My mate was somewhere on the battlefield. I looked around desperately, the reality of the fight falling away. I had to find him.
Where moments ago there had only been shades of grey, I now saw in colour. The sky was blue, the trees were green, and my parents had told me my fur was a brown so dark it was almost black – it was deep, and rich, and tears stung my eyes at the sight of it all. Everything was so vivid, so beautiful.And then I saw red for the first time. It was everywhere: soaking into my fur, soaking into the green grass, soiling the brown dirt. Overwhelmed, I stumbled.
‘Haile?’ Etta hissed through our mindlink. ‘We need to retreat.’
The same wet, shining darkness I had known to be blood was so, so much worse in colour. ‘It’s everywhere,’ I replied, glad it was a mental conversation. I would not have been able to speak through my too-thick, too-hoarse throat otherwise.
I closed my eyes. Even in darkness there was still colour: bursts of light undeterred by my eyelids, flashing across my vision in great waves of heat and flame. The battle continued, and I felt the heavy press of bodies all around me. I had to get it together. I had to –
‘Haile!’
I was knocked sideways. Determination unfurled in my chest, an unsteady, flickering heat that forced my eyes to open.
There was red everywhere. Gritting my teeth, I urged myself back into the fight. Etta’s white fur – white I knew well, I recognised, but had never seen it so resplendent, had never seen it glowing yellow-gold in the sunlight – was spotted with blood. Bile rose in my throat. A slash slowly seeped red from her back, the curled lip of her skin flapping and splattering more red as she moved.
A wolf was lumbering towards me, heavily favouring their right foreleg, teeth bared in half-grimace, half-snarl. No matter the gore, no matter the red blood, I had a duty to my pack. I tried to make the colour vanish, tried to keep my mind on the battle, but as I lunged for the wolf’s left leg, knocking it out from under them before twisting and clamping down on their right knee, all I could think was red. I felt the red soak into my muzzle as I bit down. I saw it spurt from their knee, saw it spill down their pale brown leg and pool atop the dry dirt.
I watched, as if separate from my body, as I dug my claws into their prone neck. My eyes widened in horror as I ripped through skin and fur and sinew, leaving behind flayed grooves that oozed more and more hot red blood. My heart thundered in my chest, and I could not help but imagine the red blood it was pounding through my veins. It was in me, in every part of me, and then I made the mistake of glancing down at my own injured front leg.
I choked back vomit. A flap of torn skin hung down, a sight I was well-used to seeing in black and white, but in colour it was so much worse. The dark shade of grey I was accustomed to seeing my fur as was actually brown-black, sleek and shining, made darker still by the blood. I gulped. It was slick, the sheen making the wet wound glossy. I could see torn muscle, and, with a shudder, I realised I could see white bone beneath layers of red-pink flesh.
Etta’s body slammed into my line of vision. ‘What is wrong with you?’ she snarled.
I looked up, dragging my eyes away from my leg. I did not want to open my eyes to the violence surrounding me: everywhere I turned there were yet more wolves upon us, lips pulled back from saliva-wet white teeth, white teeth that were dripping with red blood…
‘I can see in colour,’ I admitted slowly, dazed. 'My mate is here.'
- - -
It hit me all at once.Something looped around my heart, something warm and solid and comforting, like the heat found only beneath blankets on a frigid night. Then the something began to pull, slowly at first, making me look around the wolves before me with fresh eyes – eyes that could see beyond the red and the gore and the battle. My new eyes were searching, and after another, quiet beat of my heart I realised what they were looking for.
No. No – no, it couldn’t be. I twisted wildly, trying to stop my heart from hunting for its other half. Because I could see in colour for the first time here, now, in the midst of a battle against our sworn enemies…
No. I refused to let myself think it.
The Moon Goddess could not be so cruel. The mate bond was a thing to yearn for, to desire – it was not a thing to dread. Wild hope grew like roses in my chest, but their thorns nicked the flesh of my heart and blood beaded along its curve.
Maybe my mate wasn’t part of the Winterpaw Warrior Pack. Maybe my mate was somewhere behind me, lost in the blur of struggling Blue Moon wolves. Maybe one of them had, just this moment, come of age…
I was lying to myself, and I knew it.
I twisted, trying to look back at my pack. They were, inch by inch, making their retreat. But still the Winterpaw wolves circled them, teeth bared, and the colours paired with the speed at which they moved made me dizzy.
‘A little help here, Haile?’
Etta was locked in a furious battle with a wolf almost as large as her. I ignored the red blood, the slick sheen of it, and watched how the Winterpaw wolf, a mess of tangled pale fur matted with blood and dirt, and tried to find its weakness.
I could feel the weight of the battle all around me sink into my bones. Teeth snapped, mere inches from my face, though they were not aimed at me. The frontline of our fight was weakening, wolves split between fighting onwards and falling back. The others needed to retreat; I would protect them for as long as I could.
‘Haile!’
The Winterpaw wolf Etta was fighting never flinched when other wolves, fighting their own battles, came close to their left side. They kept Etta to their right, the single dark eye I could see shifted intently to follow her movements. Whenever Etta drifted to the left, the Winterpaw wolf would reposition – keeping her on their right.
Hoping my instinct was correct, I forced my way through the tightly-packed bodies – relying on years of experience and gut instinct to get me through, even when my head and heart were overwhelmed with shining, resplendent colour all around and the constant, pulling need to hunt for my mate. I dodged swiping claws and sweat-soaked, wolven bodies, struggling to keep my emotions in check.
I had to focus.
Etta was my best friend.
The members of my pack – every single one of them, from my parents down to the Omegas – were my life.
Whoever my mate was, he was not worth losing their lives over.
I slammed into the pale Winterpaw wolf’s left side. As I’d predicated – as I’d hoped – they did not see me coming. Their left eye stared blankly out at the fight, unmoving, unseeing.
I dug my teeth into their jugular and tore out their throat. Beside me, Etta’s chest heaved. ‘Took your time,’ she bit out – and then her eyes widened, as if what I’d said to her earlier had only just registered. ‘You can see in colour,’ she repeated, eyes widening a fraction, before we were both plunged into the battle once more.
We fought onwards. Behind us, the majority of Blue Moon tried to retreat – only to be caught and picked off by Winterpaw’s wolves. My body sagged, my muscles struggling to hold up my weight. Black spots pulsated across my eyes, blurring with my new too-bright, too-red vision. My leg throbbed with every step. My head started to droop.
No! I shook myself. Glum acceptance swept through me. I would not have long to adjust to the colours. If my mate were part of Winterpaw, then I would surely revert to seeing in black and white soon. Grim determination knocked aside the hopelessness that festered in my heart. I would kill him myself if I had to. I would kill him myself, if it would save Blue Moon.
I could never love someone from the Winterpaw Warrior Pack. It would be better to save myself the heartache of ever knowing them.
And then the colours, hazy and blurred with blood loss, turned sharp. My breath settled in my lungs. Heat seeped through my veins, spreading with a rosy, golden light that shimmered and tingled all the way from the top of the scalp to the tip of my toes. I could no longer feel the throb of my wounds, could no longer feel the constant flap of my torn skin slapping against my shoulder as I moved.
I looked up. A black wolf – taller than me, taller even than my Alpha and Luna parents – was staring at me, jaw slack. The wolf’s eyes stared at me helplessly. I knew they were blue because I knew the sky was blue, and they were of a kind, but they were raging and bright and a thousand other things the sky was not. A lopsided white crescent moon marked their forehead, and I squinted at it. I had never seen this wolf before. My breath caught in my throat.
Mate.I was knocked sideways, lost in those blue eyes, distracted and unaware of my surroundings. Claws ripped through my neck. I felt the tear distantly, felt the blood spill down my fur as if from afar. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears, reverberating off my skull.
Then there was silence, and the colours faded to black.
I woke up in the medical centre. Blinking blearily, it took me a while to return to myself. My vision was blurred, hazy streaks of light and dark and other things, colourful things that I could not yet truly recognise, spun together and made my temples throb. There were voices, too. They were gentle, and too quiet to properly hear. It only made the buzzing between my ears worse, and I breathed through the nausea that spiked with it. My hearing felt wrong, as though one ear was stood outside, pressed up against a thick wooden door, and the other was in the room. Then came the pain. I hissed through my teeth, and opened my eyes fully to glare at whoever had knocked me down. It took me another, too-long moment to realise that I was no longer on the battlefield, and that my parents were sat on the edge of the starchy white bed, watching me with worried eyes. Sheer relief nearly knocked me over. They were okay. The talking
Try as I might, I couldn’t get that stupid dream out of my head. I scratched irritably at my chest. It was too tight across my lungs and my idiotic heart was swollen from within with need. Reckless, harmful need. This was a pointless idea and a huge waste of my time. Still, it was my own fault for lying to my parents about my mate, so I sucked it up and shoved my feet into a pair of sneakers before giving myself a quick once-over in the mirror. It felt like a miracle to see my new face. Hard green eyes stared back at me beneath neatly shaped dark brows. My eyelashes fluttered as I traced the curves of my high cheekbones, marvelling at the black crescent they formed upon my brown skin. The sun caught the curls of my black hair, which hung loose down my back. Tucking a flyaway strand behind my ear, staring at the odd translucent colour of my fingernails as I did so, I steeled myself. A muscle feathered in my jaw. I sighed, watching my lips p
“Haile!” cried Dad, a broad grin splitting his face. “Come in, come in.” A knot twisted tighter in my stomach at the warmth in his expression. I was about to ruin everything with the truth. I followed him into their office, pulling up a chair between their desks. Mum was sat behind hers, her shrewd eyes narrowed at a letter. She glanced up at me as I entered, offering me a tight smile before she looked back down at the parchment she held flat against her wooden desk. The office was large and airy. Plants in terracotta pots adorned the wide wooden shelves behind them, and more sat on the coffee table between two small sofas in the corner to the right behind me. Books and rolls of parchment were stacked haphazardly on my father’s side of the office and filed away neatly on my mother’s. As with everywhere I’d been since Medic Brown had finally let me leave the medical centre this morning, I gawped at the colours as I settled myself in my usual seat. The ri
The cart, pulled by four Omega wolves, groaned to a halt. I pulled my cloak tighter around me, eyeing the snow-capped mountains that surrounded us with disdain. No matter what expression I schooled my face into, I couldn’t deny the rapid thumping of my heart. My mate was close. I steeled myself, locking my heart away. I’d shoved down my feelings the second I’d left Blue Moon, holding back tears as my friends and family had held me. Some of the pack had glowered at me from afar, unhappy with my decision even though I had made it for them. They could hate me for leaving; I didn’t care what they thought of me for coming here, so long as they were safe. “We’re here, Young Luna,” said the Warrior Wolf to my left. I’d sworn that I’d not needed such protection, by my parents had insisted that the brawny man beside me, Logan, should accompany me. Though my arrival was agreed upon and we had been granted safe passage through their territory, my parents
My gaze snagged on the blade a half-second before it moved. It glinted in the firelight as the man raised it to my neck. I lifted my leg and kneed him in the groin. He lunged forward, crying out in pain; the knife jabbed into my skin at the base of my throat. I gasped, pressing one palm to the wound and spinning out from beneath the cage of his muscular arms. With a roar that echoed off the stone walls he twisted, catching my wrist and tearing the knife down the front of my dress. I lifted my elbow, knocking him off balance, and swung my fist at his face. My knuckles crunched on impact, but I did not hesitate before slamming it up at his jaw. “You bitch,” he hissed, spitting blood. He loomed over me, backing me up against the door as he worked his jaw. I spotted two rings on a cord around his neck, which his fingertips brushed over as if they afforded him some measure of strength. My pulse thrummed against my neck, pushing hard against the
“Mine,” I whispered, staring up at him with wide eyes. My voice broke, emotion swelling through my body and sending shivers rolling across my skin. The colours in the room flared brighter, centring on the beautiful man stood across from me. His throat bobbed. The world remained quiet, hazy, as we began to move; I did not feel the movement of my muscles or the soles of my boots slapping against the stone floor. He was everything: the sun and the moon and the stars, the earth and the rivers and the sea. My body became nothing more than a means for my soul to meet his in that instant, with fingers yearning to touch and eyes tracing every perfect inch of him. We froze a foot apart. I swallowed hard, my lips parting as I looked up at him. He towered over me, but not in a way that made me feel intimidated. It made me feel safe. Somewhere deep down I knew that feeling was ridiculous, that there was some reason this man, my mate, couldn’t be trusted, but in th
Ares was still smug and amused by the time we reached his room on the very top floor. Even so, my hand had not once left his as we’d rounded the curling staircase. My heart thundered, a traitor in our midst, and my gaze kept snagging on his strong jawline and the whorls of ink peeking out from the top of his shirt. “You wished to thank me?” he purred, dropping his gaze to meet mine. We hovered outside his room, one of his large hands pressed to the door – which was an actual door, made of wood with another ridiculous golden handle, unlike mine – and the other gripping mine, the warmth of it sending tingles down my spine. “For this agreement.” My breath caught in my throat, making my usually unwavering voice came out as a breathy whisper. I could’ve smacked myself. “I don’t see any reason for me to have refused it.” He cocked his head and pursed his full lips. It took everything in me to resist pushing onto my toes and kissing him. “My people get to live in pe
I woke in a haze of dawnlight, streaks of sunshine glinting off the snow outside and spilling in through the uncurtained windows. I snuggled back against the warm body holding me close, an arm resting heavily across my waist. Slowly, carefully, I rolled over, turning to face him. Ares pulled me flush against him, pressing a lazy kiss to the top of my head before his breaths evened out and he tumbled back down into the bliss of early morning dreams. I stared up at him, my lips parted on an exhale as I traced the handsome lines of his face, wanting to commit every beautiful part of him to memory, wanting to burn every inch of him into my brain. His eyelashes formed dark crescents on his cheeks, fluttering slightly and casting pale shadows down his skin. His dark hair was sleep-mussed, tousled down the side of his face and curling by his ears. Unable to resist, I raised a single finger and curved it down the hard edge of his stubbled jaw. He murmured approvingly,
One year later I smoothed my hands down over my thick cloak. Nerves swarmed in my belly: not the dizzying kind that made me feel faint, but the sort that cast a hazy glow over everything as I walked along the winding woodland pathway. Torches flickered every few feet; orange roses of light bloomed across the mossy, dew-damp earth beneath my boots. “Nervous?” asked Dad. “A little.” I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. “It’s silly, I know. There’s nothing to be nervous about. I’ve been his Luna for the last year – longer, really – but this feels…” I trailed off, unsure how to word exactly how it felt. Official? Real? “It’s been such a long time coming, sweetheart.” “Yeah. Part of me wishes we’d done this straight after the battle, but it made sense to wait until the pack was remade.” Unable to help myself, a grin pushed hard at my cheeks. Everything looked beautiful today, I thought, the pine trees bottle-green beneath the golden setting sun. Everything was glazed with the
As everyone took their seats, Ares and I remained standing. I clutched at his hand: it was a physical reminder to everyone there that we were joined, that Winterpaw Warrior and Blue Moon were enemies no longer.I glanced at Ares, letting him take the lead. He swallowed, straightened his shoulders, and then smiled hesitantly around at everyone. The expression looked strange, uncertain, and it took me a moment to realise why. Ares never smiled at people when he addressed them. He led through fear and control. Not anymore, it seemed. My heart swelled.“Thank you all for coming,” he said, projecting his voice clearly and confidently across the room. “Luna Sienna and Alpha Rodriguez, of the Firepaw Pack.” He inclined his head at the dark-skinned woman my dad had been talking to before, and the bald-headed, well-muscled man sat beside her. They were both older than us by about fifteen years.The Alpha and Luna of the Storm Guardian Pack were older still, well into their fifties, their face
Ares had given Dad the nicest of the Warrior Wolves’ cabins to stay in. When we arrived, Ares’s arm still latched securely around my waist as it had been every single step of the way, I saw two other familiar faces peering out at us through the window, their creased faces crinkling with smiles so wide I half feared their tissue paper skin might tear.The wind whipped between the cabins, making my eyes and cheeks sting. Dawn had long since settled across the horizon, pale pink fading into the usual white-grey cloud cover. Everything looked strange out here, unreal in a way I couldn’t quite process. I clutched at Ares, suddenly apprehensive as dad moved to let us in.My nerves dissolved as soon as set foot inside. We were both pulled into an embrace on all sides, many arms winding around us and holding us close.“You did it,” Nana Baspy whispered.I scoffed and, after another long moment, I pulled away. “I don’t think I can take any of the credit, Nana. I wasn’t even conscious for half
The world shattered. For a time, it was nothing more than a series of fragmented images and distant, distorted sounds. I heard screaming, felt the tell-tale burning in my throat, but I couldn’t connect the noise to me. I was weightless, without a body, and then there was nothing but silent darkness.Words I couldn’t understand split apart the quiet. “It’s the other packs,” someone said excitedly. I recognised the voice, familiar enough but not someone I was close to. A hazy, half-formed image of a missing hand and foot beneath determined eyes and wispy blonde hair floated just out of reach, and I gave up trying to identify the mystery voice as they spoke. “Firepaw and Storm Guardian. They made it just in time. We did it! We survived.”No, we didn’t, I thought bitterly. Not all of us.“It’s not over yet.” That growl, gravel and honey – that was Ares. Something in me settled. But why had he shifted into his human body? That thought, along with all my others, drifted away, becoming nothi
We were all so focused on Aliana that none of us heard the quiet tap-tap-tap of claws pacing the stone hallways of the Pack House behind us.And then Scillian smiled. Behind him, the Sable Stalker Alpha and Luna smirked, too, a cruel hook of their lips that made my blood boil; off to the side slightly, Bloodpelt Prowler’s Alpha grinned toothily. They were all so smug, so sure of themselves. So sure that they’d won.“What is this?” Dad asked flatly.“Oh, this?” Scillian brightened impossibly further as he gestured to Aliana. “A game.”“You wouldn’t hurt your own daughter.” Dad sounded less convinced about that than he had a minute ago. “Let her go, and let the battle recommence.”“My daughter is a traitor. And, worse than that: she was running from a fight.” Scillian scoffed. I watched his face closely as he walked, every stride slow and purposeful, towards Aliana. He caressed her cheek, but I looked beyond that. I searched out his eyes through the snowfall, and I found only adoration
I knew, deep down, that this was my last hurrah. I knew, deep down, that if it were not, I would’ve let the pain and the shock hold me back from fighting one last time. My body was weak, but I would not succumb to its needs. This was no ordinary battle, and I had never been one to give up.I felt the pain and let it make me stronger. Adrenaline surged through my veins. I would fight by my mate’s side, and I would try to make it mean something. That was all I could do, now.We neared the Pack House. The tension surrounding it was thick with foreboding; the stillness of the battlefield was somehow worse than when the air had been metallic with spilled blood and the snow melting from the heat of the felled bodies upon it. Now, fresh snow dusted the blood soaked fur of the dead, masking the worst of the atrocities that had been marked upon the land in stark pools of red.Everything was calm. Everything was quiet. Some dark premonition made the back of my neck crawl with the sense that, at
I was numb, inside and out, as I watched. My mind struggled to break free of the overwhelming melancholy, the agony so strong that the only way I could deal with it was to feel nothing at all.The cold helped. A bitter wind whipped between the boulders, sending snowflakes into a flurry. They turned my vision blurry: everything was black and white and grey again, as it had been in the time before Ares. Everything, that was, except for the blood.And there was so much blood.It was start against the pale backdrop of the mist and snow. A physical mark of violence, marring the purity of the white beneath. And, atop its own puddle of red, sat my ear. I shuddered every time my gaze drifted over it; it was the sort of thing I didn’t want to look at but also couldn’t look away from. It was grotesque, torn at a ragged angle, the flesh pink within – My lip curled. It looked so alien to me now, that missing piece of me. I couldn’t imagine how I looked, bloodied and battered, one ear gone. A sn
Claws ripped into me on both sides. I flung Elena off easily enough; she was so small that, even exhausted as I was from hours of adrenaline-fuelled fighting, it didn’t take much effort on my part to dislodge her. Distantly, I heard her pull herself to her paws again. But in this fight, both physically and in the heart of it, she didn’t matter. This was between Etta and I.I winced as Etta’s claws ripped free of my fur and flesh. Blood spat from the wound, hitting the snow and melting the ice surrounding it. I wrenched myself backwards, darting behind the nearest boulder and peering out around it. ‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked – no, I begged.‘I promised myself.’ Her mental voice was nothing like the one I remembered. Etta was often sarcastic and teasing, but there had been a warmth beneath even her cruellest of jokes that had dissipated after Damon’s death. ‘After you left, and after the attacks began. I had to do something for him.’‘Damon and I were friends.’ I edged backwards
I’d made my choice when Ares mindlinked me. He sounded weak and weary, but very much alive. My heart leapt at the familiar sound of his voice, of gravel and honey, loosening the knot that had been pulling my chest taut ever since the battle had begun.‘I had to run, beautiful. There were too many of them, but I managed to get away.’That was all I needed to hear. I turned and shifted into my wolf form, preparing to race across the empty stretch of battlefield that had been left behind the attacking armies as they approached.‘Are you okay?’ I asked. There was one other thing I needed to hear, it turned out.‘I’m fine.’ I was pretty sure he was lying, but if he was well enough to lie then I didn’t have to worry about my mate too much. ‘Are you? What happened with Nazte?’‘Nothing. It was weird.’ I fell forwards, landing on paws and snapping my jaws. ‘He wanted to know how Cendres was. We just… Talked.’The cabin’s front door banged open behind me. I twisted around, catching sight of Na