Chapter One: The Wrong Kind of Moonlight
She ran.
The forest blurred—roots snagging her feet, the cold biting at her legs, branches clawing at her dress like they didn't want to let go. Like the past wasn't done with her yet.
Her breath came in ragged gasps. Too loud. Too human.
This was supposed to be the night everything changed.
Nineteen. The Awakening Moon. The moment the bond snapped into place and your soul found its match.
Instead, Lucian had looked her dead in the eye—and cut the cord.
"I reject you."
Four words. Just that. No tremble. No hesitation.
Like she was something the Moon had gotten wrong.
Her legs burned, but she didn't stop. Couldn't. Not when everything inside her was coming undone. The cold had stopped bothering her miles ago. The numbness was deeper now—bone-deep. Wolf-deep.
Except there was no wolf. Never had been.
No shift. No silver fur. No voice inside her mind calling her home.
Just silence. And shame.
She tripped down a slope, skidded through a mess of wet leaves, and slammed her hand against a moss-slick tree to catch herself. Bark sliced her palm. She barely felt it.
Let them talk. Let them say she ran because she was weak.
They'd be right.
She didn't stop until she hit the border. The old stones—half-sunken, half-forgotten—marked the edge of the only rule no one dared break.
His land.
Vampire territory.
A stupid place to die. But then again, loving Lucian had been pretty damn stupid too.
The air changed the second she crossed.
Sharper. Heavier. Like stepping into a held breath.
The trees grew differently here. Taller. Still. Like they'd been watching for centuries and were finally paying attention.
That's when she felt it.
Not a sound. Not a breeze. Just… a pressure. Low and sudden. Like gravity decided it had claws.
She stopped. Her pulse stalled.
And then a shadow peeled away from the trees.
Tall. Still. Watching.
And then he stepped into a slant of moonlight.
She'd heard stories—everybody had—but none of them did him justice.
He wasn't just beautiful. He was wrongly beautiful. Like something carved from ruin and regret. Dark hair. Skin pale like candlewax. And those eyes—glacial and merciless, like frostbite given form.
"You are in my territory," he said.
The words slid out soft and low, smooth as silk over steel. Not loud. Not threatening.
Just… final.
Eva couldn't speak. Her breath was stuck somewhere between her ribs and her spine. Her heart stuttered once, twice.
He stepped forward.
Not close, but close enough for the air to shift.
His eyes flicked to her face, then—abruptly—past her shoulder. Something had changed. She felt it, too.
Another presence. Just out of sight.
Before she could turn, he was gone.
No sound. No blur of motion. Just—vanished. Like the night swallowed him whole.
The space he left behind throbbed like a bruise.
That was when she heard the footsteps. Small. Rushed. Human.
A girl stumbled into view. No older than Eva. Breathless. Wide-eyed.
"You shouldn't be here," the girl whispered, glancing over her shoulder like something might follow.
Eva said nothing. Couldn't.
Her voice was somewhere buried beneath the ache, under the fear, beneath the part of her that had cracked wide open back at that bonfire. The part that should've died when Lucian said no.
But it hadn't.
It was still in there. Shifting. Stirring.
And this land—the cold, cursed, too-quiet land—
It was calling to it…
Eva followed the girl.
Because she had no plan. No idea what came next. Only that her legs were still moving and the forest behind her felt full of teeth.
The stranger led her fast and low across the underbrush, ducking branches with the ease of someone who belonged here. Every step away from the border made Eva feel heavier, like the trees were threading her limbs with iron.
They came upon a narrow path carved between rows of blackened oaks. At the end of it, tucked behind a rise of stone and vine, stood a house—or what looked like one.
It was massive. Mansion wasn't the right word. This place was too old, too quiet, too deliberate.
Blackthorn Manor.
Eva didn't know its name yet. But something in her bones did.
"Stay quiet," the girl hissed, brushing her apron down and fixing her wind-blown hair. "The head steward hates strays."
She knocked twice on the servant's entrance, then again, faster.
After a long pause, the door creaked open. A sharp-eyed woman peered out. Her gaze scanned Eva like she was a stain.
"What's this?"
"She's strong," the girl said quickly. "Fast on her feet. We need more hands. Three maids down. One broke her ankle. The ball—"
"—is in five hours," the woman snapped. "I know."
A long pause.
"What's your name?"
Eva opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
The woman clicked her tongue. "Doesn't matter. Get inside before someone with fangs sees you."
Eva stepped over the threshold.
Not because it was safe. Not because it was smart.
But because something in her had curled inward, gone still—and movement was the only thing keeping it from breaking completely.
---
Inside, Blackthorn was madness. Polished floors. Velvet drapes. Walls taller than most houses. And everywhere, people in crisp black uniforms rushing past like the world was on fire and only they could put it out.
Eva was handed a bundle of black and white cloth—rough linen, frayed at the edges.
"Uniform," someone muttered. "Silver team. Dining hall polishers."
She didn't ask questions. Just changed in the shadows of a pantry and joined a line of girls scrubbing down cutlery like their lives depended on it.
Maybe they did.
---
That night, she served bloodwine to vampires who never looked at her. Not really.
She was nothing to them.
A body. A shape. A blur in the corner of a gilded nightmare.
No one noticed her. Not even Lord Blackthorn.
But someone had.
And somewhere, beyond the manor walls, the moon hung too low and too bright.
Like it was waiting for something to go terribly, wonderfully wrong.