Chapter 1 The Girl in the woods

The night howled like it had something to say.

Selene moved through the forest with practiced steps, her bare feet brushing against damp moss and fallen pine needles. She didn't need a lantern. The moon, swollen and red as blood, lit her path well enough-and besides, she'd spent most of her life seeing in the dark. Living in it.

She paused near the creek, where water spilled quietly over rocks. The same spot she visited every night when the village lights were too far to see and the silence around her pressed too close. Here, she could breathe. Alone, but not lonely.

A wolf's cry echoed in the distance, sharp and pained.

She stiffened.

That wasn't wild.

She knew the wild wolves. She'd listened to them every winter since she was nine, when the elders first called her cursed and left her to die outside the village borders. The wild wolves didn't sound like that. This cry was deeper. Broader. Like it had a name.

Selene adjusted the leather satchel slung over her shoulder and moved toward the sound.

Branches scratched her arms as she pushed through underbrush. Her senses were sharper tonight. That happened sometimes, especially near the full moon. She didn't know why. She had no wolf to speak of. No shift. Just instincts that came and went like breath.

She found the body in the hollow between the stones.

He was huge - even collapsed and unconscious. Blood soaked the dirt beneath him, and his shirt had been ripped open across the chest. Claw marks. Deep. Fresh. Whatever had done this hadn't given him a clean fight.

Selene dropped to her knees.

His hair was dark, tangled, soaked with sweat and blood. His lips were parted slightly, teeth clenched in pain. One of his arms twitched-still alive. Barely.

She placed her hand on his shoulder.

He flinched.

"I'm not here to hurt you," she whispered.

His eyes cracked open-gray like winter fog, unreadable even in pain.

"You're bleeding out,"she said. "Let me help."

He tried to speak but only managed a groan. She reached for the herb pouch inside her satchel and began mixing a paste of crushed wintermint and blueroot with water from her flask.

"You're not from Hollowbrook," she muttered as she dabbed the paste along his wound. "They don't make men this size there. Or let them live long enough to get this broken."

His breathing was ragged.

She worked in silence.

He didn't pass out again, but he didn't speak either. Just watched her. Even when she took off her scarf and used it to bandage his shoulder.

"You're not safe here," she said when she was done. "They don't like strangers in this forest. They don't even like me, and I've been here half my life."

A slow smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

"You talk a lot," he rasped.

She blinked, startled. "You're awake."

"Unfortunately."She sat back on her heels. "You need shelter."

"I need to shift."

"You'll rip your wounds open."

His eyes burned into hers.

Then something flickered in her chest.

A warmth that had no place here, in this cold night or in her cold life.

She felt it in her bones. A strange hum. Like her blood recognized him. Like her skin wanted to crawl closer. She swallowed hard and looked away.

"What's your name?" she asked.

He didn't answer at first.

Then, quietly: "Rhian."

She stared.

There were only a few names feared more than curses in this part of the world, and his was one of them.

Alpha Rhian.

Leader of the Dawnclaw Pack.

The one they said had burned an entire outpost to the ground when his mate died in childbirth. The one who refused to take a second mate. The one who vanished three winters ago with a bounty on his head and a shadow on his soul.

And now he was here.

Bleeding at her feet.

Of course you are, she murmured.

He shifted, wincing. "Who are you?"

She hesitated.

Then: "Selene."

His gaze sharpened.

She didn't tell him the rest. Didn't tell him she was the girl born under the Crimson Moon. The one they said would curse any wolf she touched. The one the elders whispered about but never named.

Let him find out later.

If he lived that long.