Isla's POV
The moon hung in the sky like an open wound. It was red and swollen, and it would not stop watching me. It never stopped watching on nights like this. The blood moon had always been my enemy. It pulled at my wolf, made her restless, and made her ache to break free. Tonight, she was screaming.
I ran through the empty streets of the human city with bare feet that had forgotten what shoes felt like. The pavement was cold against my soles, rough and unforgiving. I felt every crack, every pebble, and every piece of broken glass I had to dodge. My breath came in sharp gasps, and my lungs burned.
The night air smelled like rain and garbage and something that made my wolf stir beneath my skin. She was clawing to get out, and scratching at the walls I had built inside myself. I pushed her down like i always did, but tonight it felt almost impossible.
I had been hiding for twelve years.
Twelve years of keeping my head down and my mouth shut. Twelve years of burying my wolf so deep inside me that I almost believed she did not exist anymore. I worked nights at a small clinic in the worst part of the city. I patched up wolves who could not go to their packs. Wolves like me with nowhere else to go, and with secrets carved into their bones.
I knew their secrets because I had my own.
But tonight, the blood moon had come, and the blood on my hands was not mine.
I looked down at my fingers as I ran. They were red and sticky and still warm. The man I had been treating, the human man, he had been alive an hour ago. He had been sitting on my exam table, complaining about a sprained wrist. He had been laughing at something I said. I did not even remember what I said.
Then the wolves came.
There were three of them. They were big and strong, their shoulders broad, and their eyes were glowing yellow in the dark. I knew before they spoke that they were Wolves from Sierra Luna. My father's pack. The pack that had thrown me away when I was only thirteen years old.
They killed him before I could move.
One of them, who seems to be the leader, snapped the human's neck like it was nothing. Like he was nothing. The sound was wet and sharp, like breaking a branch. The man's body hit the floor with a thud. I would hear that sound until the day I died.
I ran.
I ran through streets I knew like the back of my hand. I had walked these streets for twelve years. I knew every alley, every fire escape, and every shadow where a person could hide. I weaved between buildings and ducked into doorways. I tried to remember how to be invisible. I had been invisible for so long. Why could I not find it now?
But the blood moon was rising, and my wolf was waking up. I could feel my father's Wolves messengers behind me. Their paws were silent on the pavement, but I heard their breathing. I heard the soft pads of their feet, as their breath fogged in the cold air. Their howls echoed off the walls, bouncing between the buildings, and surrounding me from every direction.
They were catching up to me, and I knew it.
I could have run faster if i shifted, and I could have fought. My wolf was strong, stronger than they knew. But if I shifted, every wolf in a hundred miles would feel her. They would know where I was. They would come for me, and I had spent twelve years making sure no one felt her.
So I ran until I could not run anymore.
My legs were burning, my chest was heaving, and my bare feet were bleeding. I stumbled into an alley behind a closed bakery. The smell of human bread still hung in the air, warm and soft, and the scent almost felt like my everyday normal life. The life I had built with my own two hands, brick by brick, lie by lie, was about to crumble before my eyes.
The three wolves circled me. Their bodies shifted, bones cracked, and fur receded. In seconds, they stood before me as men. They were naked and bloodied from the kill.
Their Alpha stepped forward, and i recognized him. I had not seen his face in twelve years, but I knew him.
His name was Marco. He had been a guard when I was a child. He had watched them whip me until my back was raw. He had watched them drag me to the border and push me across. He had stood there as I fell to my knees in the dirt, bleeding and alone. And now he stood before me with my blood still drying on his hands.
"Rafael Torres is dying," he said.
His voice was flat, and there was no emotion in it. He sounded like he was reading a grocery list. He did not care that he was telling me my father was dying. He did not care that I had not heard that name in twelve years.
"He demands your return."Marco continued.
I said nothing. My chest was heaving, my legs were shaking, and my hands were still wet with the blood of the man they had killed. But I said nothing.
Marco stepped closer.
"You will come willingly," he said, "or we will drag your broken body before him. Choose."
I thought about fighting. I thought about dying right there in that alley. I thought about letting my wolf out for the first time in twelve years, and I thought about going down with teeth and claws and fury. At least then, I would die as myself, and as a wolf. Not as a prisoner, or a pawn.
But Marco was not finished.
"He has already signed the marriage contract," he said.
Something cold settled in my stomach. It was heavy and sharp, like swallowing ice.
"You are to be the Luna of Valdoro. Refuse, and your father's pack will be absorbed by the Reyes Alpha. Every wolf you grew up with will become his property. Every family, every child, and every memory you have of that place."
I had not heard my father's name in twelve years. I had told myself he was dead to me. I had told myself I did not care what happened to him. But my heart still clenched at the sound of his name. The man who threw me away was dying. The man who chose exile over protecting me was dying, and I could not decide if I wanted to watch or walk away.
My hands lowered.
The blood moon hung overhead, red and swollen. It watched me like an eye. I looked at Marco's face, that face I had known since I was a child. The face of a man who had watched me suffer and done nothing.
My voice came out steady.
"Then let's go meet my husband."
Marco stepped forward and put silver cuffs on my hands and lead me to a waiting car.
