Chapter One: Blood in My Bones
I died with his name in my mouth.
Not a prayer.
A curse.
They said death was silence. Peace. A gentle drifting into nothing.
They were wrong.
It burned. It clawed. It screamed. My soul ripped from my body like meat from a bone, dragged through shadow and cold and flame.
And when it finally stopped—when I was certain I had disappeared—I woke up in the snow. Bare. Gasping. Alive.
Only it wasn't my body.
The cold stung my skin, but I didn't shiver. I couldn't. My senses were haywire—vision blurring, heartbeat wild, instincts fighting each other like caged wolves.
The air smelled of pine, blood, and winter. And underneath it all, the metallic sting of magic. Old magic.
I tried to sit up and almost screamed.
Pain laced through my spine like I'd been shattered and sewn back together. Maybe I had.
Footsteps crunched nearby. I froze.
Voices. Male. Close.
"What the hell? Is she alive?"
"Looks like a rogue. No scent markers. But she's... breathing."
Panic flared. Not because I feared them.
Because I knew that voice.
Dax Ravenscar.
Silvercrest's Beta.
My enemy. Or at least, he had been.
He was Kael's right hand. The Alpha who watched me die. The mate who let them take me.
I didn't move as boots approached. My fingers twitched in the snow, curling into fists. I could feel the wolf inside me, coiled and furious.
But I stayed still. Let them come.
"Hey," Dax said, kneeling beside me. I saw the moment his expression changed—eyes narrowing, nostrils flaring. Something had clicked.
Not recognition. Not yet. But suspicion.
"She's not a rogue," he muttered. "She smells... wrong. Familiar."
I didn't speak.
"Get her up," he ordered. "Bring her to the Alpha."
The others obeyed. They didn't see me. Not really. To them I was just a stray wolf.
But Dax looked again.
Longer.
Like something about me itched at the edge of his memory.
I let my head loll back. Let my body sag. Inside, I screamed.
Kael.
His name tasted like rust. Like the blood that filled my throat when I died.
If he saw me now, he wouldn't recognize me. But I would recognize him.
And I would kill him.
---
The Silvercrest compound had changed.
New guards. New walls. But the same air of control and fear, masked under ceremony and pride.
They took me to the infirmary. I didn't fight. I let them patch me up, clothe me, question me. I gave them nothing.
"Name?"
I paused.
A name floated in my head, but it didn't feel like mine. It wasn't mine.
My real name would get me killed.
So I answered the only way I could.
"I... I don't know."
The nurse frowned. "Amnesia? Trauma maybe."
Let them believe that.
Let them think I'm just broken.
For now.
"Where are you from?"
I blinked at her. "I don't remember."
She exchanged a glance with the guard at the door.
"She's been through something," the nurse muttered. "Look at the bruises on her back. Deep ones. Old scars too. This wasn't a simple rogue attack."
If only she knew.
She wrote something down. "We'll assign you a temporary name until we sort this out."
I tensed. "I'd rather not—"
"Protocol," she said flatly. "We'll put down Aira. Aira Doe."
There it was. The name again. Floating into the room like smoke.
Aira.
I flinched, but said nothing.
---
That night, I was given a cot in a room with barred windows. Not a cell. But not freedom, either.
I sat awake, staring at the moon.
The full moon.
It called to me. Sang through my bones.
I remembered the last time I shifted—how the pain bloomed and the power surged.
I wondered if it would be different now. In this body.
This stolen body.
I didn't ask how I got here. I already knew.
Thalia.
The witch who walked the line between prophecy and madness. She must have done this. Pulled me from death. Bound me to this vessel.
Why?
What did she want in return?
A knock. Soft. Hesitant.
I turned. My door creaked open. Dax stepped inside.
I stiffened.
"Couldn't sleep," he said. "Mind if I sit?"
I didn't answer. He sat anyway.
He studied me. Not with hunger. Not with suspicion.
With curiosity.
"You moved like a warrior today," he said quietly. "Even half-dead in the snow."
I didn't move.
"Your eyes... they're silver. Not common. Not in our territory."
He waited for me to speak. I didn't.
He sighed and stood.
"You don't smell like a rogue. You don't speak like one either."
His hand went to the door.
"Who are you, really?"
I didn't reply. Couldn't.
Because the truth was a blade, and I wasn't ready to draw it.
But as he left, I saw the way his shoulders stiffened.
He knew.
Not everything.
But enough to start digging.
---
Later that night, I dreamed.
Not of my death.
Of something else.
Where am I?
Why does my skin feel wrong?
She's breathing. But I'm not. I'm... inside?
No. I'm under.
She took it. My hands. My name. My breath.
I want out.
The voice echoed like wind through trees, like water dripping in an endless cave. I couldn't place it.
But it hated me.
---
I woke with a gasp.
And for a moment, I didn't know who was breathing—me, or her.
I lay there, frozen. Listening.
The wind howled through the cracks in the stone. My heartbeat thudded like a drum in my ears. I wasn't alone. Not really. Something inside this body did not belong to me. Or maybe I didn't belong to it.
I ran my hands over my arms. The skin was unfamiliar. Softer. The wrists thinner. Even the curve of my jaw felt alien when I brushed it with trembling fingers.
This wasn't just resurrection.
It was possession.
And I wasn't the only one doing the possessing.
---
A meal came. Bread. Stew. Water.
I forced myself to eat. My body craved it, even if I didn't feel hunger the same way.
After, I tested my limbs. Muscles tighter than mine had been. Longer fingers. Pale skin, dusted with freckles. I searched for scars, marks—anything.
Nothing I recognized.
But one thing was clear: whoever this girl had been, she'd been strong. Her wolf still stirred beneath the surface, confused, unsure, but alive.
And I had to keep pretending.
Because soon, Kael would see me.
And if I flinched—if I slipped—he'd know.
He'd know the Luna he buried wasn't finished with him yet.
---
The next morning, a guard led me through the stone corridors of Silvercrest Keep. I counted every step, memorized every turn. The place had changed—but the bones of it were still familiar.
When we stopped at a heavy door, the guard knocked once.
A voice inside said, "Send her in."
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Kael.
I stepped inside.
The room was dim, sunlight filtering through narrow windows. Books lined the walls. Maps. Swords mounted above the hearth.
And there he stood.
Taller than I remembered. Shoulders broader. Face colder. He turned slowly, his eyes landing on mine.
Storm-gray. Unchanged.
He didn't recognize me.
Not yet.
"You're the one they found in the Pines," he said.
I nodded, careful. Silent.
He stepped closer, slow and deliberate, like a predator sizing up prey. He circled me once, then stopped in front of me.
"No name, no pack, no scent lineage. No answers."
I held his gaze. "I'm not a threat."
He tilted his head. "Funny. You feel like one."
His voice dropped lower.
"I've felt this before."
I didn't move.
He leaned in just slightly, eyes narrowing.
"Who are you?"
And for one breathless second, I almost told him.
Almost.
But the voice inside me screamed.
Not yet.
So I looked him dead in the eye.
And lied.
"No one."
His eyes flickered.
And then he said, "You can leave. But I'll be watching."
As I turned to go, the door opened—and Dax stood there, eyes sharp.
He looked at Kael.
Then at me.
And then he said something that made my blood run cold.
"She's not who she says she is."
Kael's voice was quiet.
"Explain."
Dax looked at me again. "Her scent. Her stance. Her voice. It's wrong. Too trained. Too... familiar."
Kael said nothing.
Dax took a step forward. His gaze burned.
"She moves like a Luna."