After His Luna Killed My Son, I Ran

The howl of the Obsidian Shadow Pack tore through the night air, signaling the start of the Full Moon Run. For the first time in ten years, the sound didn't make me cower in the corner of my cell. It was my signal.

I stood by the heavy oak door, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The lock clicked—a sound so soft I almost missed it. The handle turned, and the door creaked open just an inch.

Gamma Remi stood in the shadows of the hallway. He didn't look at me. He couldn't. Shame radiated off him in waves, but so did something else: pity. He dropped a bundle of dark fabric on the floor and walked away without a word, disappearing into the chaos of the shifting wolves outside.

I didn't hesitate. I grabbed the bundle—a heavy wool cloak soaked in river water and crushed pine needles. A scent masker. I threw it over my thin, trembling frame and slipped out into the night.

The forest was a blur of shadows and silver light. My legs, atrophied from a decade of confinement, burned with every step. My lungs screamed for air, but I forced myself to keep moving. I couldn't shift. My wolf was buried deep under layers of grief, silent and cold since Lennox took his last breath. I was just a human woman running through a predator’s playground.

I stopped by the creek, smearing freezing mud over my face and neck, layering the scent of the earth over my own fear. I wasn't just running away; I had a destination. Before I disappeared into the Northern Territories, I needed the one thing Elias hadn't stolen yet.

My grandmother’s grimoire.

It took hours to reach the ruins of the Silver Lake Pack territory. The burned-out skeletons of cabins stood like gravestones in the moonlight. I made my way toward the main house—my childhood home. It was the only structure still fully standing, claimed by the Obsidian Pack as an outpost.

I expected darkness. Instead, a warm glow flickered in the living room window.

I crept closer, pressing my back against the rotting wood of the porch. Through the grime-streaked glass, I saw her. Giselle.

She was lounging in my father’s old armchair, a glass of wine in one hand. A fire roared in the hearth, but she wasn't burning wood. She was tossing handfuls of yellowed parchment into the flames.

I squinted, my breath hitching. I recognized the seal on the papers. The Beta seal. My father’s private logs.

“So easy,” Giselle murmured to herself, tossing another stack into the fire. “Treason… honestly, Elias will believe anything if it keeps his precious reputation clean. Goodbye, proof.”

Rage, hot and blinding, surged through me. Those papers proved my father was innocent. They proved my pack was destroyed for nothing. And she was burning them like trash.

I didn't care about the papers anymore. They were ash. But the grimoire was hidden beneath the floorboards in the hallway. It held generations of healing knowledge—my legacy. I couldn't leave it to her.

I eased the front door open. It groaned, the sound echoing like a gunshot.

Giselle spun around. Her eyes, glowing with the amber hue of her wolf, locked onto me. She didn't look surprised. She looked delighted.

“Well, well,” she drawled, setting her wine glass down. “The stray got out.”

“Get out of my house,” I rasped, my voice raw.

“Your house?” She laughed, a sharp, brittle sound. “Everything here belongs to the pack, Maeve. Which means it belongs to me.”

I lunged for the hallway, desperate to reach the loose floorboard. But I was weak, starved, and exhausted. Giselle was fed, rested, and fueled by malice. She caught me before I made it three steps.

She grabbed a handful of my hair and slammed me into the wall. Stars exploded in my vision. I slid to the floor, gasping for breath.

“You smell like mud and desperation,” she sneered, looming over me. “Did you really think you could just walk in here and take what you wanted?”

“It’s mine,” I spat, trying to push myself up. “The grimoire… you can't use it. You don't have the gift.”

Giselle’s face twisted. I had struck a nerve. The fraud. The pretender.

“I don't need the gift,” she hissed, stepping closer. “I have the title. And I have the Alpha. That’s all that matters.”

She looked down at my hands—my trembling, dirt-stained hands that had saved hundreds of lives before Elias locked me away. Her eyes narrowed.

“You know,” she said softly, “Elias always talks about your hands. ‘Maeve’s magic touch.’ It makes me sick.”

She lifted her boot. A heavy, steel-toed combat boot.

Realization hit me a second too late. I tried to pull my right hand back, but she was faster.

**CRUNCH.**

The sound was wet and sickening, like stepping on dry twigs. Agony, white-hot and electric, shot up my arm and exploded in my brain. I screamed, a guttural sound that tore at my throat.

Giselle ground her heel down, twisting it into the shattered bones of my hand. I could feel the delicate metacarpals—the channels for my healing energy—grinding into dust.

“Oops,” she whispered, smiling down at me as I writhed on the floor, clutching my mangled hand to my chest. “Looks like the Healer is out of commission.”

I couldn't breathe. The pain was a living thing, consuming me. My gift. My life. My only way to fix the world. Broken.

“Run along now, stray,” Giselle said, kicking me in the ribs. “Before I decide to finish the job.”

I didn't look back. I couldn't. clutching my ruined hand, I scrambled out the door and into the darkness, leaving my history, my proof, and my future burning in the hearth behind me.