ManyWriters

The day my diagnosis of the "Shadow-Eaten Moonlight" disease was confirmed, a tremor seized my entire body. I desperately forged a mind-link with Lucian, the Alpha who had neglected me for months, threatening to sever our sacred mate bond if he didn’t return to the Stone Creek pack.
He did come back, but not alone. He returned with a stunning young she-wolf at his side.
"Seraphina saved my life during an attack by rogue wolves," he announced, his tone leaving no room for argument. "She’ll be staying in the Alpha’s cabin. As Luna, you ought to show some generosity."
I stood rooted to the ground, every muscle rigid, my voice a raw, hoarse whisper as I confessed, "I'm fading, Lucian."
But he merely scoffed, a chilling sound. Without a single glance, he ground the Moonpetal flower—a gift from Kyle, the very symbol of my vanishing soul—beneath his heel.
"I’ve returned, haven’t I?" he sneered. "Do you find these theatrics amusing?"
Triumph danced in Seraphina’s eyes. A single, delicate pronouncement from her—"The Luna’s negative aura will hinder my recovery"—was all it took for Lucian to expel me from the Alpha's cabin.
Cast out and utterly alone, my life force continued its relentless drain.
As I drew my last breath in the den at Whispering Falls, the sanctuary we had once shared, Lucian was leisurely patrolling the pack lands with Seraphina by his side.
A month slipped by before his Beta, Garrick, finally pierced through his ignorance, the truth delivered via their mind-link:
"Alpha," Garrick’s mind link told him, "the one who saved your life during the Red Creek ambush… it wasn’t Seraphina. It was our Luna, Ilana…"

Shadow Eaten Moonlight

Lucian snarled, severing the connection and bolting outside.


Seraphina scrambled from the moonlit bath, her clothes still in disarray, and clutched at his arm.


"Alpha, it's so late! Where are you rushing off to?"


"The unanswered questions are multiplying. What in the world is going on? I absolutely have to find Ilana and get to the bottom of this!"


With that, he flung open the door and stormed out.


Seraphina stamped her foot, not even bothering to change her shoes as she gritted her teeth and hurried after him.


Along their path, the magical aura radiating from Lucian was dangerously faint. He relentlessly attempted to forge a mental link with me, his movements growing more agitated by the second.


Several times, he even botched the magical sigils.


He hunted through several werewolf enclaves, but found no sign of me.


As dawn neared, he suddenly recalled that I also had a vampire elder.


Chapter 8