A massive shadow swiped her off her feet, dragging her into the black smoke.
"No!" I screamed, clawing at the air, but she was gone.
A man, a wolf in human skin, blocked my path.
He sneered, his teeth long and sharp.
I didn't think, I grabbed a heavy rock from the ground and smashed it against his temple with every bit of strength I had.
He groaned and fell, but I didn't wait to see if he’d get up. I shoved through the chaos, but Maeve was gone.
My fingers closed around empty air where she had been. Panic, cold and suffocating, flooded my lungs.
I fell to my knees, gasping, choking on smoke and tears. The forest around me blurred, the screams echoing like a cruel symphony.
I have to move, I told myself. If I die here, no one will find her.
I forced myself up and bolted into the deep woods. I didn't stop until the sounds of the massacre were a dull throb in the distance.
I collapsed behind an ancient oak tree, my breath coming in ragged, sobbing hitches. I curled into a ball, my body shaking so hard I thought I might break. I was an Omega. I was small. I was the weakest one in the pack.
Why had I survived?
As the adrenaline began to drain from my system, a strange sensation bloomed on my skin.
Just above my heart, a burning heat began to spread across my chest.
I pulled back the collar of my tunic and gasped.
A faint, golden crescent was shimmering against my skin. It had never done this before. It felt like a brand, marking the time with the heavy thump-thump of my heart.
Hours passed in a blur of tears and silence. When the moon reached its peak, a haunting silence settled over the woods. Driven by a desperate, foolish hope that Maeve might still be alive, I crept back toward the ruins.
The clearing was a graveyard.
I walked past the scorched earth and the lifeless bodies of people I had known my whole life. I moved through the smoke like a ghost, my feet silent on the ash.
"Maeve?" I whispered. "Please...talk to me."
I didn't find her body, but I found something else.
The air changed. It became heavy, filled with a power so immense it made my knees buckle.
And there was a scent…but it wasn't the scent of my pack. It was something darker, like rain on hot asphalt and expensive cedarwood.
A twig snapped behind me. I spun around, my eyes searching the trees.
"Is someone there?" My voice was a mere breath.
I felt eyes on me. Shadows stretched toward me as if they were alive. I turned to flee, but the air suddenly turned to lead.
Strong, calloused hands clamped around my waist, lifting me off the ground as if I weighed nothing. A wall of radiating heat and pure Alpha dominance wrapped around me, paralyzing my wolf.
"Quiet, little one," a voice rasped against my ear. It was cold and vibrated through my entire skeleton.
"You’re coming with us."
I looked up, my breath hitching. I saw a beautiful, carved face and eyes the color of a winter storm. They were heartless and captivating all at once. Noah.
"She’s the one," another voice drifted from the trees, this one lighter, mocking, and dangerous.
A second man stepped into the moonlight, a blood-stained smirk playing on his lips. Cassian.
The mark on my chest flared, burning white-hot. I wasn't a survivor, I was a prize.
