Chapter 1 SMOKE AND BLOOD

The fire always found me.

In my dreams, it never raged, but it crept. Slow. Patient. It slithered through the halls of the packhouse like it knew where to strike.

First the Elders' wing, then the Healers' Hall. The flames licked the walls like they were tasting something they once loved. Then the screams would begin.

I never screamed.

I watched. Frozen. A quiet girl in the middle of it all, untouched.

But this time, someone stood in the center of the fire. Tall, broad, golden-eyed.

His mouth didn't move, but I heard the words anyway.

"You were made for this."

Then the flames swallowed me whole.

I snapped awake, throat dry, hands shaking against the worn sheet.

Same nightmare. Third time this moon cycle.

I rolled onto my side and exhaled slowly, watching the pale streaks of dawn slice through the small window above my cot. The Healers' Hall was still quiet. The scent of dried herbs and wolfsbane hung thick in the air.

Today was my eighteenth birthday.

Most wolves woke on that day with excitement crackling beneath their skin. The first shift. The Full Moon Ritual. The chance to finally meet their mate, to become someone. To belong.

I had watched so many wolves in this pack celebrate that day. I heard them look forward to it with bated breath and excitement.

Yet, I felt none of that.

Only heat lingering under my skin. My life was not a place of hope for the future.

But enough gloomy thoughts. I had things to do.

I sat up and let my feet touch the cold stone floor, grounding myself in the ordinary. The small things. The threadbare rug under the bed. The chipped bowl on the table beside me, still filled with leftover tea. The knot in my stomach.

That one never left.

They all reminded me that I was real.

I took a quick shower and dried my body quickly. My red hair fell around me in gentle waves that ended at my waist, and I brushed it quickly and put it into a bun.

I dressed simply. Tunic. Leather cords around my wrists. My mother's necklace-half-charred, the metal warped.

I had no memories of her, only what others whispered. That she'd died in a fire with my father. That no one knew their bloodline. That the Moon marked me as cursed the day it let me live when they didn't.

There's a way words ring into your ears that they become a part of you. But if you allow it to swallow you, you'd fade. So I pushed them aside.

I stepped outside into the mist. The early morning air bit at my cheeks and I drew fresh air into my lungs and exhaled. My skin always ran too warm. Another thing the pack liked to whisper about.

I cut through the back trail to avoid the main courtyard. The last thing I needed was another run-in with Elder Varek's daughter and her flock of highborn vipers.

I didn't get far.

"Took you long enough," came a voice from the tree line.

Eliah. One of the few souls in this pack who didn't look at me like I was a bug under her boot.

"You were waiting?" I asked, not hiding my surprise.

She shrugged. "Thought maybe you'd ditch the ritual. Wouldn't blame you."

"I'm not running."

"Didn't say you were. Just... sometimes I wish you would. Find a pack that doesn't treat you like you're fungus."

I gave a tight smile. "Fungus is useful. Keeps the forest alive."

Eliah laughed. "Spoken like a future Luna."

That made my chest tighten.

No one really believed that. Not even me.

I followed her toward the training clearing where we helped the younger wolves prepare for their first shifts. We weren't allowed to train ourselves, not properly-Healer girls weren't meant to fight-but I snuck in when I could.

The boys were already sparring, their growls sharp, forms sloppy. One of them turned at the sound of our steps and wrinkled his nose.

"Oh, the healer mutts are here."

Eliah flipped him off.

I kept walking.

I was used to it. The comments. The looks. The way no one stood too close. They didn't have to say the word cursed out loud. It was stitched into every glance.

We sparred, and I lost myself into the violence. It grounded me, and it was my way of reminding myself that I was capable of protecting myself.

By midday, I returned to the Hall to help grind herbs and stitch open wounds that were always around as a result of everyone having long, sharp claws.

The younger healers gossiped about the Ritual-whose mate they'd be gifted, which Alpha heir might finally claim someone, and whether the Moon was still even watching.

When they asked me what I thought, I just said, "It's the Moon's choice."

But privately, I wasn't so sure the Moon had ever looked my way.

Later, as twilight thickened and the world glowed that strange blue before full dark, I went up to the cliffs.

I liked it there. Far above the compound. Where no one could ask what it felt like to not know your bloodline. Where no one could stare too long at your hands and wonder why they always felt too warm. Where no one looked at your eyes and whispered fire-born.

I sat on the edge and let my legs dangle.

From here, the Bloodmoon Pack looked like a storybook. Lanterns glowed, patrols moved like dancers through the thick of the night, and the great stone ring at the center of the Ritual Grounds waiting, patient and old.

Tomorrow, I would stand inside it.

Tomorrow, the Moon might name me.

Or not.

I reached for the scorched necklace around my throat. The metal pulsed faintly under my fingers, though it hadn't done that before. I told myself it was in my head. I'd done that a lot lately.

But the dreams were changing. The fire was speaking.

And every time I closed my eyes, I heard footsteps in the smoke.