Chapter 3 INTO THE FORBIDDEN

Aria's POV

The forest swallows me whole.

Branches tear at my face and arms as I sprint through the darkness. My borrowed dress catches on thorns, ripping with each desperate step. Behind me, voices shout orders. Flashlight beams slice through the trees like searching claws.

"She went this way!"

"Cut her off at the river!"

"Don't let her reach the boundary!"

My lungs burn. My legs scream. But I don't stop. Can't stop. Because stopping means the priestess. Means chains and cages and being carved open on some laboratory table while they search for answers inside my flesh.

The silver light that exploded from my skin has faded, leaving me weaker than before. Whatever that power was, it's retreating back into the depths where it's been hiding my entire life. My grandmother's voice is gone too, leaving only silence and the sound of my own ragged breathing.

A root catches my foot. I slam into the ground hard, tasting dirt and blood. My palms skid across rocks and leaves. For a second, I just lie there, wondering if this is where it ends. If I should just give up.

Then I hear Marcus's voice, closer than before. "She's bleeding. Follow the trail."

I force myself up and keep running.

The trees grow denser. Older. The moonlight barely penetrates the canopy here, and I'm running half-blind through shadows that feel alive. Wrong. The pack territory should extend for miles, but something about these woods feels different. Foreign.

That's when I see it. The boundary marker.

A stone pillar covered in ancient symbols, half-buried in moss and time. The words carved into it are faded but readable: "Beyond lies death. Turn back or be consumed."

The Forbidden Lands.

My grandmother's warnings echo in my memory. No wolf who enters the Forbidden Lands ever returns. The territory was cursed by the Moon Goddess herself three hundred years ago, sealed away after some catastrophic event the elders refuse to discuss. Even rogues won't set foot past the boundary.

"She's at the marker!" Marcus's shout comes from terrifyingly close. "Don't let her cross!"

I look back. See flashlights bobbing through the trees. See shadows of running wolves. At least six of them, maybe more.

Then I look forward into the absolute darkness beyond the pillar. Into certain death.

Death behind me. Death ahead of me.

At least ahead, I choose it myself.

I cross the boundary.

The change is immediate and violent. The air grows thick, heavy with power so old it makes my teeth ache. The temperature drops until my breath fogs in front of my face. Every instinct I have screams at me to turn back, that I've made a fatal mistake.

But when I glance over my shoulder, Marcus and his hunters have stopped at the marker. They stand there, weapons drawn, staring at me like I'm already dead.

"Come back, Aria." Marcus's voice is almost gentle now. Almost kind. "Cross back over, and I promise we'll make it quick. Painless. But if you go deeper..." He shakes his head. "Nothing survives in there. Nothing."

"Good." My voice is raw, broken. "Then you can't follow me."

His face twists with rage. "You stupid girl. You'll die screaming in there, begging for someone to find you. Begging for the mercy you just refused."

"Better than begging you."

I turn my back on them and walk deeper into the Forbidden Lands. Each step feels like pushing through water. Like the forest itself is trying to reject me, spit me back out into the world of the living.

Their voices fade behind me. Then disappear entirely.

I'm alone.

The silence is absolute. No birds. No insects. No rustling of small creatures in the underbrush. Just my footsteps and my breathing and the pounding of my heart.

I don't know how long I walk. Minutes? Hours? Time feels strange here, stretched thin and meaningless. My adrenaline is crashing, leaving me shaky and cold. The wounds on my wrists throb. My stomach cramps from hunger and Marcus's punch.

I need to rest. Need to find water. Need to figure out what happens next.

But there is no next. There's only this. Wandering through a cursed forest until I collapse from exhaustion or something finds me first.

My foot catches on something and I stumble. Not a root this time. Something smooth. Carved.

I kneel down, brushing away leaves and dirt. Stone. Fitted stone like pavement or a road. But not modern. This stone is ancient, covered in the same symbols as the boundary marker.

A path. Leading somewhere.

My grandmother's voice whispers through my memory, not the ghostly one from the basement but a real memory from years ago. Her hands holding mine, her eyes urgent as she made me memorize words I didn't understand.

"If you're ever lost, child, follow the old roads. They remember. They'll take you where you need to go."

I thought she was rambling. Dementia stealing her mind.

But the stones beneath my fingers feel warm despite the cold. Almost... welcoming.

I follow the path.

It winds through the forest like a serpent, sometimes visible, sometimes buried under centuries of neglect. But it's there. Leading me deeper into the Forbidden Lands. Deeper into whatever doom I've chosen.

The trees begin to change. These aren't the normal pines and oaks of pack territory. These are massive, ancient things with bark like dragon scales and branches that block out even the memory of sky. Some of them have symbols carved into their trunks. The same symbols from the boundary marker. From the stones.

A language I shouldn't recognize but somehow do.

Warning. Protection. Sacred ground.

The path opens into a clearing.

I stop breathing.

Ruins. Massive stone ruins that shouldn't exist. Can't exist. Pillars reaching toward the canopy like the bones of giants. Archways leading to nothing and everywhere. Walls covered in those ancient symbols, glowing faintly silver in the darkness.

This isn't just old. This is ancient. This is from before the packs, before the modern world, before everything I know.

My grandmother's stories flood back. The Seven Ancient Kingdoms. The lost civilization of werewolves that supposedly existed three hundred years ago before some great catastrophe destroyed them all.

I thought they were myths.

But I'm standing in the ruins of one.

Something moves in the shadows ahead. A sound like claws on stone. Like breathing that's too deep, too large to be human.

I freeze, every muscle locked. The silver light under my skin flickers weakly, responding to my fear.

A figure steps into view.

A wolf. But not like any wolf I've ever seen. It's massive, easily twice the size of a normal shifted wolf. Its fur is pure black except for silver markings that glow like moonlight on water. Its eyes are silver too, burning with intelligence that makes my blood run cold.

Those eyes lock onto mine.

And I know, with absolute certainty, that I'm looking at something far more dangerous than Marcus. More dangerous than the priestess. More dangerous than anything I've ever encountered.

The wolf's lips pull back, revealing teeth like daggers.

Then it speaks. Not in my mind like my grandmother's ghost, but out loud. In a voice like gravel and midnight and ancient fury.

"You shouldn't have come here, little omega."

It takes a step closer.

"Now you're mine."