The words echoed in my head long after Lucian left.
"The ones the moon forgot."
I didn't sleep that night—not that sleep ever came easily since the bite. My dreams, when they did come, were filled with fractured images: glowing eyes in the dark, whispers in a language I didn't know, and shadows with teeth.
I wandered the halls before dawn, drawn to the east wing of the mansion—the one I was warned to avoid. Naturally, that only made it more irresistible.
The corridor was colder here. The light dimmer. The portraits on the walls had no names, their faces half-faded and torn, like time was trying to forget them too.
Then I found the door.
It was carved with symbols I didn't understand—sharp lines and crescent curves, like a language older than the wolves. The handle was icy cold beneath my palm, but it turned with a click.
The room beyond was not what I expected.
It wasn't a prison or dungeon.
It was a shrine.
Candles burned in a circle, unmoving despite the breeze I hadn't felt in the hallway. In the center stood a statue, tall and cloaked, with antlers like a stag and a face like a void.
I stepped closer, breath catching.
Something in me knew this figure.
Not from memory, but from instinct.
There were markings at the base of the statue—again in that ancient script—but this time, I could read them.
> To those exiled from the moon, cast in shadow but not forgotten.
I staggered back.
How? How could I read it?
"You shouldn't be in here."
I spun.
It was Maris, Lucian's sister. Her dark eyes blazed with alarm, but not anger.
"You read the script," she said softly. "Didn't you?"
I didn't answer. I didn't need to.
Her expression fell. "Then it's true."
"What's true?"
She stepped inside and closed the door, her voice low. "That you're not just marked, you're awakened."
My pulse quickened. "Awakened to what?"
Maris walked around the statue, fingers brushing the base. "Long before the Alphas ruled the packs, there were others—born of the moon but twisted by time and power. Hybrids. Half-bloods. Creatures that didn't belong."
"Like me."
She looked at me. "Like the one you're becoming."
My hands trembled. "What does that mean?"
Maris hesitated. "Lucian thinks you're a myth. A bloodline that shouldn't exist anymore. The Moonborn were supposed to die out centuries ago after the Binding War."
Moonborn. The word landed like thunder in my chest.
I thought back to Rowan's words. "Your blood doesn't belong to them."
That's what he meant.
"I'm not just human or wolf," I said slowly. "I'm something else."
She nodded. "Something older. Something feared."
A beat of silence.
"Lucian didn't just mark you," Maris said carefully. "He awakened what was dormant in your blood. And now… others will feel it."
"What others?"
She looked at the statue. "The ones the moon forgot. The ones who remember what your kind once did."
A sudden crash echoed down the hall.
Maris grabbed my arm, pulling me out of the room. "Come. We have to hide you."
"Hide me?"
She didn't answer. Just ran.
But as we moved through the mansion, I could feel it—the shift in the air. The presence pressing in around me.
And I knew with terrifying certainty...
Something had arrived.
And it was looking for me.