Chapter 3 The moon remembera

You don't forget your first transformation.

You can bury it under work, whiskey, silence-but the memory always finds its way back, like blood rising to the surface of a wound you thought had healed.

For me, it happened on my twenty-first birthday. I woke up half-naked and screaming in a thicket six miles outside of Hollow's Edge, covered in mud and dried blood that wasn't mine. I'd torn through barbed wire, shattered a streetlamp, and left claw marks on my father's gravestone. No one told me it was coming. No warning. No whispers. Just a legacy buried deep in my DNA and a full moon that didn't care about excuses.

I'd thought I was cursed.

But now, with Eira asleep on my couch, bruised and bleeding but breathing, I was starting to think it might've been something else.

A warning.

The rogue wolf was still out there, and we were running out of time.

The town was pretending everything was fine.

That's what Hollow's Edge did best-play dumb. Denial was stitched into our soil. Even with Tom's death and rumors of missing pets and strange sounds in the night, folks still smiled in the grocery store and said things like, "We've had worse." Like the darkness wasn't licking their heels.

I spent the morning reinforcing the garage-silver wiring at the windows, old wolfbane stashed from years ago, a double lock on the cage in the basement. Eira helped when she could, though I could tell her ribs were bothering her. The rogue had thrown her hard.

She didn't complain once.

When I offered her painkillers, she laughed. "I've had worse," she said, echoing the town like it was some kind of private joke.

I didn't press.

Instead, I asked, "Where did you learn to fight like that?"

She hesitated. The question made her still in a way that wasn't just about physical pain.

"My mother," she said finally. "She was a witch. A real one. Not the potion-seller kind. Blood magic. Bone magic."

"And your father?"

She didn't answer. Just pulled the zipper up on her jacket.

I didn't ask again.

That night, we sat on the garage roof, watching the treeline breathe.

Eira nursed a flask, something herbal and bitter by the smell. I stuck to coffee. The night was cool, and the stars were sharp above us, cutting through the black sky like broken glass.

"How do you deal with it?" she asked, not looking at me. "The wolf."

I thought about lying. About shrugging it off with a sarcastic comment or some rugged silence. But the truth was... I didn't deal with it. I survived it.

"Chains," I said. "And guilt."

She nodded. "That tracks."

"You?"

"Same."

I raised an eyebrow. "You shift too?"

"No," she said. "But I've been hunted by enough of your kind to know the look in your eyes."

I turned toward her. "My kind?"

"Not werewolves. Survivors."

I wasn't sure whether that was supposed to comfort me or put me on edge. Maybe both.

"What do you want from this?" I asked. "Why are you here?"

She was quiet a long time.

"Something brought me here," she said. "I don't know what yet. But I'm not leaving until I find it."

The rogue attacked again two nights later.

This time, it wasn't a pet or a loner. It was a family.

I got the call around midnight. Sheriff Maddox's voice crackled over my radio like thunder. He didn't say much, but I could hear it in his tone-the panic was starting to slip through.

The family lived near the east ridge-two kids, mom, and dad. Only the youngest survived. Eight years old. Found in the laundry room, clutching a kitchen knife and rocking back and forth.

The rest? Torn apart.

Eira and I arrived just after the deputies cleared out. Maddox didn't see us. We stayed in the trees, downwind.

The scent hit me like a fist. Blood. Feces. Hair. Fear.

"This was rage," Eira whispered. "This wasn't just hunger."

I nodded. "It's not feeding. It's sending a message."

She turned to me. "To you."

The thought chilled me in a way the night air couldn't. Was the rogue taunting me? Trying to draw me out? Or worse-trying to frame me?

I scanned the tracks again. This time, they were deeper. Closer together. Wounded.

"You hurt it," I said. "Your knife-it slowed him."

Eira nodded. "But not enough."

I stood and stared at the woods.

"Then we finish it."

The next day, the town cracked.

Sheriff Maddox posted armed men along the town square. People stopped pretending. Doors were double-locked. Kids were pulled from school. The church held vigils. The diner offered free meals to grieving families.

And me? People stopped meeting my eyes.

Whispers followed me like ghosts. "Wasn't he always a little... strange?" "Never seen him at church." "Doesn't he live near the woods?"

I could feel the walls closing in. Suspicion. Fear. Desperation.

It wouldn't take much to tip them over.

"You need to leave," I told Eira that night, while we packed gear.

She stopped coiling silver wire and stared at me. "Excuse me?"

"If they come after me, that's one thing. But you-"

"Don't tell me how to survive, Ronan."

"This isn't your fight."

"Maybe not. But I'm in it now."

I clenched my jaw. "If I lose control-"

"I'll stop you."

I laughed bitterly. "You think you can?"

She stepped closer. Her voice was calm, but sharp enough to cut.

"I know I can."

I looked into her eyes. She meant it.

God help me-I believed her.

That night, we hunted.

We waited until the moon was high-gibbous, not full, but still strong enough to stir something deep. We followed the old game trails, moving in near silence, weapons strapped to our backs. I didn't shift. Not fully. But I let the wolf rise halfway. Enough to track. Enough to smell.

We didn't speak.

The forest swallowed sound. The leaves didn't rustle. Even the crickets were silent.

Then we heard it.

A low growl-wet and wrong. A snarl that twisted up from somewhere in the trees ahead.

We moved fast.

The rogue exploded from the brush like a freight train.

He was taller than me. Broader. Covered in thick matted fur, but with patches missing-revealing pale, scarred skin beneath. His eyes were yellow and burning. His jaw snapped open, revealing too many teeth. Blood coated his claws.

I didn't think-I lunged.

We hit the ground hard, rolling in a mess of limbs and snarls. He was strong-stronger than I expected. But I had control. I was fighting with instinct and purpose. He was chaos.

I drove my elbow into his ribs, then slammed his head into a tree root.

Eira struck from behind-her silver blade slicing across his thigh. The rogue howled and thrashed, catching her in the ribs with a backhand that sent her flying.

I roared and tackled him again, this time pinning his throat.

And then-he spoke.

Through broken, bubbling lips. Words barely human.

"You're too late."

I froze.

He grinned, blood in his teeth.

"They're coming."

"Who?" I growled.

"Pack."

And then he bit down-hard-on something in his own wrist.

I felt the pulse of magic before I saw it.

His body twisted. Not into a shift-into dust. Bone cracked, fur burned, and his flesh withered, collapsing into ash in seconds.

I stumbled back, breath catching.

Eira crawled over, bleeding but alert.

"What the hell was that?" she gasped.

"He burned himself out," I muttered. "Magic-suicide spell."

"To keep us from getting answers."

I nodded, heart pounding.

"He said the pack is coming."

"Yours?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"No," I whispered. "His."