Page 4 of Marked By Moonlight
“No!”
I reach for a weapon—anything I can use to stop the attack long enough for Kael to make a run for it.
I grab a rock and throw it at the gray wolf’s head. It hits him hard enough that he turns his attention back on me.
“Run!” I yell at Kael as I begin running in the direction of our home, hoping that Father or one of the other Wintermoon wolves will be there to save us.
“Help!” I shout at the top of my lungs, hoping some of their superior wolf listening kicks in enough to hear me.
I feel the wolf’s breath hot on my heels. His teeth snap too close for comfort as I jump over a fallen branch.
I don’t know which pack this wolf is from, but he’s clearly messing with me and enjoying the chase. He could have takenme down in one leap the second he saw me. He’s much faster, stronger, and has far more power than I do.
Suddenly, I see the clearing that leads to our home. I feel guilty for bringing danger to our home, but I don’t have a choice if I want to stay alive.
I run faster, needing all of my speed, but it’s an error. My foot catches on a rock, and I fall hard onto the ground. A stabbing throb shoots through my wrists as I catch the weight of my body on the ground. I prepare to be ripped to pieces—slowly and painfully.This is how I die.
A familiar growl echoes through the forest, and my heart eases as a comforting smile reaches my cheeks—Father.
Before I can stand up, I hear teeth ripping into fur and the familiar clash of claws battling it out above me. I have no doubt that my father will win. He’s an alpha, and as far as I could tell, the gray wolf was a lone wolf without any position of power.
I sit up and begin scanning the woods for Kael as two more members of our pack join my father. My father howls, drawing my attention back to him as he stands over the fallen wolf. The fight is over in seconds.
I sit on the grass, wrapping my arms around my legs, and take a deep breath.
I’m safe.
I quickly stumble to my feet, needing to ensure that Kael is okay.
“He’s fine,” Tavian, our beta, says.
I stop dead in my tracks as I see Kael in his arms with a deep gash on his side.
“He doesn’t look fine.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t left the safety of the pack, then he wouldn’t have gotten attacked,” Tavian says.
I open my mouth to respond when I feel my father’s eyes on me. He’s shifted back into a human, and he stands nakedbefore me. I keep my eyes focused on his face—something I’ve honed over the years. I refuse to see anything I don’t want to see on a family member or friend. His jet-black hair is peppered with grays, and his eyes are a deep brown. I have no clue who I inherited my ivory tresses or my blue eyes from. I look nothing like my father, and my mother died in childbirth. But from what my father told me, she had blonde hair and green eyes.
My father always said it was because I was born in the middle of a snow storm and so the gods gifted me with the beauty of the color of snow. It’s where my name comes from anyway. But I’m not a believer in the gods gifting us anything after the curse they bestowed on us.
I wait for his disappointment to befall me. I’m not supposed to leave the safety of our home at night, especially not during a full moon when the other shifters’s strength will be at their highest. We are most vulnerable to an attack on nights like these, and this isn’t the first attack we’ve had.
He sighs and offers his hand to me. He pulls me into a gentle hug; his gaze is filled with a sad determination. He’s decided something tonight under the full moon, and I know it will be final. I’ll have to accept whatever he says, as he’s the alpha and I’m not.
“You and Kael are going to leave the pack. You’re going to live as humans. You’re going to forget about us—about the curse. You’re going to be happy.”
Chapter 2
Lumi
“What?” My heart stops as I look at my stone-faced father. There is no wavering in his eyes, no emotion. He’s clearly been considering this for a while. Tonight, he made his decision, and it’s final.
I still can’t believe I heard him correctly. This can’t be true. He’s never even hinted at wanting me and Kael to leave. Surely, he’s simply sending me to get help, to find a way to break the curse. He doesn’t really want me to leave and never return.
But my father doesn’t repeat himself. He ignores my question and starts heading back toward our house through the clearing. I follow, hot on his heels. I need a lot more answers from him as he opens and shuts the door to our small two-bedroom, two-bathroom cabin.
It has a small, rustic feel with large windows—designed to let as much of the nature surrounding us into our home. It doesn’t provide much protection against an outside attack.
