EMBRACING THE FORSAKEN LUNA

I stood in the middle of the grand hall. The heavy wooden doors had just slamm

nevitable, something I couldn't yet grasp. My hands clenched at my side

not the kind I had grown accustomed to. No, this was different. There was

stood before me, every inch of him exuding the power and authority that

like shards of ice cutting through me. Behind him, the other pack elde

cracking slightly. It wasn't just my life on the line-

s tone was cold, final. "The prophecy is

end the gravity of what he was saying. Doomed. That one word reverberated in my mind, min

throwing away everything we've built together because of some ancient wo

I refused to back down. "It's the law of our ancestors. A warning passed down for gene

bout everything we've been through, everything we've fough

tching me off guard. "It's my duty to protect this pack, no matter

like poison. He was serious. There w

bled with me, laughed with me... he was gone, replaced by this

once. I felt hollow, like everything that had ever matte

that followed was deafening, the weight of it press

But just before I reached them, Marcus spoke

orry,

nsidered turning back, begging him to reconsider, to see me as more

o wou

t my skin, and I wrapped my arms around myself as I made my way down the stone steps of the packhouse

in the silence. The rejection was a knife twisting in my gu

At the way I was being punished for something I coul

I thought, gritting my tee

going to let some prophecy dictate my life. Not when I

orm raging inside me. But just as I was about to start the walk back to my cabi

ng the shadows of the surrounding woods. The moonlight barely penetrate

ust as I was about to dismiss it as my imagination, I saw it-

lse quickening as the figure stepped into the

yes were a sickly, unnatural yellow. It bared its teeth at me in a s

anything, the wolf turned and disappeared back into the shado

a wolf like that in our territory. And the way it had looked at me... there was

y feeling very alone. The sense of foreboding I had felt earlier was back, stronger now, pre

faint I almost missed it. It wasn't a sound, exactly, more like a tho

And when they do, no

as nothing. No sign of the wolf, no sign of anythin

e cryptic warning echoing in my mind. What did it mean? Who wa

racing with a thousand possibilities, none of them good. I locked th

, the prophecy, the strange wolf, and that warning... it was too much, all at once. But one thing was

t was over, my life-and the entire Sil