Chapter 2 The Mark Beneath Her Skin.

Lyra slammed the door behind her, chest still heaving, her back pressed to the rough wood as if she could somehow keep the world-and him-out. Her fingers trembled as she reached up, pulling the hood from her tangled hair. The house was dark, cold, and silent except for the sound of her racing heart.

He let me go.

The thought echoed in her mind like a drumbeat, pounding louder each time she repeated it. He could have killed her. He could have done so much worse. But instead, the terrifying Alpha of the Savage Moon Pack had stepped back. Had let her run.

Why?

The intensity in his eyes still burned in her memory. Golden. Wild. Possessive. Like she belonged to him.

No. That wasn't possible. It couldn't be.

She pushed away from the door and took a shaky breath, heading toward the back hall.

"Lyra!" The shout came from deeper in the house-harsh, slurred. Her uncle's voice was a sound she'd learned to fear before she'd even learned to write.

Her stomach twisted. Please, not tonight.

She stepped into the main room, where the single fireplace barely kept the chill from the walls. Joren sat slouched in his old chair, a half-empty mug of ale dangling from his crooked fingers. His eyes narrowed the moment they landed on her.

"Well?" he barked. "Where are the herbs?"

Lyra opened her mouth, but her voice caught. "I... I dropped them."

"You what?" His voice sharpened.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Joren. There was something in the woods. I thought it was a wolf. I got scared."

The mug flew before she could blink. It crashed against the wall just inches from her head, shattering into pieces. Lyra flinched, but didn't move. Didn't breathe.

"You useless little brat," Joren hissed, rising to his feet with a dangerous sway. "Can't even do a simple task without screwing it up. Do you have any idea how hard I work to keep this roof over your head?"

"I didn't mean to-"

His hand struck her cheek with a sickening crack. Her head snapped to the side, and for a second, the room spun. Heat bloomed across her face, tears welling instantly, but she refused to let them fall.

He sneered. "I should've left you to rot with your mother. Get to your room. I don't want to see your face again tonight."

Lyra didn't speak. She couldn't. She simply turned and walked down the narrow hall, her breath shaking with every step. When she reached her tiny room, she shut the door and locked it, then slid down against the wood until she was sitting on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest.

The silence pressed in around her.

She pressed her face to her knees and finally let herself cry-soft, stifled sobs that only the walls would ever hear.

---

Sleep didn't come easily. When it did, it came in broken fragments and tangled dreams.

She stood in the woods again, moonlight turning the leaves silver. The trees breathed, alive with wind and something older-something watching. And he was there. The Alpha.

Kael.

He stood in front of her, bare-chested, his skin gleaming with sweat, golden eyes blazing. He reached for her, claws not quite retracted, and she didn't flinch. She stepped closer.

"You came back," she whispered.

"I never left," he growled. His voice was low, rich, almost... intimate.

She looked down and realized her arms were bare. The mark on her collarbone pulsed faintly, glowing with a silver light.

Kael reached out, tracing a claw along its shape. "You're not what they think you are."

"What am I?" she asked.

He leaned in until his lips brushed her ear. "Mine."

The word sent a tremor down her spine.

She jerked awake with a strangled gasp, her heart racing, sweat clinging to her skin. Moonlight spilled through the window, painting the floor in ghostly blue. She sat up slowly, her hand flying to her collarbone.

The crescent-shaped birthmark there-something she'd had since childhood-was glowing faintly. Not visibly... but she could feel it. Like heat pressing beneath the skin, alive and ancient and aching.

"What the hell is happening to me?" she whispered.

She stumbled to the mirror, gripping the edges of the cracked frame. Her reflection stared back-wide eyes, pale face, flushed cheek where Joren had struck her. But it wasn't the bruise that held her attention.

It was the look in her eyes.

Like something had awoken.

And it wasn't going back to sleep.

---

Miles away, deep in the heart of the forest, Kael prowled through the trees like a shadow given form.

The forest had always been his solace, his territory. Here, the trees bent to his will, the earth pulsed with his energy. He was Alpha of the Savage Moon Pack-the most feared pack in the region. And yet tonight, he was restless.

His wolf snarled inside him, pacing. Agitated.

She smelled of fire and frost. Sweet and strange. Familiar.

Kael punched a tree, the bark splitting beneath his knuckles. A low growl escaped his throat. What was it about her?

The girl hadn't even shifted. She was human. And yet something in her scent called to him, something ancient.

"Mine," his wolf said again.

"No," Kael muttered aloud, shaking his head. "She can't be. We don't mate with humans."

But his body had reacted the moment he touched her. Every instinct had screamed to protect, to mark, to claim. And when she ran... he'd let her. Not because he was weak. But because she looked so damn fragile. A wild thing made of light and thorns.

And now he couldn't stop thinking about her.

Her scent. Her eyes. The way her body had fit against his when he grabbed her. That heat... it wasn't fear. He knew what fear smelled like.

That was desire.

He tipped his head back, exhaling hard. His wolf clawed at the inside of his skin, restless and savage.

The moon above was high and full. Its pull made his blood sing. But it wasn't the moon that called him tonight.

It was her.

---

Back in town, Lyra stood barefoot on the cold floor, staring at her reflection in the cracked mirror.

She peeled her shirt down slightly, exposing the faint crescent mark on her collarbone. It looked no different than usual-but she knew. Something had changed.

The mark had pulsed. Burned.

Like it had awakened.

Like something inside her had awakened.

She turned away, wrapping her arms around herself. Her body felt foreign now. The dreams, the strange sensation in her skin, the way her instincts had reacted to the Alpha...

None of it made sense.