The bells split the night open.

Their bronze voices clanged through the stone halls, rattling shutters, shaking dust from the beams above. Aria shot upright from her bed, heart pounding. Somewhere beyond the fortress walls, a horn answered the alarm. The air itself seemed to tighten, heavy with the metallic scent of blood and magic.

She stumbled to the narrow window. Below, torches blazed along the eastern wall. Shadows moved—dozens, no, hundreds—sleek and fast against the silver glow of the Blood Moon. Wolves.

Selene had come.

The chamber door slammed open. Kaelen stood framed in the torchlight of the hall, already armored in black leather and steel. His eyes burned with gold, his beast close to the surface.

“Stay here,” he commanded, voice sharp as drawn steel.

Aria’s breath caught. “Those are her wolves—”

“I said stay.” He was gone before she could protest, boots hammering against stone, his roar joining the thunder of other voices rallying to the gate.

But Aria couldn’t stand still. Not when the world was burning outside. She dragged her cloak from its peg, fingers trembling as she tied it across her shoulders. Her stomach twisted, not from fear alone but from the restless hum beneath her skin. Something ancient stirred inside her bones, answering the Blood Moon.

By the time she reached the courtyard, chaos had taken hold. Warriors poured through the gates, blades catching firelight, their snarls rising to meet the enemy. The eastern tower’s horn blew again, lower this time—desperate, broken.

Aria slipped into the stream of fighters before anyone could stop her. The bitter air carried smoke and iron. It filled her lungs, sharp and heavy, until she tasted battle before even reaching the wall.

The gate was a storm of teeth and steel. Selene’s wolves swarmed the barricades, climbing like shadows given flesh. Their eyes glowed with unnatural green light, their howls threaded with sorcery that made the stones quake. Warriors fell beneath their claws. The sound of rending flesh tore through the night.

Aria froze as one lunged for her. She threw up her hands—instinct, nothing more.

Silver fire burst from her palms.

It seared the wolf mid-air, the beast crumpling into ash before it ever touched her. Shock stole her breath. The fire still danced over her skin, licking her fingers like a living thing, heat pulsing in time with her heartbeat.

Another wolf came, and again the fire answered. It wasn’t just power—it was hunger, wild and unstoppable, flowing through her veins like liquid moonlight.

“Aria!”

Her head whipped around. Kaelen cut through the melee like a storm, his blade dripping black blood, his aura crackling with fury. His gaze landed on her, wide and unguarded for a single heartbeat.

He had seen her fire.

And in his eyes, she saw it: recognition.

Her flames mirrored the curse that lived inside him.

A wolf tried to take him from behind. Aria didn’t think. She thrust out her palm. Fire exploded, the beast vanishing in a shriek. Kaelen spun, staring at the smoking ground. Then at her.

Fear flickered across his face—not of the wolves, but of her.

The battle surged on. Warriors cried out, walls trembled, the night filled with smoke and fury. Together they fought, back to back. His blade cut; her fire burned. She felt the brush of his shoulder against hers, the rhythm of his strikes timed with the surge of her flames. For a moment, they moved like two halves of the same weapon, as if fate itself had forged them for this night.

Her chest ached with the bond’s pull. It hummed like a second heartbeat, tying her to him even as fear whispered that their union could destroy everything.

But victory came at a terrible price.

By dawn, the wolves were dead or scattered, their corpses littering the blood-soaked snow. The fortress reeked of smoke and singed fur, the air thick with iron and ash. The ruined gates leaned inward, timbers groaning as though the fortress itself had barely survived the assault.

Warriors dragged the wounded to the inner yard. Too many didn’t rise again. Mothers, brothers, sons—all laid out in the pale light of the Blood Moon’s waning glow.

Aria’s cloak was torn, her hair singed, her hands trembling from the fire that had poured through them. She could still feel it humming beneath her skin, eager, waiting to be called again. It terrified her.

Kaelen stood on the battlements, surveying the carnage. His jaw was hard, his shoulders set like stone, but his eyes flicked toward her with a weight that nearly buckled her knees. When his gaze met hers, the distance between them felt like a chasm neither fire nor blade could bridge.

The whispers began even before the dead were counted.

“She called the fire.”

“Did you see it? She burned them like kindling.”

“A weapon. Or a curse.”

The words slithered through the air, reaching every ear, poisoning every glance. Warriors who had fought beside her now stared as if she were the enemy.

Kaelen silenced them with a growl that shook the stones, but the damage was done. Doubt was a seed, and it had found fertile ground.

Aria wrapped her arms around herself, her throat dry. She wanted to shout that she hadn’t asked for this power, that it scared her more than anyone else. That she wasn’t a weapon. She was a woman, and the fire inside her wasn’t hers to command. But silence held her tongue.

A shout rose near the gate. Two guards dragged forward a prisoner—a wolf, still alive though bloodied, chains clamped around its limbs. The beast’s eyes glowed with that same sickly green light, its body trembling with restrained magic.

Kaelen stalked down from the wall, every step a predator’s. “Speak.”

The wolf snarled, teeth snapping, spittle flying. “She comes,” it rasped. Its voice was broken, more shadow than sound. “The Moonfang rises. The mistress carries it. She will tear you apart, Alpha. She will take the girl, and the heir, and break the bond itself.”

Aria’s blood went cold. The whispers ceased. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Kaelen’s hand tightened on his blade, jaw rigid. A muscle ticked in his temple, his beast clawing to surface. But before he could demand more, the wolf convulsed. Dark smoke burst from its mouth, its body collapsing into ash at his feet.

Magic. Selene’s hand silencing her pawn.

The silence that followed was heavier than any roar.

Aria lifted her eyes to Kaelen. Fear knotted in her chest, not just of Selene, not just of the Moonfang, but of the way Kaelen looked at her—as if she were both salvation and ruin.

And deep within, the bond throbbed. Hungry. Demanding.

Aria turned away, clutching her stomach, the phantom heat of silver fire still burning in her palms.

Selene wasn’t finished. And the fortress, for all its stone walls, felt suddenly fragile.