The moment the word rogue left the elder's mouth, something shifted.
Not just in the way they looked at her—though that changed too, fast and sharp—but in the air itself. Like the forest had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.
Nobody said a word after that. Not a peep. Rafe just led her through the trees, jaw grinding like he was chewing on a mouthful of nails. He looked about ready to throw down with a squirrel if it even glanced her way. The woods? Yeah, they'd turned cold on her—like she'd been caught sneaking around where she didn't belong. Every shadow felt like it had an opinion. Branches shifted when she blinked; leaves gossiped in voices that were way too loud for her liking.
By the time they stumbled out near the village, the blood moon had slid down the sky, painting everything with that weird mix of rust and old bruise. Creepy, honestly. Lina could barely stand.
She didn't go home.
She couldn't.
Not when her mother had lied.
Instead, Rafe led her to a small cabin tucked into the western ridge, half-swallowed by vines and surrounded by tall pine. Flameborn territory. Safe, supposedly. Lina didn't feel safe. She felt cracked open.
He left her with a blanket, a basin of water, and a guarded promise.
"I'll be close."
Then poof—he vanished, his shadow sucked up by the trees like a bad magic trick. The days that followed? Total mush. Lina holed up in the cabin, couldn't deal with people, couldn't sit still either. Sleep was a joke. Her dreams broke apart into these wild, jumpy scenes—fire everywhere, her name echoing, and something nasty on her heels, chasing her through the woods.
Selene hadn't tried to reach her.
Neither had Ms. Thorne.
But the wolves had.
They didn't hide it. Not anymore. She caught them watching from the treeline—figures cloaked in shadows, eyes glinting gold or silver in the dark. Always silent. Always near. Guardians, Rafe claimed.
Prison guards, her gut whispered.
She felt caged. Hunted. Even in broad daylight, she wasn't alone. At the edge of her vision, she'd see movement—too fast to follow. Shadows where there shouldn't be any. Whispers that didn't belong to the wind.
So there she was, lugging her bucket to the stream, when—bam—some weirdo in a cloak zipped behind a tree. She bolted after them, pulse pounding like a drum solo, but all she found were these nasty claw marks, shredded right into the tree. Creepy, right?
Fresh.
Deep.
Not Flameborn.
Something else.
On the fourth day, the whispers started.
She was outside, trying to breathe through a tension headache and the ever-present buzz under her skin, when she heard it.
A voice.
Faint. Feral. Familiar.
"Lina…"
She spun.
No one.
But the trees were different. Closer. Shadows stretched way too far for this time of day—almost like the sun was playing tricks. She backed up a bit, kinda freaked, wondering if she'd slipped into another one of those weird dreams. The charm Ms. Thorne had given her—warm now, pulsing softly—seemed to respond to the presence too.
She turned to go back inside—and that's when she saw the tracks.
Footprints in the mud, leading around the side of the cabin. Too large for any normal person. And too bare.
She followed them.
They ended beneath the window.
And in the dirt just beside them—scratched into the soil with a claw—was one word:
"MINE"
She didn't tell Rafe.
She wanted to. Almost did. But something in her had shifted. A quiet resolve.
If she was being hunted, she needed to know why.
Not just the surface answer—"you're moon-marked" wasn't cutting it anymore.
She needed the roots. The truth under the truth.
So she waited until night fell, then crept from the cabin. Her shoulder ached again—the mark flaring up like it always did when something was near. The forest was too quiet. No owls. No wind. Even her own breath sounded too loud.
She made her way to her house.
The place she hadn't seen since the night the moon bled.
It felt foreign now. Like a memory of someone else's life.
Lina slipped in through the side door. Everything was where it had been—too clean, too still. Selene wasn't there. Or if she was, she wasn't making herself known. The attic stairs loomed above, and her heart sank just looking at them.
That's where she went.
That's where the secrets hung out—lurking, like they had rent to pay. The attic? Always freezing, like it had a personal vendetta against central heating. She strolled in—well, "strolled" is generous, it was more like she just materialized outta nowhere—and, man, it didn't feel like a door opening. Nah, it was like reality glitched and boom, you're somewhere else entirely. Dust clung to everything. Stacks of old books lined the walls, many in languages Lina couldn't read. Candles had melted into strange shapes across low wooden tables. There were symbols drawn in chalk on the floor, and feathers tied to jars of herbs. One entire shelf held nothing but photographs—most faded or curled with age.
She crossed the room slowly.
Drawn to them.
There, beneath a stack of old letters and incense bundles, she found it.
A photograph.
Torn down the middle.
A woman stood in the forest, smiling—young, wild, unmistakably Selene. In her arms: a baby with pale skin and dark curls. Lina.
And on Selene's hand, visible even in the faded image, was the same crescent mark.
The same exact mark Lina bore.
She staggered back, the photo clutched to her chest.
So it wasn't just hers.
It had belonged to her mother first.
And then—she remembered.
Not the whole story.
But pieces.
A house with no walls—just fabric and light. The smell of smoke and pine. A lullaby, hummed low and haunting. A man's voice calling her little moonbeam. Warm hands. A scream. Fire. Running.
A woman—Selene—sobbing as she wrapped Lina in something soft and kissed her forehead.
"I'm sorry. I had no choice."
Then darkness.
Lina just dropped to the attic floor, holding that photo so tight you'd think it might disappear if she let go. Honestly? It looked like it was the last solid thing she had to hang onto—like everything else around her had just turned to smoke.
She understood now why Selene had never told her anything. Why Ms. Thorne had kept her hidden. Why the Flameborn elders looked at her like a glitch in their precious bloodlines.
She wasn't just moon-marked.
She was a legacy.
A threat.
A secret born of fire and exile.
She didn't realize how late it had gotten until the wind shifted and a new scent hit her nose—sharp. Oily. Wrong.
Not wolf.
Not human.
Something in-between.
Lina rose fast, stuffing the photo into her jacket pocket. The floorboards creaked beneath her feet, loud in the silence.
Too loud.
Because downstairs… something moved.
Not someone.
Something.
It wasn't Rafe.
It wasn't Selene.
And it wasn't alone.
The scent hit her again—burned metal, decay, cold ash. Whatever it was, it was inside the house now.
Her blood ran cold.
The charm at her chest vibrated, growing hotter by the second. Warning her.
She didn't even blink. She just launched herself down those rickety attic stairs, snatched up the first heavy thing her hand landed on—turns out, an ancient, crusty fire poker—and tiptoed into the hallway. The shadows? Yeah, they squirmed along the walls like they had lungs. Creepy as hell.
And from the corner of her eye, she saw it.
A figure. Tall. Twisted. Half-wolf, half-human—like the transformation had been interrupted halfway and frozen there. Pale eyes. Skin like cracked stone. Claws.
And it was smiling.
She backed up, heart hammering.
Another figure appeared behind it.
And another.
Too many.
She turned to run—
And slammed into a wall of fur and muscle.
Rafe.
He growled, deep and guttural, rumbling right through the floorboards. Next thing you know, boom—he's a massive wolf, all shadow and teeth, fangs flashing like he's ready to tear the place up.
The creatures didn't attack.
They vanished—just like that. As if the forest swallowed them whole.
Back at the cabin, Lina finally broke her silence.
"They were in my house. Inside. Watching me. They didn't even try to kill me."
Rafe stood by the door, body still tense, jaw tight.
"They weren't going to kill you," he said finally. "They were trying to take you."
Lina swallowed. "Why?"
He didn't answer right away.
"They know who you are now. You're the last link to something they thought was gone."
"You mean my mother."
"I mean your bloodline," he said. "Selene didn't just fall in love with a rogue. She fell in love with someone the Flameborn betrayed. Someone powerful. And now their daughter just lit the forest on fire with her hands."
Lina pulled the photograph from her pocket.
Rafe took it, frowning as he examined the mark on Selene's hand.
"She had it too," Lina said. "So whatever this is… it didn't start with me."
"No," he agreed, softly. "But it might end with you."