Chapter 1 Blood Rebirth

Serena’s POV

The moon looked wrong.

It just hung in the sky like something shallow and without joy. It seemed really dark and gloomy, even though it was bright in the place. There was fire all over the forest. Screams split the darkness, but my eyes kept dragging upward, stuck on that ugly color in the sky.

This was the end. We were all going to die.

“Serena!”

Somebody yelled my name, but the noise and distractions swallowed it. Alarms wailed, way too late. Watchtowers along the east border burned down, one by one, as the rogues stormed through the breach. My lungs burned from the smoke. There was blood spilled all over the ground, and it made my boots slick.

The border was gone.

I ran anyway.

Branches whipped my arms as I tore through the brush, heart pounding so hard I thought it would rip right out of me. I had warned the council about this and they had blown off my warnings weeks ago... said the patrols were solid, said the rogues wouldn’t dare try anything like this.

They were dead wrong.

A rogue jumped at me, knife glinting in the moonlight. I ducked, twisted, and slammed my elbow into his throat. He gasped, stumbled, and I shoved my blade into his ribs without even thinking.

My hands shook when I yanked it back out.

No mate. No Alpha’s strength to borrow. I didn’t have a mate bond to keep me steady.

Still, I fought.

“Move! Get them out!” I yelled, voice cracking. “Now!”

The pups huddled right where I had told them to hide... wedged under the roots of a giant old oak, eyes big and scared. Six of them, all orphans. None of them is old enough to shift right.

They looked at me like I was the last solid thing left in a world falling apart.

“Serena,” one whispered.

“I’ve got you,” I said, even though my wolf inside me was panicking, wild with fear. 

“Just like we practiced. Stay low. When I say go, you go,” I ordered them with my stern face, not giving them a hint of the fear I was feeling. 

I wasn’t supposed to be here. I wasn’t a commander. Not Luna. Just the Alpha’s daughter... the quiet one. The one everyone ignored. The girl who trained pups at dawn, out of sight, because nobody thought it mattered.

Tonight, it mattered more than anything.

Another explosion shook the woods. Warriors fell back, pushed to their limits. The rogues moved like they knew every step.

This wasn’t a raid.

This was a fucking massacre.

“Where is the Alpha?” someone screamed close by. “Where’s Kael?”

My heart twisted with something I just couldn't comprehend. 

Kael should have been here.

Alpha King Kael, my mate. Even if he never claimed me. Even if he never looked at me the way mates are supposed to. The bond was there, faint under my ribs, a promise that never figured out how to keep itself.

He should have been here.

I pushed the pups toward a narrow ravine hidden with brush. 

“Go. Now. Run and don’t stop,” I yelled. 

They hesitated.

“I’ll hold them off,” I lied.

They ran.

The rogues found me fast.

Steel clashed. Hot pain ripped across my arm. I didn’t scream. I spun, slashed, and clawed, fighting with everything I had. My wolf gave me her rage, her terror, her need to survive.

But I was just one.

And there were too many.

A blade punched into my side. Another slashed my thigh. My knees gave out, and the ground tilted as everything went crooked.

But I kept looking past them.

I kept listening.

For him.

Kael will come, I told myself, dropping to one knee. He has to. He is the Alpha. He’s my mate.

The bond flickered, barely there, like a star choking out.

Suddenly, someone threw me back. My spine crashed against a tree. Something crunched. Pain shot through me, sharp and electric. My sword slipped away, useless.

A rogue hovered over me, grinning.

Then chaos, fangs, blood, screaming.

My brother.

He burst in, shifting mid-air, smashing into the rogue with wild strength. He was just a kid. Too young for this. Too young to die. He ripped the man’s throat out, spun to me, eyes wild and desperate.

“Serena...”

Another rogue hit him from behind.

I screamed his name.

He staggered, then dropped next to me, blood pouring down his back. Even shaking, he put himself between me and the rest, refusing to move.

“You should have run,” I whispered, voice breaking.

He smiled anyway. “I wasn’t going to leave you.”

A blade punched through his chest.

He gasped. His eyes went blank. He fell onto me, heavy, knocking the breath right out of me.

Something inside me snapped.

I don’t remember screaming, but my throat burned raw. Blood pooled around us, sticky and endless. The rogues moved on, already hunting for someone else.

I wasn’t worth finishing off.

I lay there, trapped under my brother’s body, staring up at the red moon through the wrecked branches. The world went weirdly quiet.

Way too quiet.

Every breath rattled. My legs felt dead. My wolf curled up somewhere deep inside, whimpering.

I waited.

For footsteps.

For a roar.

For him.

Kael, I begged, don’t leave me.

The bond stayed silent.

Memories bled together, Kael walking past me in the hall, never looking twice. I, sneaking around to train pups because I needed to matter. I thought love meant being patient. Being quiet. Holding on.

I thought if I just waited long enough, he’d pick me.

He never did.

Grief hurts worse than anything.

I loved him too quietly, I realized.

The red moon smeared across the sky, thick as blood.

Everything went dark.

And then...

Something broke.

I sucked in air like I had been drowning. My body arched, pain gone, nothing but blinding light. My heart was hammered.

I was alive.

I sat up screaming...

But something was terribly, terribly wrong…