Luna Everleigh's POV
***
The fire crackled between us, its golden light flickering against the stone walls of Nalia's tent. The air was thick with the scent of burning herbs—earthy, smoky, laced with something unfamiliar.
I sat stiffly across from her, my pulse a steady drumbeat in my ears. The way she watched me made my skin prickle, like she was peering past my flesh and bone, searching for something buried deep within.
"You feel it, don't you?" she finally said, her voice barely above a whisper.
I swallowed. "Feel what?"
Nalia smiled—small, knowing. "The pull. The way the forest hums when you walk through it. The way the wolves watch you, not just with suspicion, but with something else. Recognition."
I didn't answer. Because she wasn't wrong.
Since coming here, there had been moments—small, fleeting—where I felt like I was on the cusp of remembering something. A half-formed memory brushing against my mind, slipping through my fingers before I could grasp it.
Nalia reached for a small wooden bowl beside her, dipping her fingers into the thick, inky liquid inside. She pressed them to my forehead before I could recoil, her touch strangely cold despite the warmth of the tent.
"Long ago," she murmured, "there were humans who walked the line between the two worlds. Not quite wolf, not quite mortal. Marked by the gods."
A shiver traced my spine.
"That's just a myth," I said, though even I wasn't convinced by my own words.
"Is it?" Nalia tilted her head. "And yet, you are here. A human, bound to the Alpha by fate. A girl who does not break, even when the world tries to crush her."
I stared at her. "What are you saying?"
Nalia exhaled, her fingers lingering against my skin for a moment longer before she pulled away. "I am saying that your story may not begin where you think it does."
Her words sank into me like stones, heavy and unsettling.
Because deep down, I knew—
There was something about me that didn't fit.
Something I had yet to understand.
—
To be continued...