Dream
Aaron’s POV
I woke to the taste of blood in my mouth.
It was not real blood—at least, not from my waking body—but the phantom taste clung to my tongue, sharp and metallic, as if my dream had followed me into the waking world. My heart still pounded hard enough to shake my ribs.
Moonlight spilled through the narrow window above my bed, painting the stone walls in silver. I didn’t need to glance at the night sky to know the truth. The Wolf Moon was drawing near—its rise inevitable, its pull a promise that could not be broken.
I sat up slowly, every muscle tight with unease, the dream clinging to me like a second skin.
A woman with silver eyes.
Her skin pale as bone, hair darkened with a crown of crimson—blood woven into her locks like a curse. She had reached for me in the dream, her voice nothing more than a whisper, the sound of wind moving through dead leaves.
“Mate,” she had called.
I had never seen her before. Not in the flesh. Yet every drop of my blood had recognized her.
Selene.
Her name was like a blade drawn in the dark—silent, dangerous. Before her name had ever passed the lips of priests or kings, before the king’s decree had painted her as a sacrifice, I had seen her face in fragments, in the half-lit corners of my mind. Visions I had never asked for.
But tonight was different.
Tonight, I saw her standing over a corpse—High Priest Eleazar’s corpse. Blood pooled at her bare feet, black in the moonlight. Her face had twisted into something unrecognizable, no longer soft, no longer human. And in that terrible stillness, the world itself seemed to exhale. No sacrifices. No blood rites. No chains.
Then came the faces—soldiers I had fought beside, priests I had once sworn to protect—all revealed as traitors. And her… standing in the ruin of their power.
The dream spoke without words: She was not meant to die.
I rose from my bed and reached beneath it, pulling out the blade I kept hidden. Its edge was dull now, worn by years, but I carried it not for the sharpness, but for the curse it carried. The last thing my father had given me before they hanged him on the castle walls for treason.
A true Alpha protects his own blood—even if it burns the world.
I had been eight years old when they killed him.
Eleazar had brought me to watch. The High Priest had needed a wolf he could trust, one who would be loyal out of gratitude. And I had played the part well. Loyal soldier. Loyal guard. Loyal dog to a monster.
But my blood was never his.
It belonged to the old ways, to the wolves who ran free before men bent the knee to false gods.
I stepped outside, the night air thick with the scent of damp earth and rising power. Somewhere far beyond the city walls, the Moonshine pack had not yet arrived—but I could feel them. Their call was not a sound, but a deep ache in my bones, a fire spreading through my veins.
And beneath it all… her.
It was not an order. Not even instinct. It was something older. A pull that could not be severed.
I crossed the empty training yard in silence, my boots brushing frost from the cobblestones. Past the half-ruined garden where the statues of the old gods lay shattered, forgotten. Soldiers no longer patrolled here. The priests had forbidden it years ago, afraid of what the old gods still remembered.
But tonight, I felt them watching.
I reached the broken postern gate—one Eleazar had never sealed. Perhaps he thought no one would dare use it. Perhaps he thought fear was stronger than desperation.
The forest swallowed me the moment I stepped through.
The canopy above turned the moonlight into shifting shadows, branches whispering in a language only the wild could speak. My instincts sharpened; the scent of river water drifted on the wind. Somewhere ahead, the current called to me.
And then I saw her.
Selene.
She stood by the riverbank, her hair catching the moonlight like living flame. Her skin gleamed pale against the darkness, but her eyes… they were not soft like in my dream. They were cautious, sharpened by survival. She moved toward an old, rusted gate that led north, each step careful, deliberate.
For a long moment, I simply watched her.
I should have called out, should have warned her—but hesitation rooted me in place. She didn’t know me. To her, I was just another stranger in the dark, perhaps another enemy. And yet, I knew if she passed through that gate, she would not survive the night.
I could feel the danger closing in on her like the tightening jaws of a trap.
And I could feel my wolf’s blood demanding—Stop her.
I stepped forward, leaving the cover of the shadows.
Her head snapped toward me, eyes narrowing, body tensing for flight.
“You’re on the wrong path,” I said quietly, my voice cutting through the stillness.
The moment the words left me, the air seemed to shift.
It was as if something ancient had taken notice—something that had been waiting for this meeting.
And in that breath, I felt it.
The first thread of fate winding itself around us both.