Clara’s POV The moon rose red. Not crimson like blood, but deep — glowing like molten iron against the black sky. The light spilled through the curtains, painting everything in the room in shades of scarlet and gold. It shouldn’t have been beautiful, but it was. Terrifyingly beautiful. I woke with a sharp pain low in my abdomen, so sudden it stole my breath. For a heartbeat, I thought it was nothing — just another sleepless night. But then the second wave came, stronger, deliberate, like the world itself had clenched its fists around me. My hands gripped the sheets. My pulse stuttered. It was time. “Martin,” I breathed, voice trembling but sure. He was already awake. The moonlight had stirred him long before my voice did. He sat up instantly, the old Alpha instincts snapping into focus. His hand found mine, grounding, steady. “It’s starting,” I whispered, pressing my forehead to his chest. He exhaled through his nose, calm but tense. “I know.” Outside, the night had changed.
Martin’s POV The Elder’s words sat heavy in my chest long after she left. “The child will not just inherit power. It will change what power means.” I repeated it over and over in my mind as I walked through the rain-soaked courtyard, my boots sinking slightly into the mud. The sky above was grey and heavy, clouds pressing low as if the heavens themselves were listening. For the first time in years, I felt small. Not as an Alpha, not as a man — but as someone who didn’t fully understand what he was meant to protect. Elder Rowan’s cottage sat at the far edge of the territory, past the old chapel ruins and the line of pine trees that marked the border of our land. She’d lived there for decades — half healer, half prophet, entirely impossible to read. When I reached her door, I hesitated for a moment before knocking. “Enter, Alpha,” her voice came before my hand even touched the wood. Of course. She’d felt me coming. The door creaked open, revealing the dim glow of candles and th
Clara’s POVThe morning light came soft and golden, spilling through the curtains like honey. For a moment, it felt like the world itself was trying to apologize for how cruel it had once been. The house was silent except for the rhythmic sound of Martin’s steady breathing beside me.I should’ve been calm. Happy, even. But something felt… off.I sat up slowly, resting my hand against the curve of my stomach. The heartbeat beneath my palm wasn’t just mine anymore—it was stronger now, pulsing with a quiet rhythm that felt ancient. The air around me seemed to hum faintly when I touched it, like the whole room was listening.I shook my head, trying to laugh it off. “You’re just imagining things, Clara,” I whispered to myself. “Hormones, not magic.”Still, the feeling didn’t go away.Downstairs, the smell of freshly baked bread filled the air. Isreal, of course. I smiled, tugged on Martin’s shirt, and made my way to the kitchen.He was there, barefoot, hair a mess, humming off-key as he pu
Martin’s POVThe Weight of Prophecy. The night air was sharp, carrying the smell of wet earth and pine. I walked away from the house quietly, leaving behind the flickering lantern light that spilled through our window. Clara was asleep—or at least pretending to be. She’d been doing that lately, breathing evenly with her back to me while I lay beside her, both of us pretending that silence was the same thing as peace.I couldn’t sleep either. Not with the Elders’ words echoing in my head.“The child carries the mark of balance. Where blood has fallen, life will rise—but if the scale tips too far, even the moon will weep.”Rowan had said it in that calm, unsettling tone of his, the kind that made it impossible to tell whether he was giving a blessing or a warning.The forest opened before me as I walked, moonlight painting the ground in silver ribbons. Every sound—the chirp of insects, the snap of branches—felt amplified, as if the world was listening too.When I reached the old stone c
Clara’s POVI knew peace couldn’t last forever.It never does—not for wolves, not for people like me.At first, I tried to ignore it—the strange looks, the way conversations paused when I entered a room, the way mothers held their pups closer when I passed. But you can’t ignore energy. You can’t un-feel fear when it’s thick enough to taste in the air.Martin tried to hide it, but I saw the tension in his jaw each time he came back from a council meeting. His scent changed—less cedar and calm, more steel and smoke. The Alpha in him was stirring again, caught between defending his mate and protecting his pack.And I…I was caught between the woman I was and whatever I was becoming.The first time it happened again, it was midday. I was in the training yard, watching the younger wolves spar. The sun was hot, the ground dry, and for a brief, golden second, I forgot everything—the prophecies, the whispers, even the fear.Then I heard it.A sound like a bell—but not from this world.It star
Martin’s POVThe change was subtle at first.The kind you’d miss if you weren’t a wolf, if your senses hadn’t been sharpened by years of reading the world through instinct instead of logic.The pack still smiled. They still trained, hunted, and laughed in the courtyard. But beneath that, something had shifted—an unease crawling through the air like static before a storm.I could smell it in the halls.Fear.Not of war or hunger… but of her.Clara.Every time she walked by, wolves fell quiet. Some bowed their heads in reverence, others looked away quickly as if ashamed of the reverence itself. The bond between us hummed with power these days; it was stronger than ever, but it also carried a weight that pressed against the edges of who I was.I had seen the light in her before, but that night—the night of the hum—it was different. When her body glowed like gold fire and the whole pack knelt… even I felt it. Not just love. Not just awe. But the instinctive submission of a wolf to somethi