Chapter 1 THE GIRL WHO BURNED UNDER THE MOON

The forest swallowed my screams.

Branches clawed at my arms as I ran, barefoot and bleeding, the cold night slicing through my skin. My once-white ceremony gown was torn, streaked with mud and blood.

Behind me, wolves howled—my pack. My family. My home.

And now they had turned my hunters.

My heart stumbled in my chest. The sound of paws thundered behind me, echoing through the trees. I knew that howl. I’d grown up with it.

It was Kael’s.

Even now, his Alpha command ripped through the mate bond, cruel and cold.

“Find her! Bring her back! Dead or alive!”

The power of his voice twisted inside me, tearing at my soul. I gasped as invisible claws raked through my chest.

My fingers pressed against the mark between my collarbones—the mark that was supposed to seal our union tonight.

But instead, it seared with rejection.

I had dreamed of this night all my life—the Luna Ceremony, the moonlight crown, Kael’s hand reaching for mine. The eternal seal of love.

But under that same moon, before the entire pack, he looked at me with nothing but disgust.

He spat my name like a curse.

“I, Alpha Kael Draven of SilverMist, reject you, Selene Thorne, as my mate and Luna.”

Those words shattered me.

The gasps. The whispers. My father’s face draining of pride. My wolf’s howl echoing inside me until it broke.

Pack elders muttered. The Alpha’s lips were a shape I had once craved; now they were a wall. I could run. Many imagined that’s what a coward would do. I could kneel; I could beg.

The moon pulsed, indifferent.

Now, all I had left was the sound of my own ragged breathing as I ran into the cursed forest everyone feared.

The Shadow Woods. The place where the moonlight dies.

They said no one who entered ever returned. But what was left for me to return to?

Humiliation?

The mist thickened around me, silver and strange, curling between the trees like it was alive.

The air was colder here—sharp, heavy with something ancient. My wolf, Astra whimpered deep inside me, begging to turn back.

But I couldn’t.

I wouldn’t.

I’d rather face death than crawl back to the man who ripped my soul apart. Who humiliated me in front of the whole pack. Calling me “too weak”.

My legs trembled. My lungs burned. I stumbled over a root and crashed to my knees.

Pain shot through me. The mark between my collarbones blazed again, veins of light spreading beneath my skin.

“What’s happening to me?” I whispered.

The forest didn’t answer. But the wind… it whispered my name.

“Selene…”

I froze. “Who’s there?”

No reply—just the low hum of power, the scent of ozone, the rustle of trees bending toward me.

The Shadow Woods were watching.

And then I saw it.

A light ahead.

Silver, pulsing. Almost like… moonlight made solid.

I stumbled toward it, breath shallow, heart pounding. The clearing was bathed in radiance, and at its center—

A woman stood.

Her hair shimmered like molten silver, her eyes bright as stars. She wasn’t solid, but shifting, like light on water.

Every instinct screamed run.

But I couldn’t move.

“Who are you?” I managed to whisper.

Her voice flowed through the air like music.

“Child of moonlight. The rejected. The broken. You have come where destiny bleeds.”

Tears stung my eyes. “Please… I didn’t mean to. I just— they’re coming for me—”

“They were never yours to begin with.”

The words hit harder than Kael’s rejection. My throat closed. “I just want the pain to stop. The mark—”

The light from the mark flared violently.

The woman stepped closer, her expression soft and ancient.

“You are not meant to bear his mark.”

Her fingers brushed the air above my chest.

“You are meant to bear mine.”

The world exploded.

Agony ripped through me, searing my veins with molten light. I screamed as the forest around me blazed in silver fire.

Images flashed—mountains breaking, wolves kneeling, the sky bleeding moonlight.

I saw myself standing in the heart of destruction.

“Power without control,” the voice whispered, fading like smoke, “will consume what you love.”

And then she was gone.

The Moonfire roared through me, burning too bright, too wild.

Trees turned to ash. The ground cracked beneath me. I fell, choking on smoke and tears, begging for it to stop.

But the power didn’t listen.

The mark between my collarbones glowed like a second moon. My hair lifted in the wind. My heartbeat thundered.

In the distance, Kael’s wolves howled again—but this time in fear.

Then silence followed.

Only the sound of fire crackling and the night sighing its last breath.

I looked up through the smoke.

The moon hung above me, impossibly close, its light cold and sad. For a moment, I swore I saw a face there—hers—the Goddess who had burned me alive.

A silver tear rolled down her cheek.

My body gave out. I collapsed onto the scorched ground, my vision dimming.

Through the haze, shadows moved—large, unfamiliar wolves with golden eyes.

Not SilverMist.

Someone else.

Someone… watching.

My last thought before the darkness took me wasn’t of Kael or his rejection.

It was of the words that still echoed through the burning forest:

“You are not the weak one, Selene Thorne. You are the beginning of their end.”

First there was smoke. Then came silver light.

Then, a whisper that felt like the moon itself breathing through me.

And now , …nothing.

Darkness folded around me, soft and endless.

For a moment, I thought I was floating between two worlds. One burning and the other untouched.

And in that silence, the Goddess’s voice lingered.

“Power without control will consume what you love.”

The words echoed… until the fire became light.

Warm. Familiar.

And suddenly—

I was home.