The moon hung like a curved blade of bone against the velvet canopy of the night. Silence, heavy and suffocating, had settled over the Blackwood Estate, broken only by the rhythmic scythe of the wind through the ancient pines. Inside the manor, the air was thick with the scent of dried lavender and the metallic tang of cooling iron.
Ava moved through the corridors like a ghost, her bare feet silent against the cold marble. In her hand, she clutched a small vial of valerian root and wolfsbane—a mixture she had slipped into Silas's wine barely an hour ago. She knew the risks. Drugging an Alpha was an act of high treason, punishable by exile or death. But the Blood Tether between them was screaming, a psychic siren that told her Silas's obsession was reaching a breaking point. He wouldn't let her leave his sight, not even to save the soul of their child.
She reached the iron-bound gates of the servants' entrance, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Forgive me, Silas, she thought, the golden sigil on her abdomen pulsing with a sympathetic warmth. But I cannot let Marcus take him. I cannot let the Moon Goddess judge a child who hasn't even breathed the air.
She slipped into the darkness of the Forbidden Forest, headed toward the Ruins of the Old Moon.
The ruins were a place where the light seemed to go to die. Crumbled obsidian pillars rose from the earth like the fingers of a buried giant, and the air tasted of ancient dust and jasmine. Elias, the Seer, was waiting for her in the center of a broken stone circle, his bone mask shimmering with a faint, ghostly luminescence.
"You are late, Little Light-Bearer," Elias rasped, his birch staff striking the ground. "The shadows are already beginning to stir. The Crimson-Fang has invoked the Blood-Hunt. By sunrise, every wolf with a drop of Marcus's blood in their veins will be able to smell your location. They won't just come for the child; they will come to tear the heart out of the Blackwood pack."
"I don't care about the pack," Ava said, her voice trembling but defiant. "Tell me how to save my son. You spoke of a Veil."
Elias stepped closer, the jasmine scent of his robes overwhelming. "The Silver Veil is not a fabric of this world, Ava. It is a shroud woven from the spirit of a True Matriarch—one who carries the lineage of the Sun. Your father exiled you because he feared what you were. He told the world you were wolfless, a defect. But the truth is far more dangerous."
He pointed his staff at her chest. "You do not carry the spirit of the Moon. You carry the Solar Heart. Your mother was the last of the Dawn-Walkers, wolves who reigned before the Moon Goddess claimed the sky. When Silas used that Blood Tether, he didn't just mask your scent; he accidentally poured the fuel of his own Alpha spirit onto a dormant star. You are not a wolf, Ava. You are the fire that burns them."
Ava gasped, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. The gold light... the way the Shadow Stalkers had vaporized at her touch... it wasn't Silas's power. It was hers.
"Now," Elias said, pulling a shimmering, translucent cloth from his sleeve. It moved like captured starlight. "This is the Veil. To activate it, you must offer a drop of the child's blood—through your own—and a drop of the Alpha who truly claims him. It will rewrite the child's spiritual DNA. It will hide him from the Blood-Hunt forever. But once the ritual is complete, the Goddess will see you as an apostate. You will be an enemy of the heavens."
"I already am," Ava whispered, reaching for the Veil.
"AVA!"
The roar was not human. It wasn't even wolf. It was the sound of the earth splitting open.
From the darkness of the trees, a massive shadow erupted. Silas didn't shift back into his human form immediately; he slammed into the clearing as the Black Wolf, his fur matted with forest debris, his eyes a terrifying whirlpool of silver and gold fury. He lunged at Elias, his jaws snapping inches from the Seer's throat, before shifting mid-air in a violent display of raw power.
He landed on his feet, naked and scarred, his skin steaming in the cold night air. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated betrayal.
"You drugged me," Silas hissed, his voice a low vibration that made the stone pillars tremble. "You left my bed to meet a heretic in a graveyard. Do you have any idea how close I came to slaughtering every guard in that manor when I woke up and found you gone?"
"Silas, listen to me!" Ava cried, holding the Silver Veil against her chest. "The Blood-Hunt is real! Marcus is coming with the power of the Goddess behind him. This is the only way to protect the boy!"
Silas stepped toward her, his aura so heavy it felt like a physical weight. He grabbed her wrists, his grip bruising. "I am your Alpha! I am the protection! I told you I would burn the world for you, and yet you go behind my back to play with Seer's magic?"
"Because your strength isn't enough this time!" Ava screamed back, her eyes flaring with that brilliant, radiant gold. "I am the Solar Heart, Silas! My mother was a Dawn-Walker. The light isn't yours—it's mine! And I won't let your pride cost my son his soul!"
Silas froze. The gold in her eyes was so bright it cast shadows against the ruins. For the first time, he saw the truth. He had spent months thinking he was the one saving her, the one giving her a borrowed life. But she was the sun, and he was merely a planet caught in her orbit.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Elias watched them from the shadows, a cynical tilt to his bone mask. "The Alpha and the Sun. A marriage of fire and shadow. If you wish to save the boy, Silas Blackwood, you must give your blood freely. You must claim a child that is not of your flesh but will become of your spirit. Are you man enough to love a ghost?"
Silas looked at Ava. The anger in his eyes faded, replaced by a raw, agonizing vulnerability. He looked at the Veil, then back at the woman who had become his entire universe.
"I have already given you my soul," Silas muttered, his voice breaking. "What is a drop of blood?"
He drew a dagger from a sheath hidden in the stone and sliced his palm open. The blood was dark, nearly black under the moonlight. Ava did the same, her blood bright and shimmering.
They pressed their wounded palms against the Silver Veil.
The reaction was instantaneous. The ruins erupted in a blinding, ethereal white light. The Veil didn't just stay a cloth; it dissolved into a fine, silver mist that swirled around Ava's waist, seeping into her skin and settling over her womb. She felt a sensation of profound peace, as if a heavy curtain had been drawn over her child, hiding him from the prying eyes of the universe.
The Blood-Hunt was broken. The connection to Marcus was severed forever.
Elias vanished into the fog as the light died down, leaving the couple alone in the ruins.
Silas draped his heavy fur cloak around Ava's shoulders, his hands lingering on her neck. He pulled her against him, his face buried in her hair. "Never again," he whispered. "Never drug me again, Ava. If I lose you, there won't be enough of the world left to bury."
"I had to save him, Silas," she said, leaning into his warmth. "But now... now Marcus will know. When the Blood-Hunt fails, he will realize we have used the ancient ways."
"Let him come," Silas said, his silver-gold eyes reflecting the approaching dawn. "He's coming for a child he thinks is his. He's going to find a war he cannot win."
As they walked back toward the manor, the sky began to turn a deep, bloody red. The peace was temporary. The Silver Veil had hidden the child, but it had also signaled their location to every dark thing in the forest.
In the distance, the first howls of the Crimson-Fang pack echoed through the mountains. Marcus was coming, and he wasn't alone. He was bringing the High Inquisitors of the Lunar Council—the men who hunted the Dawn-Walkers to extinction.
Ava gripped Silas's hand, her fingers interlaced with his. The contract was over. The lie was dead.
The War of the Sun and Moon had begun.