Chapter Nine
(Selene's POV)
The silence after Lucien's disappearance clung to me like morning fog—cold, damp, and impossible to shake off.
I should have returned straight to the compound, but something pulled me deeper into the forest. The ruins of the old temple still whispered. My skin hummed where he had touched me. Not just from heat… but from recognition. Like something inside me had opened—a sealed chamber in my soul.
And now, it wouldn't close.
The moon had dipped behind thick clouds, casting everything in grayscale. I walked with no direction, guided only by instinct. I passed crumbling stone archways, half-swallowed by moss, and stepped over runes burned into the earth. My fingers brushed the edge of an ancient wolf carving etched into a fallen pillar. The same mark that pulsed across Lucien's chest.
I wasn't imagining it. That mark… matched the one I was born with.
A sharp snap of a twig made my breath hitch.
"Ronan?" I whispered into the air.
But it wasn't him.
From the mist stepped a figure—tall, wrapped in tattered black robes, and hooded. A wolf's jawbone hung from a leather cord around their neck. Their presence was… wrong. Offbeat. Like the heartbeat of the forest stalled when they moved.
"You shouldn't be here, child of the Cursed Moon," the figure rasped.
I froze. "What did you just call me?"
The hooded figure took a step closer, revealing a face like brittle parchment and eyes that gleamed molten silver. Not a wolf. Not a witch. Something older. Feral.
"You carry a bloodline bound in sin and sorrow. You were never meant to love."
My throat tightened. "Who are you?"
They tilted their head. "I am the Remnant. Last of the Moon Seers."
Before I could ask another question, the earth rumbled. Roots broke from the ground. A low, ancient growl echoed through the stones—and I wasn't sure if it came from the earth or my own chest.
The Remnant pointed a bony finger at me. "He is waking. The one your blood remembers. But when he rises fully, your love will be your undoing."
blinked.
The vision was gone.
I stood alone in the ruins, the faint blush of dawn pressing at the edges of the sky. My palms were slick with sweat. The moss-covered stone beneath my fingers was real. Solid. But the Remnant—that cloaked, ancient being—had vanished like a breath of winter air.
The words still echoed.
"You were never meant to love."
The chill that followed didn't come from the wind. It came from recognition. Deep down, I knew that wasn't just a hallucination. Something had been awakened in me—something ancient and buried.
As I turned back toward the direction of the compound, I caught a scent on the wind—sharp, wild, familiar. Not Ronan.
Lucien.
I froze.
His scent pulled at the very core of me. Not just my wolf—but something deeper. Deeper than blood or bone. I shouldn't have followed it. I didn't want to see him again, not when my chest was still cracked open from last night. But my legs moved anyway. Stupid heart. Stupid curse.
I found him at the edge of the forest clearing, his back to me. Shirtless. Bare feet in the dew-soaked grass. His black hair, damp with sweat, clung to the nape of his neck.
And that mark on his spine—the crescent moon entangled with thorns—glowed faintly beneath the early light.
He must've sensed me. "You're still here."
His voice was hoarse but steady.
"I should ask you the same," I said quietly.
He turned.
Lucien's face was unreadable, but his eyes—gods, those eyes—looked like they'd seen a thousand years of suffering. And for a moment, I believed they had.
"Was it real?" I whispered. "The Remnant. The vision. The things they said…"
He nodded slowly. "They're the last of an order that served the Moon Temple before it fell. They live between this world and the next. You weren't supposed to see them—unless…"
"Unless I'm cursed," I said, finishing the sentence. "Like you."
He stepped forward. "You're not cursed, Selene. You're… chosen."
I laughed bitterly. "That's worse."
But Lucien didn't smile. He moved closer until the air between us shimmered with heat hunger and hesitation. His fingers reached toward my wrist—but didn't touch.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" he asked softly. "When we touched. Something ancient. Something broken trying to heal."
"I don't want to feel it," I whispered.
"But it's already there."
He looked at me like I was the only truth he'd ever known. My chest squeezed, torn between the storm he brought and the peace he made me crave.
"Ronan chose me," I said suddenly, the words a defense. "He named me Lunar. The Blood Moon Rise is soon."
Lucien's jaw clenched. "And will you say yes? Will you let him bind you to a life you don't want—because it's safer?"
Tears blurred my vision. "I don't know what I want anymore."
"I do."
His voice dropped, low and rough with restraint.
"I want you. And I'll burn down every pack, every prophecy, every cursed thread in the gods-damned tapestry to make that possible."
And just as his hand finally brushed mine—skin to skin, spark to fire—a vicious howl split the air.
Not Ronan's.
Not any wolf I recognized.
It was feral, monstrous—wrong.
Lucien stiffened. "We have to go. Now."
Before I could move, black shadows emerged from the treeline.
Four figures cloaked in ash-stained robes. Not wolves. Not witches.
Hunters of cursed blood.
And they were coming for me.
The four cloaked figures didn't speak. They moved like phantoms, barely making a sound as their boots touched the mossy ground. The smell hit me next—iron and decay—like they carried death in their pockets.
"Hunters," Lucien said again, this time quieter. Sharper. "Get behind me."
"What do they want with me?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he stepped forward, his body angled just enough to shield mine. The tension rolling off him was different than when he faced off against Ronan. This wasn't about dominance or rivalry.
This was survival.
I looked closer. Their robes weren't just ash-colored. They were sung. Charred at the hem. Each one wore a mask made of bleached bone, etched with cracks that glowed faintly.
They stopped a few feet away. One of them—the tallest, judging by the rigid spine and silver-wrought blade strapped across their back—lifted a hand.
"You carry the mark of the Old Blood," the figure said, voice distorted by the mask. "Step forward, hybrid."
Lucien's voice was deadly calm. "You're a long way from the Northern Wastes. This isn't cursed territory."
"It is now."
Their leader's eyes locked onto me. "And she is the key to the Cradle's awakening."
"What cradle?" I demanded, my voice stronger than I expected.
Another figure stepped forward and removed her mask. A woman—her face gaunt, marked by black veins that crawled from her jaw to her temple. Her eyes were pale amber like burnt honey gone bitter.
"You dream of wolves in chains. You feel the pull in your blood," she said to me. "The Cradle is what sleeps inside you. What the moon tried to bury."
I shivered.
Lucien's hand brushed mine. "They'll try to take you. But not if I kill them first."
"No," I said sharply, grabbing his wrist. "We run."
He looked at me like I was mad.
But I wasn't.
I was finally starting to feel the instinct that had been numb for years. Something inside me—my wolf—stirred awake, not just from fear, but from defiance. There was power in me. I didn't know what it meant yet. But I knew I couldn't let them catch me before I understood it.
Before I could stop him, I reached for Lucien's hand and bolted.
We ran.
Through the ruins. Past the bloodroots. Over the cliff edge where the moonlight once touched the water.
Branches clawed at us. Thorns tore at my skin, but I didn't feel the pain. All I felt was his hand in mine and the sound of something dark chasing us—faster than wolves, hungrier than death.
"Split left!" Lucien shouted.
I obeyed, diving into a shadowed ravine just as a blade nicked the air behind me. It hissed, vibrating with magic that smelled like burnt silver.
We ducked under a fallen tree, breathing hard. I could hear them—closer now. Three heartbeats. No. Four.
"Selene," Lucien whispered, turning to face me, voice tight, "you have to shift."
"I can't—"
"You have to."
"My wolf—she's weak, she doesn't come when I—"
"She will."
Lucien's hand cupped my face, eyes boring into mine. "You don't need full control. You just need to let her protect you."
My body trembled. Not from fear—but from something breaking loose. From that mark on my shoulder burning like wildfire beneath my skin. The echo of my bloodline. The ancient tether inside me pulsed when Lucien touched me.
I closed my eyes.
And I let go.
The world cracked open.
The shift wasn't clean. It wasn't graceful like the other she-wolves I'd watched growing up. Mine felt like drowning and burning at the same time. But when it was over when I opened my eyes again—
I wasn't Selene anymore.
Not the girl everyone pitied.
I was the wolf beneath the stone.
Silver-gray fur, tinged in streaks of black-like shadows woven through the moonlight. Eyes glowing violet-blue. Taller than I should've been. Sharper. Stronger.
Lucien stared at me like I was a miracle. Or a monster.
And the hunters?
They hesitated.
Just for a second.
And that was all we needed.
Lucien shifted beside me—a shadow-coated black wolf with ember-red eyes—and we leaped through the trees like twin spirits of the forest.
But even as we outran the hunters, even as our paws pounded against the wet forest floor, even as the dawn finally broke through the clouds…
I couldn't stop thinking about what the woman had said.
You are the key to the Cradle's awakening.
And you were never meant to love.