Elara
The moon responded to me.
Not with sound but with power.
It slammed into my chest like a tidal wave, driving the breath from my lungs and sending me stumbling back. Adrian cursed, grabbing me just in time, his arms tightened around me as once more my knees buckled.
"Easy," he said crisply. "Concentrate on me. Not the moon.
I gasped, "I can't."
Since at the moment the pull was intolerable. It was command rather than just light or gravity. Every cell in my body reached for it, toward something huge and old that felt like it had been waiting hundreds of years for me to show up.
Selene observed with bare intensity.
"She's reacting," she mumbled. "She's going faster than any latent I've ever witnessed."
Adrian snarled, "I told you to slow this. You're putting too much weight on her.
"I am not pushing," Selene responded steadily. She is running.
Her phrases frightened me more than the discomfort. Heading for what?
A howl burst through the trees. Not mine.
Many heads turned up. The pack moved uncomfortably, some retreated, others bristled as little growls reverberated across the clearing.
Then there was another howl, this time closer.
Adrian tense up. "That's not ours."
Selene tightened her eyes. "They followed the bond."
My heart thumped. Who adhered to it?
She turned toward me deliberately. " Rogues".
The word hit like a death sentence.
Though I knew little, that word meant terror even for wolves.
Adrian said, "They shouldn't be this near Oakhaven." "Not unless—"
"Unless they sensed her," Selene finished.
Under my feet, the earth vibrated gently.
A third scream sliced the night and it felt in my bones how near it was.
"Move," Selene said, all gentleness vanished. "Now."
Everything went up at once.
Mid-motion, wolves shifted, bodies twisting, bones snapping, fur ripping across flesh in blurs of fierce grace. Snarls and the thud of paws hitting the ground filled the air.
Before Adrian carried me right from the ground, I hardly had time to scream.
He begged, "Hold on to me. "No matter what you see or hear.
As he ran, I encircled his neck with my arms.
The forest turned anarchy as scents exploded in my senses all at once, wind roared in my ears, branches whipped past, and chaos emerged. Blood. Pine. Earth wet. Terror.
So much dread. Not only mine.
Adrian yelled above the noise, "Their fear is spilling into you." "Block it out!"
I'm at a loss how!
"Then feel mine," he retorted sharply. Concentrate on me.
And then I did suddenly.
His presence slammed on me like a wall. Excellent. Dominant. Scarily stable. It grounded me and dragged my ideas from the chaos grabbing at the boundaries of my consciousness.
We halt skidded into yet another clearing.
Already there, Selene remained utterly still as three huge wolves came out of the treeline.
They were wrong
bigger than the rest. leaner. Marks. Saliva dripped to the ground as their eyes flared an odd red and their lips pulled back from yellowed fangs.
Thugs. My pulse shrieked.
Adrian dropped me behind him, his body gently shifting, bones realigning beneath skin as claws slipped free from his fingertips.
Stay behind me, he murmured. If I ask you to run,
"I won't leave you," I said without thinking.
His eyes lit up as he turned back. "That's not valor." That constitutes suicide.
One of the rogues leaped before I could react.
The world combusted.
Adrian confronted it directly, shifting completely mid-leap. Fur tearing through cloth, limbs stretching as a big black wolf crashed with the rogue in a mouthful of teeth and claws, his body leapt forward.
The sound was harsh.
Selene also turned, silver-white fur flying as she tore at the second rogue with horrifying accuracy.
The third bad shifted its scorching stare toward me.
I got stuck.
Slowly, lips curled back in a grin. That was far too clever to be animal.
Mine, something inside me murmured. "No," I gasped.
The rogue shot out. I cried and the woods responded.
Power exploded out of me in a violent wave. The soil split.
Mid-air the rogue was flung backwards crashing into a tree with a stomach-churning crunch. Unmoving, it tumbled to the ground.
Silence fell. Every wolf gazed at me whether shifted or not.
Faint silver light was my hands.
"What did I just do?" I murmured.
Adrian turned back in a flash, human once more, chest heaving as he examined the fallen rogue... then at me.
He spoke slowly. "You pushed him back. Not touching him."
Approached Selene, clearly in wonder. "Force projection," she said softly. "Unfeasible for an unskilled wolf."
I murmured shakily, "I didn't mean to. "I just.." became enraged. Nervous.
She chuckled.
"That's when power listens best." A shrill snarl shattered the scene.
Blood soaking its fur, the rebellious Selene had gotten to its feet but its eyes were glued to me.
It snarled, voice altered but clearly intelligent, "you belong to us. "Old blood begs to old blood."
It lunged again before anyone could intervene.
Adrian moved; I moved quicker.
Inside me, the heat spiked fierce and instinctive. I flung my hand forward, not thinking—simply trying to stop it.
The rebel stopped midstride. Its body rose from the ground.
I gasped, fear rising as I understood I was holding it there, suspended and powerless.
"Elara," Adrian stated slowly. "Let it go."
"I can't," I murmured. "I have no idea how."
The rebel snarled and thrashed. "They will come for you," it burst. "The Council will not let you live."
Council? Fear ruined my focus.
The outlaw fell, and Selene stopped it in a flash of silver.
The body slammed softly against the earth.
My legs caved out. Adrian caught me once more, pulling my face against his chest as my body shook violently.
"It's over," he whispered. You're not in danger. Still, his voice lacked assurance.
Her face stern, Selene cleaned blood off her cheek.
She said, "They weren't meant to find her this early." "If rogues sensed her waking, the Council definitely will."
My heart stuttered. "The Council?"
She approached me.
"The governing body of werewolves," she responded. They choose who stays alive. Who heads? And who is too deadly to live.
Swallowing heavily, I took a big gulp. Me too? "And me?" Adrian squeezed my arms around me.
"They will regard you as a weapon," Selene retorted bluntly. "Or a threat".
Adrian said, "Or either."
I came to terms with a chilly awareness in my chest.
Quietly I remarked, "My life is never going back to normal.
"No," Selene nodded. "It isn't."
As the pack gathered, the aftermath of fighting hung thick in the air, the forest started to move. Sirens wailed far away as human officials responded to noises they could never comprehend.
"We have to move her," Selene whispered. "At this moment. Before dawn."
"Where?" I inquired. She stopped for only a second.
She remarked, "To the pack lands." "She should be prepared."
Get me ready for what? Adrian bent over to me, his eyes black and confused.
"There's something else," he added softly. "Something I ought to have said to you before."
My chest tightened. "What?" His jaw tightened.
"The Council already knows your name." Those words stung more than any punch.
"How?" His eyes went down to the faint silver sheen still there on my fingers.
"Because," he whispered, "you were registered at birth."
My blood turned icy. "I imagined my father vanished," I murmured.
Selene met my gazes. "He vanished not at all," she replied. "He was killed."
The forest turned.
And Elara, she added, unforgiving, "his punishment survived him."
My sight was inundated with darkness.
"According to the Council," Selene muttered, "you were never meant to survive long enough to awaken."
And one terrible truth I knew as her words settled in was
The hunt hadn't just begun
All my life it had been waiting for me.