The Moon The King was Missing

The impact sounded like something shattering from within, leaving the world hollow. First came the ringing in my ears, then the wall slammed in sideways, and then the cold of the floor. The smell of bleach and blood. My blood.

"You're not even good for washing dishes," he spat, and the boot landed once more, striking the forearm I'd instinctively raised.

I felt the thud. The pain was indescribable. I didn't scream. I learned long ago that screams only encouraged him. I held my breath. I counted. One, two, three. My heart raced.

My "father."

Ever since the Alpha took over the pack after the death of my true parents-the Alpha and the moon everyone claimed to worship-they decided I was useful as an example. A rag with a pulse. The daughter of the fallen, turned servant, lower than an Omega. They didn't even call me by my name. "Little girl."

I crawled with my good hand to the service door. Outside, there was a new moon. No one was guarding the back of the kitchen; they thought no one in their right mind would run barefoot through the woods with a broken arm. And maybe they were right. But I wasn't in my right mind anymore.

Crossing the threshold, the air smelled of damp pine and iron. Of myself. Of pain.

"Get out," something inside me whispered. It wasn't my wolf yet, just a drowsy murmur, an ember. I'd felt it since I was a child, but fear and humiliation had buried it under ashes.

I lowered my head and ran.

Branches scratched my calves, stones dug into the soles of my feet. The forest bent and straightened with every step, and I prayed to whatever wolf god still watched me. Just a little more, just a little, please. My arm hung limp as if it weren't mine; every trot jolted me, sending sharp pains through it that blurred my vision.

I heard voices in the distance, those of the guards who sometimes patrolled the boundaries. I didn't know if they were ours or if I'd unknowingly crossed the line. It didn't matter. If my men found me, I'd go back to the kitchen. If others found me... I'd die. Or so I thought. I chose to gamble with fate.

The forest changed. The smell of the ground was different, cleaner, as if the earth were better cared for. A breeze lifted the hem of my nightgown and chilled my sweat. I tripped over a root and, this time, yes, I screamed. The world turned upside down. I fell sideways. The pain in my arm made me see sparks.

I crawled another meter. Two. The edge of the stream shimmered. I drank water clumsily, feeling it wet my chin and its taste mingling with the blood on my split lip. The ringing in my ears returned. I curled up, trying to protect my arm, and looked up at the moonless sky.

Then I heard him.

"Enough."

A single word, spoken in a powerful voice.

I opened my eyes abruptly. I didn't see him. First, I smelled him. Musk, wood smoke, and storm. My wolf ignited. A new, deep heartbeat answered him from my chest. It was as if an invisible thread stretched from my sternum to his voice.

"Who are you?" I wanted to say...

The shadow approached silently. A tall man, broad-shouldered, imposing. I noticed the way the trees seemed to part and thought I was delirious.

"No one can treat you like this," he said.

He squatted down beside me. His fingers brushed my cheek with a gentleness that belied the tone of his voice. I felt the warm pad, the calloused skin. A gentle touch; he knew how to gauge his strength.

"You're covered in bruises," he murmured. "And that arm..."

The moment he touched the broken bone, I saw stars. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. He pulled his hand away instantly.

"Who are you, and why are you helping me?" I asked.

"Because you're alive, and because I don't tolerate cowards who mistreat their own."

I swallowed. The scent of his fur surrounded me, intensifying my fear. My wolf pushed from below, as if he wanted to finally break free. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to feel anything but pain, and yet, there I was.

"Which pack are you from?" I asked, forcing myself not to cry.

"The one that won't abandon you," he replied. Then he looked up as if searching for someone else. "Come out."

Three shadows emerged from among the tree trunks, silently. Warriors. I recognized them by the way they planted their feet, by their gaze. They stopped a couple of meters away, heads bowed. At him.

"Sir," said one, blond, with a scar on his eyebrow. "The perimeter is clear. No one is following her."

The "sir" nodded, and in that simple gesture there was obedience. Hierarchy. Power.

"Bandages," he ordered. "Water. And a sweater."

The blond one moved quickly. The youngest set down a canteen and stepped back two paces, his eyes lowered. The third took out a roll of bandages and a splinting board. They were prepared, as if they expected to find wounded in the woods at midnight.

"Don't touch me," I whispered when the oldest one brought the bandages closer. It was a reflex because of how badly I was bruised.

"No one will lay a hand on you without your permission," he said. "Will you let me help you?"

I knew I could say no. Crawl back down and die a little further on. But the pain had drained my strength, and his scent... the part of me that was mine, the part I'd never been allowed to know, was desperate to get closer.

I nodded.

The older man worked efficiently, splinting my forearm and cleaning the blood from my body. Each tug of the bandage brought a cold sweat to my skin. The younger man placed the canteen in my good hand, and I took small sips, careful not to choke. The blond man appeared with a large, dark sweater that smelled of pine and metal. He slipped it over me, without touching my bare shoulders.

"There," the older man said, looking at the leader. "You can move, but carefully."

"Now tell me," he turned back to me. "What's your name?"

I wanted to say that I was the daughter of Luna Helena and Alpha Inigo, the one who ran fearlessly through these woods when they still belonged to us. But my tongue felt heavy.

"Lía," I managed to say.

It was my name, shortened.

"Lía," he repeated, and my wolf pushed harder. His voice spoke my name as if he'd been saving it. "I am Kael."

The name resonated; I didn't need anyone to explain it to me. I had heard stories of the King of the Alphas: the one who united clans to stop wars others started on a whim. The one who had no mate. The one who didn't kneel. The one who didn't forgive.

I don't know if it was luck, but fate had placed me in his hands. My fingers clenched on my sweater, and I didn't look away.

"Kael?" I whispered, and the warriors lowered their heads.

He tilted his face slightly.

We were silent for a second. Everything I had held back for years accumulated in that silence: the dirt under my fingernails, the sleepless nights on the pantry floor, the spoons stolen by other servants. My dead parents. My sleeping wolf.

And then, suddenly, he began to awaken.

It wasn't an explosion. A warmth rose, the vibration in my sternum that traveled up to my throat and filled my mouth with a sweet, wild, coppery taste.

"I smelled Kae, not just his skin, but his essence."

Kael blinked once. He felt it, I knew it. And yet, he remained motionless before what was being born.

"Lía," he said, almost in a whisper. "We're going to get you out of here."

"If they find me with you..." I murmured, looking toward the side of the forest that belonged to my pack. "They'll declare that you invaded us. That you stole me."

"People aren't stolen, they're freed."

The blond man cleared his throat nervously.

"Sir..." he hesitated. "If she is who I think she is... her mark. Her scent... Ours have already detected it."

The young man nodded, gripping the hem of his jacket with trembling fingers. The older man, on the other hand, looked at me with a mixture of respect and sadness. As if he saw beyond my bruises.

Kael didn't take his eyes off mine. He didn't need to. His pack had already read what the air was saying.

"You will pay for this," he said, without raising his voice.

It was a sentence.

I tried to get up and fell. Kael reached out and lifted me like someone raising something they love. His warmth enveloped me; I almost cried.

"Cloak," he ordered over my shoulder, and the blond man covered me with a thick cloak. The fabric fell to my ankles, and for the first time in years, I wasn't cold.

"We move silently," Kael told his people. Without leaving a trace.

"Yes, Alpha," they replied in unison.

He took a step, and I took one last deep breath on the side of the forest that had once been mine. It smelled of rancid grease, of damp leather. Of his hands. Of the kitchen where I had learned to walk on tiptoe so the floorboards wouldn't creak. I didn't say goodbye. Why would I?

We covered the first stretch along the stream. I quickly learned the rhythm of his pace; every time I stumbled, his arm caught me gently. The sharp pain in my forearm came and went, but something else was gaining ground: that new vibration that left a warmth beneath my ribs. My wolf was waking up.

"You don't have to speak," he said suddenly. "But if you want to tell me something, listen: I'll believe you."

I didn't know what to say. So many years trying to get someone to believe me the first time-"It wasn't me." "I can't lift that bucket." "I didn't mean to cry."

"I'm not weak," I said to myself. "It was important to make that clear. Even though my legs were trembling. Even though my arm ached."

Kael exhaled something that wasn't laughter or pity, it was relief.

"Even strong things break."

The trees parted, and I saw lights in the distance. They were domestic lights, warm. Houses. A territory I didn't know.

The young man ran ahead and disappeared into the shadows.

"When we grow that line," Kael said, pointing to a mark on the stone, "you'll be on my territory."

In our culture, that changed everything.

"You don't have to..."

"Yes, I do," he interrupted. "Because I am who I am. And because you are who you are, even though it was ripped from your mouth."

I felt my breathing become erratic. I hated myself for it. But also, for the first time, I didn't try to correct it. I let my chest do what it needed to.

We crossed.

The air changed again. I can't explain it without sounding like a superstitious fool. A woman came out of a nearby hut with a first-aid kit in her hand.

"Let's take care of her, the equipment is ready," she said.

Kael nodded. He lifted me a little higher, and it still hurt. I thought that smelling him so close was dangerous. Because he would haunt my nights, and if he left, it would hurt.

"Kael," I said, before they took me into the cabin. "If I stay... he'll come."

"Let him come," he replied. "Let everyone see what they did."

He didn't tremble. I did.

The room was clean, warm. A cot, soft lighting. The woman with the first-aid kit touched me with steady hands. When she saw the bruises on my ribs, she pursed her lips, but said nothing. I was grateful for the silence.

"I'm going to give you something for the pain," she announced. "It'll make you a little dizzy. Don't fall asleep yet. We need to take X-rays."

I nodded. She prepared the injection. Kael stayed by my side, a step away.

"Why did you save me?" I asked again.

"Because you were breathing. And because, when I smelled you, I knew I'd been waiting too long."

The dizziness started in my feet. Before I was plunged into darkness, I heard him speaking to someone at the door:

"Notify the Council. Tomorrow at dawn. I'm going to present her."

"Present her?" the elder asked.

"To my pack and to the law."

A tense silence.

"And what if he wants her back? What will we say?"

Kael looked at me.

-We'll say she no longer has any right to what was never hers. We'll say I claim it.

My wolf roared softly, contentedly, inside me. And I, for the first time in years, let myself fall without fear.

Darkness.

I gripped the edge of the stretcher while the woman in charge of the first-aid kit-Irene, that was her name-adjusted the splint. The pain lessened, at least it allowed me to think.

Kael stayed to my left; I could hear the rise and fall of his chest like the sound of waves behind a door.

"I'm going to take an X-ray," Irene announced.

I nodded. In my pack, treatments consisted of cloths and silence. The machine vibrated softly, a click, and then Irene returned with a transparency film, which she held up to a lamp.

"Clean fracture," she declared. "Well splinted, no displacement. Rest, bandages every twenty-four hours, and broth. Lots of broth."

In the kitchen of my old life, broth smelled of old fat. Here, it smelled of bone and bay leaves.

"Thank you."

Irene looked at me without pity. With respect.

"They'll take you to a cabin. You won't be alone."

Kael gestured slightly, and the older warrior stepped forward.

"I'm Mikel," he introduced himself. "We'll walk two houses down. If you need anything, knock on the wall twice. It can be heard."

I didn't know what to say when Kael spoke:

"I want to introduce you to the Council at dawn."

"I can't. Not today. Not with this," I pointed to my arm.

"Can't you, or don't you want to?"

I remained silent. Irene hid a half-smile, like a nurse who had heard too many excuses from humans and wolves.

We moved. Mikel opened the door, and the air outside was colder and carried the scent of bread. I walked slowly, wrapped in my sweater and cloak. Kael's camp wasn't a makeshift village; it was a territory. Clean dirt paths, wooden houses with stone foundations, lanterns, guards. No one pointed at me. No one whispered.

The cabin I was assigned had a real bed, a table, and a copper jug. Mikel left another jug. The nervous young man-I now learned his name was Ares-lit the fire with two sticks. The blond man, Eidan, uncovered a pot of broth.

"I'll leave it here for you," he said, and the aroma whetted my appetite.

"Thank you," I said again.

When we were alone, Kael didn't fill the void with words.

"Why introduce myself?" I finally asked. "You could..."

"Because you don't claim what you don't honor. I want everyone to know you're here."

I looked at the fire. The shadows made shapes on the wall. Sometimes, when I was a child, my mother would play at naming animals in the shadows. Wolf, deer, owl.

"If you introduce me, he'll come."

"I know it. And I also know he'll come anyway, if not today, then tomorrow, or in a month." Those who do harm cannot bear to have their work taken away.

I sat up carefully in bed and picked up the cup. The liquid warmed me from my tongue to my stomach. A warm, unfamiliar peace crept down my ribs.

"I'm not going to touch you," he announced suddenly. "I'm not going to mark you. I'm not going to ask you to sleep under my roof. Not today. But I will put my people between you and anyone who tries to hurt you."

I didn't know if I wanted to cry or sleep for twenty-four hours. Instead, I nodded. My eyes were heavy.

"Rest. Wake up before the sky catches fire. I'll come to the door when you call me."

"Will you stay here?"

"Just a few steps away," he said. And he did. He settled down outside, against the wall.

I closed my eyes, dreamed of water and teeth, of a moon that wasn't there but still illuminated everything. I dreamed of my mother combing my wet hair, her fingers soft.

I woke before the first light of dawn. My body knew where Kael was without me even opening the door. I sat up. My arm ached. I dressed in a clean tunic someone had left folded on the table. It was too big for me. I liked it.

I opened the door. He was already standing.

"Good morning," he said.

I returned his greeting and we walked toward a larger structure: a stone circle under a roof open in the center, so the smoke from a bonfire could escape. Five people were waiting. They weren't young, nor old. They smelled of wood, countryside, metal.

Kael didn't go ahead of me; we entered together. He stood to my right.

"Council," he greeted. "I'd like to introduce you to Lia."

The woman in the center-dark skin and black eyes-bowed her head.

"I see you," she said.

It wasn't a polite greeting. It was an ancient ritual of recognition. I'd been taught it as a child, but the women in the kitchen weren't allowed to repeat it.

The man to her left-white hair tied back-sniffed the air, as those of our kind do when they don't want to be disrespectful but still want to know.

"The mark on your arm..."

"A clean, well-treated fracture."

The white-haired man nodded, confirming the precise information.

"My intention," Kael said, "is to invoke border protection for Lia. She is under my direct protection from this dawn. Any claim against her must be brought before me. Not her."

"There will be war," the youngest member of the Council observed.

"There will be justice," the black-eyed woman corrected. "And then, if you're so inclined, we'll talk about war."

"We accept the protection," the woman said. "But the girl has to want it."

All eyes turned to me. I felt the old urge to find a corner. I breathed. I planted my feet firmly.

"I want it," I said.

The circle breathed differently. Kael didn't move.

"Then it's settled," the woman concluded. "At noon we'll light the stone and mark it in the books. By nightfall the borders will know."

At that very moment, a howl pierced the air. It wasn't close, but neither was it as far away as I would have liked. My body tensed. Mikel, at the door, was already looking north.

Eidan appeared, running.

"Kael," he said. "Bands on the high boundary bearing Argon's insignia."

Argon was the Alpha who had called me "Nobody" more times than I can count. My wolf bared its teeth somewhere in my stomach.

"Our boundary or the common one?" the dark-eyed woman asked.

"Ours," Eidan replied. "But they don't cross. They howl so we know."