The forest was alive with shadows and whispers.
Pine trees towered like ancient guardians, their needle-thin leaves rustling in the wind like a secret language known only to the old gods. Mist wove through the trunks in silvery ribbons, coiling and stretching, casting a mystical glow over the Moonshadow territory. In the heart of it all, nestled near the dens, a girl barely of age crouched behind the warriors' training grounds, nursing a fresh bruise on her shoulder.
Luna didn't cry.
Not this time.
She pressed her fingers gently against the mark, then pulled her hand away. A smear of blood dotted her fingertips.
"Next time, keep your tail out of my way," came the venom-laced voice from the field. Selene's laughter rang out, clear and cruel, like bells dipped in poison.
Luna clenched her jaw and swallowed hard. The sting in her arm wasn't as bad as the humiliation. Again.
The others laughed too—not with malice, necessarily, but with a cruel indifference that was even worse. No one stepped in. No one ever did.
She was the runt. The orphan. The stray the Moonshadow Pack had pity-adopted years ago, left at the edge of their territory during a bitter winter. The Elders said she was a gift from the Moon Goddess, but the pack treated her more like a forgotten obligation than a miracle. A burden they couldn't shake. Especially Selene.
Beautiful, poised, powerful—Selene was the alpha's chosen mate, and she made sure Luna never forgot her place.
You will never be one of us.
You are nothing.
An orphan doesn't belong in a pack meant for warriors.
Luna heard it all, every day, whispered like gospel.
She waited until the warriors finished training before slipping away through the outer path that led to her hollow. It wasn't a den, not really. She hadn't been assigned a proper one. Hers was a shallow dip beneath a thick pine tree, cloaked by hanging moss and silence. It smelled of bark, dirt, and loneliness.
She curled up in the blanket she'd sewn together from scraps—strips of fur and discarded leather—and stared up through the branches.
The moon was only a sliver tonight, but still she lifted her gaze to it.
"I don't belong here," she whispered to the stars. "Why did you put me here?"
Her voice cracked, but she didn't sob. Not like when she was younger. She had learned silence. Silence didn't earn you beatings or insults.
"I don't need them to love me," she lied. "I just want… a place. Somewhere I matter."
Her throat tightened as the silence wrapped around her again. Not even the trees replied tonight.
The next morning came with a sharp frost and the usual summons.
All wolves of the pack—warriors, elders, scouts, omegas—gathered near the Great Stone for morning announcements. Luna stood near the back, wrapped in a tattered shawl. She tried to blend in with the forest wall, hoping to disappear entirely.
But when the crowd parted for the arrival of the alpha and his mate-to-be, she couldn't help but look up.
Orion.
The pack's golden son. Their alpha.
He was everything Luna wasn't—tall, strong, charismatic. His black fur shimmered in the morning light, and his amber eyes glowed with the intensity of a born leader. He was chosen at sixteen to lead, and he'd only grown fiercer since.
When he passed, the crowd bowed. Luna dropped her eyes instinctively, afraid to meet his gaze. She didn't need another reason to become a target.
Orion rarely acknowledged her. Never cruel, not like Selene, but never kind either. He was distant, removed, like she was just another tree in the forest. Background.
Which made it all the more strange when, mid-announcement, he paused.
"…And the patrol to the northern ridge—" he stopped suddenly.
Luna glanced up without thinking and froze.
He was staring straight at her.
It lasted barely a second, but it felt like the world shifted.
Orion blinked, shook his head subtly, and continued as though nothing had happened.
But Luna's heart was pounding in her chest like a trapped bird.
Why had he looked at her like that?
That evening, Selene found her again.
This time near the spring, where Luna had gone to wash her clothes.
"Well, if it isn't the little mud-pup," Selene sneered, arms crossed, golden curls cascading like a lion's mane over her shoulders.
Luna didn't respond. She kept scrubbing.
Selene stepped closer, her voice low and mocking. "You think you're special, don't you? That little stunt this morning? He only looked at you because he was confused. Maybe he smelled the rot."
Luna stiffened but said nothing.
Selene leaned in, her tone turning cold. "Stay away from Orion. You may have fooled the Elders with your 'Moon-blessed orphan' sob story, but I see what you really are. Weak. Forgotten. Unworthy."
Then, for good measure, Selene stepped forward and kicked Luna's wash basin over, spilling the freshly scrubbed cloth into the mud.
Luna sucked in a breath and closed her eyes.
When she opened them, Selene was already walking away, triumphant.
That night, Luna didn't pray.
She ran.
Through the forest. Past the training grounds. Past the Elders' circle. All the way to the cliffs on the edge of the territory.
She stood on the precipice, letting the wind whip through her hair and sting her cheeks. Far below, the river churned and foamed, white-capped and furious.
The moon hung just above the tree line now. Thin, pale, but present.
Luna stared at it for a long time.
"I don't understand," she said aloud. "Why would you bring me here, only to break me every day?"
No answer came.
Just the wind, the waves, and her heartbeat.
She dropped to her knees and pressed her hands into the cold, hard stone.
"I won't survive here much longer," she whispered. "You know that. They'll crush me eventually."
And then, softly, like a breeze across her mind, she felt it.
Not a voice. Not words.
Just a warmth. A pulse. A shimmer of something inside her—deep, ancient, and waiting.
She gasped and sat upright.
"What was that?"
But there was nothing now. Only the stars, blinking in silence.
Still, for the first time in moons, Luna felt something she hadn't in ages.
A spark.
The next morning, the Elders summoned her. That never happened.
She stood before them—six wolves cloaked in age and wisdom, eyes heavy with knowledge. They sat in a circle of stone and silence.
"We've sensed a shift in you, child," said Elder Marros, the oldest of them all. "Something awakening."
Luna's breath caught.
"I don't—what do you mean?"
"You are nearing your eighteenth moon," Elder Lyra said gently. "The time when bonds are revealed. When fates are sealed."
Luna's heart thudded in her chest.
"You speak of the mate bond," she said slowly.
They nodded.
"Tomorrow night," Marros said. "The Moon Ceremony. You must be present."
Luna stepped back. "Why? No one will want—"
"You must come," Lyra interrupted. "It is the will of the Moon Goddess. You are not here by accident."
Luna left the circle in a daze, the Elders' words echoing in her skull.
The mate bond. The Moon Ceremony. The will of the goddess.
She didn't know what it meant, or what awaited her.
But for the first time, something stirred beneath the surface of her skin—a calling.
One she could no longer ignore.