The Moonlight Bond ebook

The Moonlight Bond

Aylin Red

2026

The Moonlight Bond

The Moonlight Bond

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

About the author

Title Page

Cover

Table of Contents

The Moonlight Bond

W Więzach Księżyca

Aylin Red

Sometimes revenge isn’t the answer you’re looking for.

Chapter 1

She saw only the rose petals.

Red as a freshly split vein, scattered across the wooden floor of her childhood home. The metallic smell bit into her nostrils with every breath — thick, insistent — and tangled with the sickening sweetness of flowers until her stomach climbed her throat even through sleep.

She was barely ten years old. She pressed her small hands against her mouth hard enough to feel her own teeth through the skin — smothering the scream tearing up her throat with nowhere to go. Shadows moved in the moonlight in ways they had no right to, and the silence that followed the sounds from downstairs was heavier than stone.

She was trembling when the man who found her lifted her into his arms. His warmth pushed through the ice-cold nightmare embedded in her bones — through the shivering, through the crying, through that cold that sat deeper than skin.

“Shh,” he whispered, running through the forest.

Her small body jolted with every powerful stride, his shirt smelled of forest and something wild — she fisted both hands in the fabric.

“I know, child. I know.”

Tears soaked into his shirt, her throat burned from sobbing. Behind them, the house shrank with every step until it disappeared between the trees.

But those red petals bloomed in her memory forever.

They would haunt her always.

“Ah!”

Lune tore herself from sleep with a sharp inhale, her heart hammering against her ribs hard enough that she felt her pulse in her throat. Cold sweat had plastered her hair to her temples. Her hands were fisting the sheets — searching for something solid, familiar — the cotton damp, tangled, hot from her body.

She sat still for a moment, her lungs catching air in ragged pulls. Waiting for the room’s darkness to fill with something real. The dresser’s silhouette. The wardrobe against the wall. A silver band of moonlight on the floorboards.

There.

Just there.

She swung her legs off the mattress. The cool floor received her bare feet — the cold entered her soles immediately, pulled itself up her calves, and her muscles protested the sudden contact.

In the mirror across the room she caught her own reflection: white hair plastered to her neck, eyes too wide, skin stretched tight around them like someone who had only just stopped being afraid. An oversized t-shirt hung off one shoulder.

Her stomach growled.

“Time for breakfast,” she muttered, and moved toward the door.

In the hallway, she passed a wall of family photographs. Each sat in a frame Vivika had chosen with meticulous care and hung so that together they told a story. Cushions in earthy tones were piled in the living room, while fresh wildflowers from the garden tilted their white heads toward the kitchen window.

The kitchen met her with a wave of coffee, cinnamon, and vanilla. A warm breakfast still waited beneath a dish towel. Vivika sat at the wooden table, both hands wrapped around a steaming mug. Her blond hair caught the morning sun in golden threads, and her gray eyes crinkled softly when she smiled. The smile lit up her whole face.

“Well, well, look who’s finally up,” she said warmly.

“Hey.” Lune went straight for the fridge. Bare feet slid soundlessly over the tiles. The cool air brushed her still-flushed cheeks as she stared inside without any real intention.

“I warmed up some pancakes.” Vivika nodded toward the counter. Steam still rose from beneath a clean dish towel. “All yours.”

“Say no more.”

A golden-brown stack waited, neatly layered, butter melting between the tiers into yellow, gleaming pools. Lune pulled in a slow breath — vanilla and cinnamon hit immediately, saliva flooding her mouth before she’d even sat down. Her stomach grumbled loudly, completely without shame.

She dragged the whole plate toward herself. The first bite exploded with flavor — perfectly sweet, heavy enough to smother the last trace of metallic taste still clinging to the back of her throat.

“Has Dad already eaten?” Both her parents were up at first light, their wolf instinct demanding early mornings. The kitchen clock barely read nine.

“He has.” Vivika’s smile didn’t dim for a moment. “Should I pour you some coffee?”

“Please, Mom.”

They talked about small things while Lune worked through her breakfast — grocery lists, pack gossip, training schedules. Vivika spoke with the gentle warmth of someone who treats everyone within reach as worth her full attention.

She laughed easily, effortlessly, and that laugh filled the kitchen like music.

When the last bite was gone, Lune stretched — joints cracking quietly, shoulders dropping, the nightmare somewhere further back now, covered over by vanilla and warmth.

“Thanks for breakfast, Mom. You’re the best.”

“Oh, stop it.” Vivika waved a hand in mock disapproval, but her cheeks went pink with pleasure.

Lune took the stairs two at a time. In her room, she pulled open drawers and changed into a dark blue training outfit. She put on sturdy shoes, their soles marked by earlier sessions. As she tied a lace, she enjoyed the quiet morning for a moment, free of unanswered questions and the metallic smell.

The morning air hit her face at the door — crisp, pine needles and resin pulling deep into her lungs. Sunlight filtered through the crown of the pines, throwing long, dancing shadows across the packed dirt path.

“Hey, sleepyhead!”

The shout came from the clearing. Raven waved from the tree line, shifting from foot to foot in worn sneakers and mismatched socks.

Sunlight flashed copper through her red curls, and a smile showing slightly crooked teeth brightened her freckled face. She trembled with excitement, like someone with too much energy for her own body.

Beside Raven stood a familiar, broad silhouette.

Her stomach dropped and bounced back up — one motion, before she could do anything with her face.

Nathaniel leaned against an oak trunk, arms crossed — and before she’d properly looked at him, she felt that weight he always carried. A few strands of dark hair had fallen across his forehead, catching the filtered light. His gaze found her too quickly, with that amusement sitting in it ahead of everything else.

That infuriating half-smile pulled at his mouth.

“Took you a while.” His voice carried across the morning quiet.

Lune broke into a jog toward them, boots crunching on pine needles. The closer she got, the more detail filled in: Raven’s fingers paint-stained from another late-night streak, Nate’s loose strand of hair falling back across his forehead with every breath.

“Sorry, sorry!” Her cheeks had started warming before she even reached them. “I got caught up talking to my mom.”

Nate pushed off from the tree in one easy motion — shoulders rolling loose — and reached out. A broad, warm hand landed on top of her head. The warmth moved from her temple downward, through her neck, to her collarbone, before she could brace for it. He ruffled her white hair with that completely unthinking affection, like something entirely obvious.

“Our little water nymph.”

He always did that — treated her like a younger sister rather than a woman of flesh and blood. The warmth slid from her temple through her neck to her collarbone and stayed there. Her gaze snagged on the line of his jaw — a fraction of a second, one too many — before she forced it away.

Raven bounced on her heels, clapping.

“Ooh, are we doing morning runs? Say we’re doing morning runs. I’ve been working on my technique and I think I finally figured out how to get around that pathetic wipeout from last week when I tried to jump that fallen trunk and—”

“We’re running.” Nate cut off the stream with one word, tolerant amusement in his voice.

Both of them stepped back a few paces. The air around them shivered with that unnamed energy Lune had known since childhood — the moment just before a shift, when the human world dropped away and something wilder and truer stepped into its place.

Raven went first. Her slight frame lengthened with a quiet crack of bones finding new positions — until a russet-brown wolf stood where the girl had been. Her coat shimmered with copper undertones, tail wagging with the same unchecked energy her whole body had held moments before.

Nate’s shift was different.

Slower.

Muscles tensed and spread beneath his skin like water seeking its shape — certain, effortless, as though the human form was something he wore for others rather than for himself. A massive, dark wolf appeared where Nathaniel had stood. His coat was near-black, threaded with silver that caught the light with each breath. Even in this form, he radiated that quiet authority that made the rest of the pack instinctively step back without quite knowing why.

They launched forward without warning. Powerful paws kicked up dust and the forest swallowed them whole.

“Let’s go!”

Lune reached for her magic — that constant, low hum in her veins. The water answered immediately: it gathered from the morning dew and the nearby stream, cool and obedient, formed something solid and carrying beneath her feet. The current pushed her forward and a laugh tore free, carrying between the trees alongside her.

She caught up and jumped. She landed on Nate’s broad back, fingers sinking into dense, warm fur — the heat burning through her palms, steady and certain like everything in him.

He only shifted his center of gravity, shoulders adjusting beneath her weight, and kept running with the same unconscious routine as every week.

Their ritual. Lune, a water mage raised by wolves, keeping pace with magic instead of a shift.

She belonged here.

Here, with Raven’s playful yelps echoing between the trees and Nate’s constant strength beneath her — everything was natural.

They ran deeper into the forest along paths worn smooth by countless wolf paws. The canopy filtered the light into a greenish half-dark that whispered of old secrets.

Soon, through the dense trees, the familiar outline of the hideout emerged — the Voss pack’s home, and everything that mattered most to Lune.

The hideout grew from the forest as though it had simply been born from the earth. Massive timber structures blended with the pines, the log walls weathered to a warm honey tone. Solar panels gleamed between the branches, cleverly tucked away. At the perimeter, the shimmer of a ward rippled — invisible to human eyes, crystal-clear to everyone else.

Lune slid from Nate’s back at the gate, boots landing softly on packed earth. The wolves shifted back — magic moved through their bodies like a wave of hot air, skin pulling close around human shapes, and then Nathaniel was standing in front of her as he always was: dark hair disheveled from the shift, one strand already back on his forehead.

He dragged a hand through it.

The strand fell right back.

“Morning patrol in fifteen.” He held his gaze on her a fraction of a second too long — something flickered in his brown eyes and was gone before she could catch it. Then he turned toward the wardens’ office. “Just don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

“Do I ever get into trouble?” she called after him.

A quiet snort carried across the courtyard — the best possible answer.

The communal house stood at the heart of the settlement — three stories tall, smoke curling from the chimney, golden light spilling from every window. Raven ran up the front steps, curls still wild from the shift.

“Mrs. Henley said she was making blueberry muffins today. Please tell me we’re not too late!”

The heavy oak door swung open into a wave: coffee, fresh baking, and beneath it that deeper, animal scent of wolf and earth — warm, unrepeatable.

Margaret Henley emerged from the kitchen with flour on her apron, sixty-five years old, crow’s feet around her eyes that spoke of decades of laughter.

“Morning, girls!”

In the main room Connor was stretched out on the sofa with a book, the Murphy twins had claimed the table along with a plate of muffins that had apparently found their own way there. Waves, casual greetings — they settled around Lune like a blanket.

“Lune, sweetheart.” Destiny glanced up, a gossipy gleam dancing in her hazel eyes. “Your dad’s been in his office since sunrise. He looked buried in Alpha business.”

The words landed exactly where they always did. Something tightened beneath her ribs — brief, familiar, without warning. Adam wasn’t her biological father. For ten years she’d never felt the difference. But the pack had laws of inheritance that love couldn’t rewrite — and that wasn’t something she could unknow.

“Thanks, Destiny.” She poured as much lightness into her voice as she could manage. “I’ll go say good morning.”

Adam’s office occupied a corner room on the second floor, windows overlooking both the training yard and the main entrance — the position of someone who always wants to know what’s happening on his territory.

The stairs creaked softly beneath her weight. Two knocks on the familiar door.

“Come in.”

She stepped inside.

Adam sat behind the heavy desk, his salt-and-pepper hair catching the morning window light. Papers spread across the surface — territorial agreements, correspondence with other Alphas, a supply list.

When he saw her, his brown eyes softened immediately — that warm expression that for ten years had soothed her nightmares and celebrated her wins. He leaned back in his chair, giving her his full attention.

“Good morning, sweetheart.”

Lune shifted her weight. Suddenly she was ten years old again — that uncertain child he’d found that night.

“I was thinking — maybe I could help with something. Like the patrol? Or anything, really.”

The words came out too fast, tangled with hope and a desperation that squeezed her chest from the inside. Adam’s face softened — but she caught that flicker a beat too fast before it was covered with love. Something like regret, maybe.

Frustration. Maybe both.

“Lune… you know you can’t. Patrol duty is a very serious responsibility.”

“That’s exactly why I wanted to help.”

“You’re training with Nina.” He smiled with a pride that held something inside it that made her chest feel small. “You’re going to do incredible things. Water magic is a remarkable gift.”

Nina.

A water mage Adam had found through contacts with other mages. Twice a week, on schedule. Lune always thanked her and held the smile long enough after she left.

“Yeah.”

She retreated from the office and stepped out onto the wide porch. The boards were solid beneath her feet — solid and familiar and somehow suffocating right now. She dropped into the rocking chair and pulled out her phone with the automatic motion this had become over the past months.

Tonight, these two worlds were going to collide.

The Cave’s interface loaded instantly. Her rank — five stars, the absolute bottom of the hierarchy — restricted her to the simplest jobs. Mostly deliveries, discretion over skill.

She scrolled through the list with her thumb, searching for anything that would give her the feeling she was contributing to something larger.

Most of the pack had no idea.

Only Raven knew. They’d probably worry — or worse, try to stop her even for something this small.

Dad especially.

But when she sat here, surrounded by people she loved and to whom she never fully belonged — this secret was the one thing that was one hundred percent hers.

Lune stared at the job details.

Her thumb hovered over the button.

Chapter 2

Hunters learned quickly that some jobs were tests, and others were lessons written in blood.

Her thumb dragged across the screen, drifting past another delivery posting — medication to the Black Market, cash payment — when something else snagged her eye. The header glowed amber instead of the standard pale blue.

Elevated risk.

Her heart rate picked up before she’d processed why.

Target: vampire spawn. Last confirmed location: western outskirts of Stellis. Capture alive.

Reward: 2,000 credits.

She tapped the listing. Details spread across the screen. In the photo, the target looked pale, maybe somewhere around twenty — though age was fiction with vampires. Black hair falling carelessly across his forehead, silver eyes locked on the camera with the dead expression of someone who’d rather be literally anywhere else. Lean, dark clothes screaming leave me alone. A surveillance still, grainy in the way that all the really important ones were.

Known associate — the description continued, and a second image appeared: a girl with a sharp black bob, red streaks catching the light like something alive.

Shorter than her companion, equally corpse-pale, but where his face was completely blank, hers was twisted into a scowl. Neon accents that stung the eyes.

Both equipped with standard vampire abilities. Exercise caution.

Status: spawn — not Pureblood.

Lune’s finger hovered over the button.

Spawn.

Not as powerful as the golden-eyed elite from the Nest — regular foot soldiers, turned without the ancient rituals. Faster and stronger than humans, capable of tearing a body apart with sharpened senses and regeneration.

Beatable.

In theory.

She hit accept.

The listing flooded her phone with data — movement patterns, known hideouts, preferred hunting grounds. The last confirmed signal placed them near a nightclub called Pulse, in the heart of Stellis’s entertainment district.

“Alright.” The word came out quieter than she’d planned.

Vampire spawn. This shouldn’t be that hard. Just slip out in the evening before Adam notices anything.

Raven would cover for her.

She always did.

By evening, shadows had stretched long over the hideout, drawing darkness between the buildings that smelled of damp earth and pine needles. Lune changed into dark jeans and a fitted jacket — the fabric hugged her skin, didn’t restrict her movement. She sent Raven their established code: movie night in the city.

She got back an immediate, enthusiastic string of thumbs-up emojis. The best friend in existence would spin whatever story needed selling to Adam.

The drive to Stellis took forty minutes.

City lights gradually pushed back the forest dark as she hit the highway — neon and asphalt instead of pines, the city instead of the woods, one world in place of another.

Pulse occupied a converted warehouse in the industrial quarter, marked outside only by a discreet neon sign and a line behind a rope.

“Of course.” She killed the engine and stared at the club’s entrance.

Because tracking vampires through a packed club was exactly how she didn’t want to spend her evening.

She bypassed the queue, showing the bouncer her Hunter ID. The music hit her from the threshold — heavy bass shook through her ribs, drove itself under her sternum with every beat. Strobing lights cut the space into broken frames: a face, an arm, a glass lifting to a mouth. Sweat, perfume and alcohol merged in the air into a single biting cloud.

Lune pushed her way to the bar, scanning faces.

There — at the far end, hunched over a glass of something dark.

Black hair falling across his forehead, unmistakable even in the chaos. He sat with his shoulders drawn up toward his ears, as though his own existence irritated him. He looked exactly as delighted with life as he had in the surveillance still.

She moved toward him.

“Hey. You.”

He turned slowly. Silver eyes found hers — flat, like he was checking the label on a product he wasn’t going to buy anyway.

“Da?”

Lune didn’t wait. Water sang to her from every direction — bottles behind the bar, drinks in people’s hands, humidity hanging in the overheated air. She grabbed his glass with her power and flung the contents straight into his face.

“Kurva.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, the boredom gone, replaced by irritation. “Seriously, what the fuck?”

“Yeah, whatever you just said.” Lune raised her hands, magic already coiling between her fingers.

And then she felt them.

Other Night Beings.

Hybrids, spawn — red eyes igniting across the club one after another like matches struck in sequence.

The vampire’s friends.

The crowd fractured as a pulse of supernatural energy moved through the space — people stepped back on instinct, not knowing why.

He ran.

“Hey!” She chased him through the panicking crowd.

A back exit, an alley — cold air lashed her face after the club’s heat. Streets blurred into streaks of neon, asphalt under her boots, then the threshold of an abandoned building.

Rust and decay hit her nostrils immediately, thick and stale, mixing with damp and old concrete. Empty.

Dark.

Breath tore into her lungs.

“Stupid bitch.”

His accent curled around the words, lending them an almost melodic quality.

“Take that back, leech.”

“Talkative too.”

Lune spun sharply.

The girl from the photo stood behind her. Three more spawn flanked her on either side, silver eyes catching every scrap of light from the broken windows and turning it into something dangerous. The girl’s smile showed teeth and pure malice.

“Ah, wolf-pups. Always so brave. And so stupid.”

Water launched from Lune’s hands in a brutal arc and drove into one spawn hard enough to send them staggering back into the wall. The moisture in the air answered her pull — droplets fused into ice blades and flew like daggers.

Three landed.

Three more missed as the vampires blurred with motion, too fast for the human eye.

“Bitch.” The girl spat the word and threw herself forward with her claws extended.

Lune rolled under the strike, drawing water from a cracked pipe in the wall. The stream coiled around the girl’s ankle and wrenched hard. She went down — but only for a fraction of a second. She rebounded to her feet with inhuman grace, as though the fall was merely a pause, not a defeat.

Too many.

Lune’s chest burned as she turned on the spot, deflecting attacks from three sides at once. Water shields formed and shattered, assembled and shattered again.

She was good.

Trained by one of the finest water wielders on the continent.

The male moved with calculated precision, cutting off her escape routes with minimal effort. None of his sister’s wild fury — just cold efficiency that raised the hair on her arms. He watched her without attacking, scanning every movement, searching for a pattern.

“Mages.” He grimaced, silver eyes tracking her every step. “I hate them. But you—” he wrinkled his nose with open disgust. “You smell like wolf. Revolting.”

“I love you too, soy boy.” It left her mouth before her common sense could remind her that provoking a murderous vampire was a bad idea.

He stopped mid-strike.

“Soy boy?” Something close to bafflement crossed his face, though the ice in his features held. “I hate soy milk.”

The girl — definitely his sister — actually laughed.

“That’s not what it means, idiot.”

He rolled his eyes with the expression of someone who had been on the receiving end of similar comments his entire life.

Lune didn’t waste it. Water erupted from every available source, gathered into a battering ram and drove into two spawn simultaneously. The rotted wall cracked under the impact, dust burst out in a thick cloud. The building groaned.

The building groaned.

But the remaining three were already closing the circle.

Pain exploded in her leg.

Claws tore through denim and skin in one motion — three parallel cuts, heat flooded down along her calf before she could lurch away. She staggered, her concentration fractured, the shield flickered and vanished.

The male’s hand closed around her throat.

Something enormous drove into him from the side with a force that sent them both crashing into the far wall.

The impact rolled through the empty space like a thunderclap and Lune nearly went down, her leg giving beneath her, the wall at her back the only thing keeping her upright.

“What the—!” The girl spun, furious, eyes flaring red.

The figure that straightened up claimed every scrap of light filtering through the broken windows. Tall, dark blond — but it wasn’t the silhouette that stopped her gaze. Every movement held that economy of someone who doesn’t waste energy because they know they might need it.

A jaw with short stubble, mouth drawn tight.

Lune closed her own mouth, which had opened without her permission.

Brown eyes flicked across the spawn and paused briefly on Lune — a quick damage assessment, a quick conclusion — then moved back to the target.

The girl threw herself at him with a snarl.

He didn’t flinch.

His hand flashed — he pulled a blood bag from his jacket and hurled it straight at her face. The plastic split with a crack, blood drenching her from the lips down, and then the other spawn’s instincts overrode their judgment.

It pulled them like moths to flame — the smell of fresh blood didn’t ask permission.

“Not me, you idiots!” she screamed.

The stranger crossed the distance to Lune in three steps. He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her as though she weighed nothing — she felt the warmth of his hand through her jacket, the hard line of his arm against her ribs.

“Oof.” The breath went out of her. “What the — who the hell are you?”

“You’re loud.” His voice was rough, each word clipped short, no embellishment. He carried her through a passage she hadn’t noticed before. “Unless you’d prefer their company.”

“I can run on my own!” it burst out of her, every step reminding her about the leg.

“You’re injured.”

A statement. Not an offer.

They came out into a side alley, then another, cutting through shortcuts until the sounds of the fight faded to a distant rumble. He slowed at what appeared to be an abandoned auto garage — the stench of engine oil and rust hung in the air, old cars lined up in rows like carcasses.

He set her down carefully.

Stepped back.

Crossed his arms.

Lune immediately took a step backward, water gathering at her fingers despite the exhaustion dragging her down.

“Who are you? Friend or enemy?”

He looked at her.

Really looked — and in his austere expression, something shifted, a shadow of amusement.

A low sound escaped his chest, brief, almost to himself.

“I just saved your life.”

“Sure.” The water kept coiling around her hands. “Which doesn’t change the fact that you’re dangerous.”

He watched her for a moment. His nose twitched slightly — he was catching something, her scent was giving her away, she knew it.

“You smell like magic and wolf. What are you?”

As though her scent had thrown him off balance more than the spawn at his back.

Lune watched how he stood — weight settled on legs set slightly apart, arms crossed, brown eyes uninterrupted in their vigilance. Even still, he was ready.

“Are you a werewolf?”

One nod.

The water drained from her hands. She straightened, grimacing when the injured leg protested with a dull, burning pulse.

“I’m from the Voss pack.”

“Voss?” He tilted his head, as though slotting the information into an internal catalog.

His brown eyes moved across her face, assembling her piece by piece.

“I know Adam.”

Something warm spread through her chest, softening the armor of her alertness by a single millimeter.

“He’s my dad.”

His face gave away little. It wasn’t cold — but closed, as though he’d spent years practicing keeping what he felt behind a sealed mask. He gave a short nod toward the street beyond the garage.

“You should go home.”

She shifted her weight from foot to foot. The exhaustion was settling into her bones, her leg throbbing steadily.

“Thanks. For the help.”

He shrugged — one dismissive motion.

“You almost got yourself killed, girl.”

She crossed her arms. Her lower lip pushed out in a pout that unfortunately still made her look younger than she wanted.

“It was my first difficult mission and I blew it.”

“You should be glad you’re alive at all.”

Zero sympathy in his voice.

He turned away.

“You’re not cut out to be a Hunter.” He moved toward the back exit. “Go get some training, pup.”

“Pup?!” she snapped at his back.

She stopped.

Her leg throbbed. Three parallel cuts, blood cooling in her jeans, a building that had nearly come down on top of her.

“Damn it.”

Bitter.

Quiet.

She sat down on a rusted toolbox. The torn denim exposed the deep, still-bleeding claw marks — three parallel cuts, still warm, still wet.

She pressed her palms against them and drew water from the moisture hanging in the garage air.

The liquid lit up in pale blue as she began carefully stitching tissue back together — patient, millimeter by millimeter. Healing wasn’t her strong suit; combat magic took priority, but she’d learned enough to manage basic injuries.

She couldn’t go home covered in blood. Adam would lose his mind. Vivika would stage an intervention composed of fresh baking and anxious orbiting around the kitchen table.

Twenty minutes later, Lune pulled into the driveway. New pink skin had replaced the cuts — still tender under her fingers, but closed. She’d wiped away most of the blood from the denim; what remained was only the torn fabric.

Marks that could be explained somehow.

Vivika looked up from the sofa, setting her book aside.

“How was the film with Raven?”

“Oh, you know.” Lune pulled a wide smile onto her face. “Girls’ nights are the best.”

“Did you eat? I set something aside for you—”

“I’m stuffed. We got those fries with everything at that place near the square.” The lie came out too smoothly. “I’m exhausted. I’m going to sleep.”

“Sleep well, sweetheart.”

Lune closed her bedroom door and leaned back against it. The smile dropped off her face immediately.

Something burned beneath her sternum, acrid and hot. She pressed her palms against her eyes.

Five spawn had nearly torn her apart.

One stranger had saved her.

And he’d been right about every single word.

Damn it.

Her phone vibrated — Raven asking about the totally legitimate movie night, punctuating the message with emojis.

Lune typed back a quick perfect, you’re the best and went still.

“I didn’t ask his name.” She pressed her palms back over her eyes.

Tomorrow she’d ask Adam about him. Casually, as though she were just curious about old pack connections.

“Idiot.”

Chapter 3

Morning light seeped through the kitchen windows and settled in a golden patch on Vivika’s mug. The smell of bacon in the pan mixed with coffee — fatty, warm, familiar — and wrapped itself around the kitchen like something you could curl into.

Lune poked at her scrambled eggs with a fork, glancing sideways at her parents across the table every few seconds. Adam was reading something on his tablet, relaxed, his finger dragging lazily across the screen.

She needed information. But a direct question would trip Adam’s protective instinct faster than a full moon shift.

“Yesterday, when Raven and I were leaving the cinema—” she started, keeping her tone in check — light, innocent, nothing’s going on. “We saw this weird werewolf. Grumpy-looking.”

Adam snorted without looking up from the tablet.

“You’ll need to narrow that down. We have quite a few grumpy guys.”

Fair point. The Voss pack basically ran on testosterone and dramatic stares into the middle distance.

Lune smiled, pressing forced ease into her body.

“He knew you. Tall, dark blond, short stubble. Intense eyes, brown.”

Adam’s finger stopped mid-scroll. He looked up, frowning, as though searching an internal catalog of his sullen acquaintances. After a moment, he shrugged.

“Not sure. Why do you ask?”

“He said to say hello.” The lie came out smooth. “I just forgot his name.”

“Of course you did.” Adam’s face softened with that familiar, mildly resigned affection — the same expression he made when Lune mixed up pack members’ birthdays or left training equipment scattered across the entire hideout.

Vivika drew a sharp breath. Her fork rang against the plate.

Lune looked at her. Recognition flashed in her eyes — and right behind it, something that painfully resembled fear.

Not for herself.

For Lune.

She and Adam exchanged a look from the category that carries old conversations, old decisions and old promises kept behind a sealed mask.

“Could it have been Adrian?” Vivika’s voice came out careful.

Too careful.

“Where did you see him?”

Adrian.

Finally. A name.

“Is he — is everything alright with him?” The question came out taut, loaded with a concern that knotted Lune’s stomach.

Adam rarely worried about anyone. He was an Alpha — calm, composed, unmovable.

And right now, he was moved.

Something heavy sat inside that question, something Lune couldn’t name yet. She tried to sound light.

“He was grumpy, so it’s hard to say.” She laughed, counting on the sound to cover the curiosity building with every second. “He looked… functional.”

Just saying Adrian’s name had stirred something between her parents — waves of unspoken history, invisible currents Lune couldn’t read, only feel pressing against the surface.

Vivika’s hand found Adam’s above the table.

A brief squeeze.

The kind that spoke of shared memories and complicated feelings Lune wasn’t supposed to know about.

She finished her eggs quickly, kissed them both on the cheek and slipped away before the questions could turn in her direction.

Cool morning air hit her face as she took off along the forest paths, pine needles crunching under her boots.

Dozens of scenarios cycled through her head — Adrian fighting like someone for whom violence was a first language, knowing her father well enough to charge the breakfast table with that much weight. Why Adam had been rattled. What that look from Vivika had meant.

She needed a plan. A training strategy. A way to—

“Morning!”

Lune nearly jumped out of her skin.

Nate appeared beside her from nowhere, effortlessly matching her pace. Sweat gleamed on his neck and collarbone, dark hair disheveled from the run. He gave her a wide, easy grin.

“Hey.” She sped up. “I’m running alone today.”

“Perfect, so am I.” The grin didn’t shift. “We can both run alone… together.”

That wasn’t how it worked.

But the corners of Lune’s mouth lifted against her will.

Nate settled into easy conversation — Daniel’s blunder on patrol, Raven’s love life, pack politics. Lune listened in pieces, the rest of her attention quietly filing away the morning light threading through his dark hair, and the way his arm brushed hers every few strides.

They reached the lake.

The surface mirrored the sky without a single ripple, silver and blue in perfect stillness. Nate stopped, raised both arms above his head, and in one fluid motion pulled off his shirt.

He had a broad chest and clearly defined abs; sweat ran in thin streaks toward his hips.

Lune’s gaze caught on him a second too long and refused to move.

He dropped into a push-up position and threw her a look from the ground — the calm smile of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Joining me?”

Heat flooded her cheeks.

She was staring — yes, definitely staring — and then she forced her gaze to the lake’s surface by sheer will.

Safe. Water was safe. Water didn’t have abdominal muscles.

“You know what, I’ll watch. I need to—”

“Come on.” Nate was back on his feet in one motion.

He closed the distance. His hand caught hers — warm, calloused, the spark shooting up her arm before she could object.

“Train with me.”

He caught her gaze.

His brown eyes went softer, more serious — and there was that note in them Lune could never quite read, and never quite ignore.

He drew her closer, warm hands settling with confidence on her hips, guiding her through a stretch that demanded considerably more focus than she had available.

“Just like that.” His voice dropped, approving. “Good form.”

Did he mean the stretch, or—

Nate’s hands moved from her hips to her shoulders.

He simply shoved her.

Lune screamed. Cold water closed over her head — darkness, shock, bubbles escaping upward, her shirt plastering to her skin.

She surfaced with her hair across her face.

Nate’s laughter rang across the clearing, loud, unchecked, far too pleased with itself.

“You—” She didn’t finish.

The water answered her outrage immediately, rising in a spiral and crashing down on top of Nate’s head.

The stunned expression lasted maybe two seconds before he burst out laughing. They stood there completely soaked, grinning like children, the morning mist drifting around them.

“Truce?” Nate raised both hands.

Drops fell from his hair onto his forehead, his jaw, his neck.

“Never.” But Lune was smiling.

Adrian and training plans had evaporated. All that remained was the sun, the laughter, and Nate looking at her in a way that made everything run too warm.

The walk back stretched into comfortable silence, broken only by birdsong. Water dripped from Lune’s clothes, every step squelching in her soaked boots.

Nate walked close enough that their arms brushed every few strides — accidents that sent sparks up along her spine.

“Have you ever thought about… dating?”

The question landed between them like a stone thrown into still water.

Lune held her breath. Her pulse started thudding in her ears. She forced a laugh that sounded fragile even to her.

“Me? Dating? Very funny.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Who would I even—” She made a dismissive sound, more defensive than she’d meant. “No one’s ever even worked up the nerve to ask me.”

The words came out more bitter than she’d intended. She kept her eyes ahead, on the path, not his face.

“That can’t be right.”

Nate laughed with genuine disbelief, his voice warm and honest.

“You’re beautiful, so I don’t understand it.”

Heat hit her face so fast it made her head swim.

Beautiful.

One word, and her brain tried to piece together a single coherent response and failed completely.

“You really think so?”

His smile softened. Something in her chest became less tight.

“Obviously.”

The word hung between them, charged. Lune’s pulse picked up, her hands suddenly slippery though they were already wet.

She made herself look him in the eye — found so much warmth there that it gathered her courage.

“You’re handsome too.” Barely above a whisper. Shy, terrifying, and true.

Nate’s expression shifted — surprise dissolving into something deeper, his lips parting slightly, his throat moving as though he was about to say something that would change everything—

“Hey! There you are!”

Raven’s delighted shriek shattered the moment like glass.

She launched herself at them with Daniel at her side, both laughing with the thoughtless ease of people who have no idea what they’ve just interrupted.

Daniel launched into something about patrol and Raven narrowed her eyes, studying them carefully.

“Did we interrupt something?” Her gaze jumped between Lune’s flushed face and Nate’s tightened shoulders.

“No, I’m heading back.” The words spilled too fast.

Lune didn’t wait for a response — she turned and practically fled toward the hideout, fire burning beneath her sternum.

Behind her, Raven’s voice cut through the air.

“Get it together, Nate. Just ask her already.”

“I was trying, but you two barged in.” Irritation sharpened every word.

Daniel scratched the back of his neck. Raven crossed her arms.

“You might be the only shy werewolf in this entire pack.”

“I’m not shy.” It came out weaker than he’d intended.

Nate dragged a hand through his wet hair — drops ran down his wrist, dripped to the ground.

“It’s just… when she’s there, I suddenly don’t know what to say.”

Raven and Daniel both dissolved into laughter — that deep, real kind reserved for moments when someone usually composed loses their footing.

Nate frowned, but couldn’t hold the threatening expression for long. He must have looked ridiculous: soaked, undone, complaining about his own feelings as though they were discussing a battle plan.

“Okay.” Raven smiled dangerously, stepped closer and dropped her voice. “She likes you too and she thinks you’re incredibly attractive, so just go for it.”

The words hit like a thunderbolt. Nate’s brain stalled, rebooted, and stalled again.

“She… what? She said that?”

“Not exactly in those words.” Raven waved a hand. “But girl talk doesn’t lie. Trust me.”

Daniel clapped him on the shoulder, grinning.

“Seriously, man. Move before someone else does.”

Just the thought hit him in the ribs like a fist. Something in him growled before he could stop it.

Time to change that.

Lune opened the Cave on her phone.

The job status blinked red.