Chapter 3 Ash Moon

The trees had no mercy.

Aria stumbled through the underbrush, each step a jagged breath caught between exhaustion and silent grief. The forest beyond the Silver Hollow borders had once been her playground as a child-a place of dappled sunlight and imagined adventures.

But tonight, the woods weren't kind.

They clawed at her with gnarled branches like skeletal fingers, tearing at the hem of her cloak and slicing thin lines across her arms. Her blood left smears on the bark, red against silver moonlight. The night was dense, wet with dew and secrets. Every rustle of leaves sounded like a threat. Every gust of wind whispered the words she refused to say aloud.

Unworthy. Forsaken. Forgotten.

She didn't cry. The tears had dried hours ago-back when Ryker's gaze had turned from confusion to cruel certainty when Lyla's scent had overwritten hers when the pack looked at Aria like a stranger and a liar.

She couldn't cry because it wouldn't change the truth.

She had nothing left.

No pack. No rank. No mate.

Her wolf-once proud and sharp with moonlight-had gone silent the moment her mating bond broke. The pain hadn't just been emotional. It was physical. A severing like being skinned from the inside out. Her chest still throbbed, raw from the phantom bond that once tied her heart to Ryker's.

She looked down at her hands. Mud-caked, trembling, weak.

She hated how breakable she looked. How empty she felt.

But her legs carried her forward anyway, driven by instinct alone.

She crossed into rogue territory without even realizing it. The thick scent of pine shifted into rot and smoke. Trees grew darker, older, and more twisted. No moonlight touched the forest floor here. Only shadows.

She paused beside a broken stump and collapsed to her knees, gasping for air, clutching her chest like it still held something worth protecting.

It didn't.

Aria tilted her head back and looked at the sky. The stars were hidden behind the canopy. The Moon-her goddess, her guide, her betrayer-was nowhere to be seen.

"Is this what you wanted?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "For me to break?"

There was no answer.

Just wind.

Then... growling.

Low. Guttural. Predatory.

It came from her left-then her right. Branches snapped. A snarl cut through the silence, followed by the sound of footsteps-bare feet crunching leaves, slow and purposeful.

Her heart jumped. Her wolf still didn't rise.

Move, something in her said. Run.

But her legs felt like stone.

Three figures stepped from the shadows. Male. Broad. Filthy. They didn't wear pack crests or scent marks. Rogues-real ones. The kind who didn't follow laws, didn't respect boundaries, didn't wait for permission.

"Look at what we have here," one drawled. He had a scar across his cheek and eyes that gleamed yellow in the dark. "A little lamb lost in the woods."

Another laughed, low and sharp. "She smells like a broken mate."

"She smells like nothing," the third said, sniffing the air. "No pack. No protection. A ghost."

Aria staggered to her feet, fists clenched at her sides. She wouldn't scream. She wouldn't give them that.

They circled her like wolves around prey, teeth bared in feral grins.

Her wolf remained silent.

One lunged forward suddenly, grabbing her by the wrist. "Maybe we'll keep you."

Aria didn't flinch-but inside, she shattered a little more.

She opened her mouth to speak, to fight, to snarl-

But before she could say a word, a fourth presence entered the clearing.

It didn't come with a sound. It came with silence-a shift in air pressure, like the trees themselves holding their breath.

And then... everything exploded.

---

Three of them. Circling like vultures.

The one to her left was rail-thin with hollow cheeks and blackened claws. His right eye was missing, replaced by a milky scar. The one to her right dragged a rusted blade lazily across his palm, letting the blood drip in fat, deliberate drops onto the roots around her. The scent was thick-iron, decay, rot. The last one stood directly in front of her, towering and broad-shouldered, his grin split with broken, yellowed teeth.

"She's marked," the one with the blade muttered, sniffing with a sneer. "But not protected."

"No bond," the eyeless one confirmed, crouching low to the earth. "No scent. No pack. A stray bitch."

Aria's spine locked as the word echoed through her. Stray.

The insult landed harder than she expected. She had always belonged. To the Silver Hollow. To Ryker. To a future. A name.

Now she was no one.

Her wolf was still-buried somewhere too deep for her to reach.

Please, she whispered inwardly. Please, I need you.

But nothing stirred.

No snarl. No heat. No rise of primal fury.

Only silence. Cold and endless.

Her limbs trembled. Her chest burned from the phantom weight of a bond that no longer lived inside her. Her body was alive, but her soul felt like a hollowed-out shell, echoing with the emptiness he left behind.

The rogue with the blade stepped closer, cocking his head like a predator toying with its prey. "You smell like heartbreak. Like ashes."

"I wonder if she even has a wolf anymore," the eyeless one mused. "Maybe it abandoned her, too."

Aria's lips parted, her breath shaking.

But she didn't scream.

She didn't plead.

Instead, she straightened her spine-biting back the pain, burying the panic-and lifted her chin. Her voice came hoarse, but laced with steel.

"I'm not yours," she rasped.

The blade-wielder chuckled. "No, pretty thing... not yet."

He lunged.

A blur of teeth. A shadow of death.

And then-

The forest exploded with silver light.

It wasn't the Moon.

It wasn't divine intervention.

It was force-hot and violent and alive.

The air split with a sound like thunder tearing open the ground. One of the rogues was flung backward before he could touch her, his body crashing into a tree so hard the bark shattered. The eyeless one barely had time to flinch before something moved-fast and furious-a blur of black and molten gold, striking like a falling star.

Aria stumbled back, her eyes wide. Her breath caught as the world seemed to still for a heartbeat.

The rogue with the blade turned toward the threat, but he was too slow. A hand-not hers-gripped his throat and lifted him off the ground like he weighed nothing.

And that's when she saw him.

Kade Ashbourne.

Rogue. Enforcer. Rumored executioner of the outlaw packs.

But his eyes weren't filled with cruelty. They were golden fire-focused entirely on her.

He dropped the rogue like a rag doll. The man hit the earth gasping, clawing at his neck, choking on blood and dirt.

Kade didn't look at him again.

He walked to Aria. Not fast. Not slow. Just sure.

His jaw was clenched. His coat was open, revealing muscle and scars. His scent hit her-not like a memory, but a warning. Leather, firewood, and something wild. Something dangerous.

She swayed on her feet.

Her knees gave.

He caught her.

His arms were solid, warm, unforgiving. Not gentle-but real.

Aria tried to speak. To thank him. To question.

But all she managed was one trembling word before everything went black-

"...why?"

And then, darkness took her.

She thought death would be colder.

Instead, the forest burned.

Not with fire, but with movement-wild and purposeful. A storm in the shape of a man.

A blur of shadow slammed into the rogue who had lunged for her throat. The impact cracked like thunder through the trees. Aria stumbled back, landing hard on the dirt as chaos unfolded in front of her.

The rogue who moved like smoke didn't growl. He didn't roar.

He ended.

Teeth to throat. Claws to flesh. There was no hesitation, no mercy. The first rogue's scream was cut short by the sickening snap of a neck.

Another slashed wildly, but the stranger twisted behind him, claws dragging through his spine like paper. Blood painted bark. Moonlight glinted off a blade drawn from his back-curved, blackened, brutal. He used it like it was part of him.

Aria sat frozen, her body refusing to respond even as instinct begged her to run-or bow.

But the wolf inside her-still silent-trembled in reverence.

The third rogue hesitated. Just one heartbeat too long. That was all the stranger needed. He lunged, pinning the wolf by the throat and driving the blade through his gut without a word.

The rogue gurgled and fell still.

Silence returned. Just wind and the soft crackle of blood hitting leaves.

And then he turned.

The stranger stood tall, chest rising slowly, face shadowed by strands of wild, dark hair soaked in sweat and crimson. His shirt hung in tatters, barely clinging to wide shoulders carved from war. His skin was a map of scars-old wounds, healed without magic.

He was not a man bred in the safety of a pack.

He was shaped by the edge of the world.

And his eyes-gods, his eyes-burned.

Golden. Piercing. Like wildfire in the moment before it devoured a forest. She couldn't look away. Didn't want to. Fear churned in her stomach, but so did something else.

Recognition.

His scent struck her next-pine smoke, ash, and something ancient and almost sacred. Not like Ryker's. Not like any Alpha from Silver Hollow or the neighboring clans.

This scent wasn't born of inheritance.

It was born of survival.

The rogue took a slow step toward her.

Aria flinched, her hand curling over her ribs, still aching from the broken bond. Her breathing came shallow and fast.

He crouched down-so they were eye level-and the moon revealed his face fully.

Jaw sharp. Cheekbone cut with a faint scar. A mouth that looked like it rarely smiled-but might ruin you when it did.

He didn't ask if she was okay.

Didn't offer his name.

He just looked at her like she was something not broken-but becoming.

Then, in a voice that rumbled through her chest like thunder made of smoke, he said-

"Aria."

Her name fell from his lips like it had always belonged there. A growl. A vow. A promise of war and salvation wrapped into one breath.

She blinked, lips parting, but no words came.

Just a question in her heart she didn't know how to form:

Who are you... and why does my soul already know you?

She should've flinched. Should've run.

But she didn't.

Her breath caught-not in fear, but in recognition. Not of him, exactly, but of something deeper. A pull in her bones she hadn't felt since Ryker shattered her.

For the first time in days, it didn't hurt to breathe.

Kade Ashbourne knelt before her, blood on his jaw, moonlight in his eyes. He said nothing-just watched, like he was waiting.

"You're not broken," he said. "Just burning slower than they expected."

His voice wasn't soft. Just honest.

"Why did you help me?" she asked.

"Because fate owes you more than pain."

The words struck deep.

She rose, unsteady but strong.

Her wolf stirred-not in rage, but in recognition.

His scent-embers, pine, something ancient-wrapped around her.

Not a bond. Not yet.

But something dangerous was waking.

And it was hers.