Chapter 1
“Are you truly going to give her your heart?”
The voice echoed softly in Selene’s mind–quiet as snowfall, edged with an ancient sorrow. It arose from the silver mark branded upon her heart since birth, the moonmark, a relic of the Blood–Wish Pact forged between her mother and the Moon Goddess.
Selene did not respond aloud. There was no need. She already knew her answer.
But the choice had never truly been hers. From the very moment of Selene’s birth, when a fragment of her soul was torn away and bound irrevocably to Marina’s fate, her path had already been determined.
She had been born solely to bear this burden–a half–soul destined to complete another. A wolf forever unable to shift. A daughter perpetually incomplete.
Even the blood pulsing through her veins had never belonged to her. It was borrowed warmth, counting down the moments until someone else would claim it.
The heavy door creaked open.
Moonlight cascaded across Thorne Blackridge’s tall, imposing figure, casting his shadow sharply upon her trembling frame.
“Have you learned your lesson?”
His voice carried no warmth–it never had. Even in their shared bed, his touch was precise, methodical, never gentle.
Selene stood in the frigid air, arms wrapped tightly around her ribs, defiant despite the cold gnawing at her bones, Thorne had left her outside the stronghold, barefoot and shivering, as punishment for her defiance
Defiance of what, exactly?
Refusal to die?
She met his gaze, silent.
Behind Thorne stood Theo, rigid as a soldier, his small face unreadable. Only seven, yet he already mirrored his father’s aloofness. “Mom,” Theo began carefully, “Aunt Marina said she can’t play with me anymore because of you.”
Selene’s throat tightened painfully.
“The Elders said
you
won’t really die,” Theo continued with clinical detachment. “They said you’ll just sleep, and the Moon Goddess will give you another body. So why won’t you help her?”
He frowned, clearly emulating Thorne’s stern authority. “If you refuse, then you’re not my mom anymore.”
The words cut deeper than the bitter chill. She had anticipated pain–but not this. Not from him.
She stared at her son, the child she had carried, protected, wept over. Yet he had never clung to her as he did to Marina. He had been taught, by example and whispers, to cherish only those who shone brightest.
Selene stepped slowly inside.
“I’ll do it,” she murmured softly.
Thorne blinked, momentarily unsettled. He hadn’t expected her surrender–certainly not so easily. Not from the fierce woman who had once clawed throughfive guards to save a dying pup. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“You’ve thought this through?”
Selene’s lips curled ever so slightly–not quite a smile, but something beyond emotion, resignation born of utter exhaustion.
“You all want my heart so desperately,” she said, her voice quiet but clear. “Take it.”
The words hung heavy in the air, drifting like fallen ash.
Chapter 1
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then Theo, oblivious to the undercurrents, flung a broken wooden sword at her feet. “Fix this, bad mom.”
Selene knelt slowly. The motion pulled taut every muscle in her spine. Beneath her ribs, the Moonmark flared suddenly brighter, searing her skin with fresh agony.
It had begun three nights ago. A subtle flicker beneath the skin. A painful sting whenever she breathed.
Now the Sigil burned steadily, silver threads gleaming softly beneath the thin fabric of her shift.
The Blood–Wish was finally activating.
Her time was nearly over.
That night, Selene sat alone in her old chamber, the fireplace cold and dark. With trembling fingers, she traced the faint outline of the scar upon her chest.
“Moon Goddess,” she whispered into the silence, “are you even watching?”
The darkness gave no reply–only a faint, steady pulse beneath her fingertips, reminding her of the price soon to be paid.
Not for the first time, she wondered what shifting would feel like. She imagined her bones fracturing and reforming, imagined feeling the wind howl through her fur.
Yet her wolf remained forever silent.
Dead?
No. Not dead.
Merely absent.
As though some vital piece of her had been born elsewhere–in someone else entirely.
She rose slowly and walked to the mirror.
The woman who stared back had Thorne’s faded bite marks upon her collarbone, ritual lashes still visible along her hollowed by grief and exhaustion. This woman had already died once; now she merely awaited burial.
arms, and
eyes
Selene’s voice broke the silence, firm and steady, “I accept the Rite.
Her reflection did not flinch
For the first time, she truly saw the scar she had never been permitted to acknowledge:
The scar of the fated.
Chapter 1
