Smoke.
Thick. Suffocating. It clung to her lungs like shackles, making every breath a punishment. Flames cracked and spat around her, devouring the timber walls of the village she once called home. Her hands—blistered and bound—were stretched above her head, tied to a splintering execution post soaked with oil.
The fire crept closer.
Seraphina didn't scream.
Not anymore.
She had screamed when they tore her from her grandmother's cottage. When the villagers, faces twisted with hate and fear, called her witch. When the boy she once loved—the boy who promised forever—threw the first stone.
But now?
Now she stared into the inferno and felt... nothing.
Only betrayal.
Only silence.
And a single, whispered promise in her heart:
"If I ever return, I will never love again."
As the flames licked her skin and the stars disappeared in a curtain of smoke, Seraphina felt something twist—deep, ancient. The pain gave way to a strange cold, a darkness darker than death.
A whisper echoed in her skull. Not her voice.
> "Would you trade your soul to be reborn? To make them all bleed?"
Yes.
The word thundered silently inside her chest.
Yes.
The world shattered.
---
She didn't know how long she drifted.
There was no sky. No light. Only a void that stretched in all directions—empty, waiting.
Then something pulled her.
No, someone.
A voice—low, dangerous, intoxicating.
> "She's mine. Marked by death, born in blood. She will rise… as my Luna."
---
Seraphina woke screaming.
But the air around her wasn't smoke.
It was cold.
Icy wind bit at her bare skin as she shot upright in a bed of snow. The trees around her were tall, blackened by frost, and the moon above hung full and red like a bleeding eye. Her heart slammed wildly in her chest.
She touched her face. Her hands. Her neck.
She was whole. Alive.
Young.
No scars.
She stumbled to her feet, trembling. Her skin was pale as moonlight, her long dark hair wild around her shoulders, and her nightdress—an unfamiliar, silken thing—clung to her curves as if tailored by magic.
"What the hell…"
A distant howl cut through the trees.
Then another.
Then... silence.
Until a deep, guttural growl emerged from behind her.
Seraphina spun around.
A wolf.
Massive. Black as shadows, eyes glowing crimson. Its breath curled into the air in white tendrils. It stalked toward her with predatory grace, each step deliberate. Not just an animal. No... something more.
Its eyes were too human.
Too knowing.
"Stay back," she whispered, stepping back.
The wolf snarled once, then shifted.
Bones cracked. Muscles reshaped. The beast collapsed forward—and rose as a man.
Naked. Towering. Muscular. His skin glowed under the moonlight, and long black hair framed his chiseled face. But it was his eyes that held her frozen—those same blood-red eyes from the wolf.
And the mark on his chest—an ancient sigil glowing like a curse—called to something inside her.
He stepped forward.
"You finally woke up."
His voice was deep and rough like gravel soaked in velvet.
Seraphina tried to move, but her legs refused.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The man tilted his head. "Lucien Thorne. Alpha of the Midnight Howl Pack."
He stopped just before her. Not touching her, but close enough for her breath to hitch.
"And you," he said, his eyes narrowing, "are my mate."