Stone, Cold and unyielding.

Clara blinked slowly, her breath misting in the air. The ceiling above her was carved from dark rock, etched with unfamiliar runes that shimmered faintly in the dim light.

She shifted only to realize her wrists were bound by thick iron cuffs, chained to the wall behind her. Her ankles, too. A collar pressed cold against her throat.

Panic flared. She was chained. Her pulse surged. She yanked instinctively against the restraints, a snarl rising in her throat. Pain burned as the cuffs held fast. She tugged harder, ignoring the sting. She needed out. Now.

“Stop fighting,” a calm voice said. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”

Clara froze.

From the shadows across the chamber, a man stepped forward. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Black coat of fur draped over him like a shadow given form. He walked with a predator’s ease, gold eyes fixed on her not with cruelty, but calculation.

The same man from the forest.

“Where am I?” she growled.

He didn’t answer at first. Instead, he stopped just outside her reach, arms folded. “You shifted. Fully. And you attacked one of them.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Her voice cracked. “I didn’t even know what was happening.”

“You’re lucky I was there.”

She glared at him. “You chained me.”

“You were dangerous.”

Clara’s eyes narrowed. “So were they. Who were those people in the forest? They attacked me first.”

The man tilted his head slightly. “Rogues. Mercenaries. Likely working for someone who wants your bloodline extinguished before it matures.”

“What bloodline?” she demanded. “What the hell am I?”

He stepped closer. Close enough for her to smell smoke and pine and something else—him. It stirred something deep in her chest. Something warm and confusing and unwelcome.

“You,” he said quietly, “are more important than you’ve been told.”

Clara studied him, heart hammering. “Who are you?”

“I am Caelum,” he said, and his voice dropped like a stone in water. “Alpha of the Forsaken Pack.”

“Forsaken?” she echoed, the word tasting like ash.

“We’re what happens when loyalty is betrayed,” he said. “When power is cursed. When the moon turns its back.”

Clara swallowed. “And what do you want from me?”

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes lingered on her face, then her collarbone, where her skin still glowed faintly from the shift. His jaw clenched.

“I saved you,” he said at last. “They would have killed you if I hadn’t intervened.”

“Or you would have,” she spat. “Eventually.”

Something flickered across his face. Guilt? Or annoyance?

“You don’t trust me,” he said.

“No,” she snapped. “Should I?”

They stared at each other, the air taut between them. Then, suddenly, Clara gasped. A heat, sharp and wild, ignited in her chest. It spread like fire through her veins. Her breath caught. Her eyes widened.

Caelum stepped back, visibly tense.

“What is this?” she whispered.

He shook his head, fists clenched at his sides. “No. Not you.”

“What’s happening?”

He didn’t answer. He just stared, eyes stormy, golden, unreadable.

Clara’s voice dropped. “Why did you say that? ‘Not you’?”

Caelum turned sharply on his heel, pacing toward the far wall, putting space between them. “Because this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

The heat inside her faded, slowly, but not completely. Clara slumped back against the wall, heart racing.

“What wasn’t?” she whispered.

Caelum didn’t answer.

---

Later, she sat in silence as the chains were loosened enough for her to walk within the room. Caelum returned with a tray of food and fresh water.

“I’m not here to starve you,” he said, setting it down near the corner.

Clara didn’t move.

“I didn’t bite you,” she muttered. “So why do I feel… like this?”

Caelum’s jaw tightened. “The bond doesn’t need a mark to awaken. It was always inside you. Your blood remembers.”

Clara’s mouth went dry. “You’re saying we’re… mates?”

“I’m saying,” he said carefully, “the moon has a cruel sense of humor.”

She flinched as if slapped. “So, you feel it too.”

“I didn’t want to.”

Silence bloomed between them.

Finally, Clara reached for the water and drank. When she looked back up, her voice was hoarse. “Can you teach me?”

Caelum blinked. “Teach you what?”

“How to stop the shift. How to control it. I can’t… I hurt people.”

His eyes softened, just slightly. He nodded once. “Stand up.”

---

The next hour was a blur of snarls and sweat.

Caelum pushed her verbally, physically, instinctively. He forced her to the edge of losing control, triggering the shift, then commanded her to pull back. To resist the transformation.

“You are not a slave to your blood,” he growled. “You are its master.”

Clara gritted her teeth, fingers clawing the stone floor. “Easy for you to say.”

“I’ve been where you are. It nearly broke me.”

“You don’t look very broken,” she shot back.

His eyes flashed. “Then look closer.”

---

They collapsed in silence after the last round, both panting.

Clara’s body trembled. Sweat slicked her skin, and her muscles twitched from exertion.

“You fight like someone who doesn’t want to be saved,” Caelum said finally.

“I don’t want to owe you anything.”

“You already do.”

She looked up at him sharply.

“Not because I saved you,” he said. “Because the moon chose me and I don’t know why.”

Clara met his gaze and in that moment, something between them shifted.

The pull returned. Heat bloomed.

Neither moved, but the space between them closed with invisible gravity. Their hands nearly brushed. Their breaths synced.

Caelum’s pupils narrowed.

Clara’s lips parted.

And then, just as quickly, He stood and turned his back. “This changes nothing.”

---

That night, Clara lay on the stone bench, wrists free now but under guard. She couldn’t sleep. Her heart still thudded with that unbearable pull, that feeling she was being unraveled from the inside out.

Caelum stood outside the chamber, leaning against the corridor wall. He hadn’t slept in years.

But when he closed his eyes, the dream came again.

A woman screaming under a blood-red moon. Her body wracked with pain. Her hair is dark with sweat. Her arms curled protectively around two newborns.

Twins.

And behind her, Marcus Kane, smiling.

Caelum jolted awake, his breathing shallow. He muttered under his breath, voice tight with dread:

“She’s the daughter…gods help me. She is Luna's child.”