Elowen's POV
They told me the Moonbond Ceremony was sacred.
They told me I'd find peace, a place, a name.
They lied.
---
The night air was thick with smoke and ashwood. Somewhere beyond the stone circle, wolves howled in unison — a solemn chant that matched the heartbeat in my throat. Tonight was the ceremony. Tonight, I was meant to be claimed.
But all I could feel was a weight clawing at my lungs.
I stood still in the center of the Moonbond altar, white ceremonial robes clinging to my body like a shroud. A faint red thread was stitched at the hem — the only color Omegas were allowed to wear. Even here, in this holy place, status was carved into everything.
I was nothing.
Until tonight.
Lucien hadn't even glanced at me since I stepped up to the altar. His eyes were fixed on the Moon. Cold. Distant. Powerful.
He was everything the pack admired.
Alpha-born. Strong. Ruthless.
And he would never choose someone like me — not unless forced.
Which was exactly what the Crescent Assembly had done.
---
"You are the chosen pair," Elder Myrrh had said two days ago. "The Moon wills it."
But Lucien's silence told the truth no elder dared admit. He didn't want me.
Still, I clung to hope. Not because I believed in destiny. But because if I wasn't chosen… I would be cast out. Forgotten. Unmated Omegas were considered defective.
And defective wolves were left to rot in exile.
---
Torches flickered as Elder Myrrh raised her voice.
"Let the blood of the Moon bless the union. Let the wolves be bound."
She gestured toward the ceremonial chalice between us — etched in silver runes and filled with sacred moonwater. Lucien stepped forward first, slicing his palm with a bone dagger. His blood fell into the chalice. The water shimmered silver.
Then it was my turn.
I forced my hand to stay steady as I cut into my skin. The sting meant nothing. What mattered was the drop. That one drop… that cursed drop.
It fell—and everything went wrong.
The moonwater turned black.
The chalice hissed. Steam burst upward, and the smell of iron and ash filled the circle. Wolves began shifting nervously. Some bared their teeth. Elder Myrrh froze.
Lucien flinched. "What did you do?!"
"I… I don't know," I whispered. My hand shook violently.
The silver runes on the chalice cracked.
Then shattered.
---
Something inside me pulsed.
It started in my spine. A heat. A thrum. A memory not my own.
My knees buckled. My lungs seized. And the world — that cruel, ordered, ritualized world — collapsed in light and sound.
I screamed. But it wasn't my voice.
A howl broke free, ancient and deep, like the wail of something long buried beneath the earth. My body arched backward, and from the wound in my hand, blood lifted into the air — dancing, burning, twisting into symbols.
Not werewolf sigils. Not pack runes.
This was older. Wilder. Forbidden.
The ground split beneath me.
A warrior standing at the edge of the circle lunged to stop me. But before he reached me—
he caught fire.
Burned alive in a storm of red and black flame.
---
Panic erupted.
Screams.
Shouts.
Someone yelled, "Kill her!"
Another: "She's cursed!"
I couldn't breathe.
My skin felt like it was cracking open. Smoke poured from my fingertips. The wind howled through the trees, carrying voices — not from the pack, but from something beneath the forest.
They were chanting in a language I couldn't understand, but somehow knew.
Then it happened.
The eye.
A red eye opened across my chest — not literal, but made of rune-light and blood.
It blinked once.
And everything went still.
---
Lucien stepped back, his hands raised. "That… that isn't an Omega."
Elder Myrrh covered her mouth. "It's not even a wolf."
I collapsed, the world spinning.
Voices warred inside my head.
"Kill her before the blood spreads!"
"She's one of them!"
"She's Hollowborn!"
That word—
Hollowborn.
The cursed ones. The forgotten. The bloodline erased in the massacre of the old realm.
And then…
> A voice inside me whispered, cold as ice: "Kael."
---
I blinked.
Who?
The name clawed at my thoughts. It didn't belong to anyone I knew.
Yet something ancient inside me recognized it. Longed for it.
Lucien pointed at me. "I reject this bond. I reject her. She is impure."
The ritual shattered.
Silence. Cold and wide as death.
Then the wolves backed away. No one approached. Not even to bind me, to punish me. They were too afraid.
They let me fall.
---
I looked up at the sky.
The Moon — once silver — now bled red.
The ground beneath me was scorched in a perfect circle. My blood still floated in the air, pulsing with life. A rune hung above me like a crown, then cracked and fell into ash.
Somewhere, in the shadows of the trees…
a presence stirred.
A low growl.
Heavy steps in the underbrush.
And then… eyes.
Silver.
Burning. Watching. Waiting.
> "At last," a voice rasped.
"She wakes."
The voice didn't come from my body. Not from the world around me.
It came from something much deeper.
From my blood.
I tried to rise. My fingers twitched, but my body no longer obeyed me. Every bone felt like stone, every joint shackled by an invisible force. The air thickened. Silence grew sharp, unnatural. Even the wolves who had shouted moments ago now held their breath — as if they sensed something more dangerous had awakened.
The sky dimmed.
The wind died.
Leaves trembled on the trees, shivering like the forest itself feared to speak.
> "Kael…"
The name echoed again—not from within my thoughts, but from the blood still floating midair. Whispered like a spell. A summons.
And as I stared into the line of ancient trees beyond the altar, I knew:
I was not alone.
He was watching me.
Not with the gaze of a man.
Not with mercy.
It was a gaze that felt like frozen time.
Those silver eyes belonged to something that should not walk the edges of this world.
Tall. Still. Cloaked in shadows that repelled firelight.
Tattered robes dusted in ash. And on his chest—I saw it.
The same symbol burned into my skin.
I wanted to scream, but my voice stayed locked.
Wanted to ask, but he already knew the question.
Wanted to run—but he began to walk.
One step.
Two.
Slow, steady, unstoppable.
Each step tore apart the world I knew.
Elder Myrrh shouted, "Protect the altar! Protect the Alpha!"
Too late.
They all knew. They didn't have the power.
Lucien backed away behind the altar. His face—no longer cold—was pale. Shaken. Disbelieving.
> "You… you're supposed to be dead," he whispered, and for the first time,
his eyes weren't on me—but on the figure rising from the trees.
The stranger stopped just beyond the ritual fire.
He didn't cross.
He didn't speak.
Until he did.
> "Don't call me by a name you once threw away."
And then… he looked at me. Only me.
> "Elowen," he said softly,
"you will burn this world… as I once did."
And the world forgot how to breathe.