The night felt different.
Not just colder. Heavier. Like the world itself was bracing for something ancient to stir.
Maris led me through a hidden hallway behind the library—a passage that twisted downward into the earth beneath the mansion. The walls were stone. The air was thick with damp moss and secrets.
"This place wasn't made for humans," I muttered.
Maris gave me a sharp glance. "Neither were you."
I flinched.
Not because she was wrong.
Because she was right.
We came to a stop in a small chamber. It looked like a war room—maps carved into stone, candles burning low, old weapons mounted on the walls.
"Stay here," she said. "Do not leave this room until I come back."
"But—"
"Promise me, Raven."
I froze. That was the first time she'd used my name. Her voice held a strange tenderness. Maybe even fear.
I nodded. "Okay. I promise."
She vanished through another door, leaving me alone with the shadows and my racing thoughts.
What was I becoming?
Why did this feel like something I was meant to be, even though it terrified me?
I sat on the cold bench, fingers tracing a pattern on the carved map when something shifted.
The candles flickered.
Then went out.
Every muscle in my body locked. I wasn't alone.
And I hadn't imagined the whisper.
> "Moonborn…"
I stood slowly, heart pounding. The voice wasn't loud—it was barely audible—but it was ancient. Wrong, somehow. Like it had too many echoes.
"Who's there?" I whispered.
No answer. Just the scrape of nails on stone.
I backed away, fumbling for one of the small blades mounted on the wall. My fingers closed around a hilt just as a figure emerged from the shadows.
It was cloaked in tattered black robes. Its face was covered—except for the eyes.
Eyes like hollow moons.
Pale. Burning. Starless.
I raised the blade, but the figure didn't move. Didn't flinch.
"You carry the scent," it said, voice like wind across graves. "You are not of the pack."
I swallowed hard. "Who are you?"
It tilted its head. "One of the forgotten. One who remembers what your kind once were."
"I don't know what I am," I said, gripping the blade tighter. "But I didn't ask for this."
"No one asks," it replied. "The blood chooses. The bond answers. And the debt returns."
A rush of air—icy and dry—swept through the room. I blinked, and suddenly there were more figures.
Three. Five. Nine.
They surrounded me, all cloaked. All silent.
I couldn't run. Couldn't scream.
Then one stepped forward. A woman, I thought—her voice was softer, but no less chilling.
"The old blood wakes in you," she said. "And so does the war."
"What war?"
"The one we lost," she whispered. "The one you must win."
"I don't understand—"
"You will. When the first moon turns red and the Alpha bows, you will remember who you are."
Then they were gone.
No flash. No sound. Just gone.
The candles flared back to life as if nothing had happened.
I stood frozen, heart hammering, breath shallow.
What the hell just happened?
Before I could process it, the door flew open.
Lucian stood there, eyes wild, breath ragged.
"They were here," he said. Not a question. A fact.
I nodded slowly.
He strode in, grabbed my shoulders, and searched my face. "Did they touch you?"
"No."
"Did they mark you?"
"No."
He let out a breath but didn't let go. "They should not have found you. Not yet."
"What were they?" I asked, voice barely a whisper.
He looked at me, and his eyes were haunted.
"Ghosts," he said. "Of the past we buried. Of the future you might ignite."