Full Moon

WILLOW

The scent of grilled meat and woodsmoke clung to my skin in a way that I found pleasantly…pleasant.

Laughter rang through the forest, bouncing off trees in the flickering torchlight. Between branches overhead, someone had also strung fairy lights, whose soft golden orbs glowed like captured starlight.

It was almost too perfect, too dreamlike, the kind of thing you’d do if you were trying to convince someone that we all were normal. But the tug under my skin said otherwise.

My wolf was pacing, restless and awake. She’d been pulling at me all day, brushing against my thoughts—a shadow I couldn’t quite hold. The full moon was here, and, surprisingly, I wasn’t absolutely terrified of what she might do.

Also, continuously telling myself that these ~not normal~ people—including myself—weren’t monsters helped immensely. Because for the first time in my life, I was eager to let her out.

I’d spent the whole day helping Lisa prep food, light fires, and corral children. It felt good to be useful in a way that didn’t involve blood or breaking noses. Normal, even.

Lisa appeared beside me, a beer in one hand and a skewer in the other. “You holding up okay?” She gave me a once-over. “You’ve been vibrating like a tuning fork since we started setting up.”

“I’m just ready.” I laughed nervously. “I think.”

Lisa smiled and bumped her shoulder against mine. “We do a pack run after dinner. At sunset, when the moon rises. Everyone shifts in the clearing and takes off into the woods. You don’t have to if you’re not ready.”

“I think I am,” I said.

She tilted her head. “Even if you don’t shift, it’s not a big deal. The little ones usually stay back, and they always need someone fast on two legs in case one of them gets stuck or spooked. You’d be good at that.”

I simply smiled and took a sip of my drink. I didn’t tell her what I felt inside: the near certainty that tonight I’d change, that the full moon wasn’t just calling, it was waiting.

Dinner passed in a blur of roasted meat, raucous laughter, and too many people handing me food with smiles that felt almost reverent.

And through it all, Connor stayed close—not clingy but present. His hand found mine every time someone new approached. His touch was grounding. His thumb brushing over my knuckles felt more intimate than a kiss.

By the time the moon—massive, silver, and watching—cleared the distant treetops, my heart was beating so hard I could hear it in my ears. Everyone started to move toward the clearing, where the trees opened to soft, dew-wet grass.

Connor turned to me. “You okay?” His eyes glowed in the moonlight.

Nodding once, I said, “I think I’m ready.”

“Think you’ll shift?”

I met his gaze and let my wolf rise enough to color my voice. “Yes.”

He smiled, and something in my chest broke wide open.

Around me, others were already undressing, folding or dropping clothing where they stood. The air shimmered with power, raw and electric.

One by one, bodies bowed, trembled, and gave way to fur, fangs, and paws. Shifters howled as they changed, but it was the sound of release, not pain.

Without fear, I undressed slowly and deliberately. It was only me and the moon and the creature inside me who had waited long enough.

And then I let go.

The ghost of the feeling came first, the one I’d nearly forgotten. A tingling that started at the spine and spread outward. It had been so, so long, and when the shift came, it wasn’t the violent tearing I remembered from the facility.

It was surrender, finally exhaling after holding my breath for years.

Bones moved, reshaped. Heat burned through me and quickly cooled. I folded inward and expanded at the same time. And when I came back to myself, I was on four legs. My senses exploded in all directions. The world bloomed with color and scent and sound.

I stood in the grassy field, my chest heaving and heart alight. I looked down at myself: midnight fur, sharp claws, steady stance. I ~felt~ normal—more than normal. I felt like ~me~.

But when I raised my gaze, my ears flattened immediately, instinctively.

Because every wolf in the clearing—and the humans still in the woods—was staring at me, unmoving and unbreathing. The silence was deafening, but it was Connor’s reaction that terrified me most.

His massive sapphire-eyed wolf took a step backward, away from me.

Panic tightened my throat. ~Why are they looking at me like that? What’s wrong with me?~

CONNOR

Like the rest of the pack, I couldn’t stop staring at Willow’s wolf as she stood in the clearing.

Not from fear, though, from awe.

She was huge, easily as tall at the shoulder as I was. But where my wolf was all brute force and coiled dominance, hers was a blade—sleek, silently lethal, and elegant in a way that made your instincts take a step back and whisper, “Danger.”

Her coat was pitch-black, deeper than shadow. It seemed to drink the moonlight instead of reflecting it. A narrow silver streak cut down the fur between her brows, a scar made of starlight. And her eyes, those unnaturally green, otherworldly, wild eyes, glowed.

She looked like a beast summoned from an older, wilder time, far older than any of us.

~Alpha blood.~ There was no question in my mind now. She hadn’t just been born to a strong alpha pair; she came from a line of alpha wolves so old and pure it probably hadn’t mingled with modern pack bloodlines in generations.

Her alpha power hummed in the air, a current of static. And yet, my wolf could also sense her terror and building panic.

Her wolf held herself low, her ears twitching back in wariness and uncertainty. She was waiting for someone to hurt her, I realized, and my chest tightened.

Desperate to make her feel accepted, I gave a low whuff and stepped forward, brushing my side gently against hers in a silent message: “You’re not alone.” Then I lifted my muzzle to the moon and howled.

The others joined in seconds later.

With that, the run had begun.

Willow and I led the charge, our wolves cutting through the woods, shadows unleashed. Branches snapped and splintered as we barreled through. The earth even seemed to spring back beneath her stride.

Slowly, gradually, she loosened up. Her gait smoothed. Her tail lifted. Her fear seemed to melt into exhilaration. And, gods, she was beautiful.

She ran, made for it as if born in motion.

A presence brushed my mind. Ben. “~She’s enormous. Alpha blood, you think?~”

“~Has to be. I’ve never seen anything like it.~”

After a pause, he asked, “~So…what does that mean for us?~”

That was the question, wasn’t it?

Because an alpha of her bloodline could, in theory, challenge me. If she didn’t know the depth of what she was, the power that she wielded, she could—even unwittingly—tear the pack in half. And judging by the look in her eyes earlier, she didn’t.

Was this what the email had warned us about?

“~It means I have to make her my mate, our luna, because if she rejects the bond, things could get bad~.” I mentally sighed. “~I can’t force that, though, so… I don’t know. She’s not a threat right now, but we need to be careful~.”

“~Well, shouldn’t we figure out where she came from? Who her parents were, or are? I mean, if they’re still alive…~” Ben let the question hang, as the implication didn’t need to be spoken.

If her lineage were still out there, they might come looking for her.

Then, an even more terrifying thought dawned on me, and I kicked myself for not considering it before.

~Would whoever took her from that life come looking for her? Did her escape leave a trail that led straight to our pack’s front doors? Did I make my entire pack vulnerable to capture, imprisonment, and human experimentation?~

Deciding that all of these points were valid and needed following up, I told Ben we’d hold a meeting first thing in the morning, and he spread the word. Shaking the dreadful thoughts away, I focused forward again.

And my stomach dropped.

I skidded to a halt so fast that dirt kicked up in thick sprays around me. The pack flowed past like a river around a rock, with wolves weaving through the trees in a rhythmic harmony that came from years of practice.

Spinning, I scented the air, the ground, the trees. But there was nothing—no trace at all.

As if she’d been yanked sideways midstride, nowhere in sight, Willow was simply gone.