Chapter 2 Danger and Rogues!

The border between the Red Moon Pack and the territory known as the Choice of the Goddess was not a line on a map; it was a wall of jagged stone and ancient, whispering pines that seemed to lean in, judging my every step.

I had been walking for six hours, though it felt like six years. The mud from the flats had dried into a grey, cracked second skin that pulled at my pores and turned my hair into a matted, unrecognizable helm of filth. 

Every time the wind whistled through the high branches, I flinched, expecting to hear the baying of the Alpha’s hounds. Every snap of a twig made me drop to a crouch, my heart thundering so loudly I was sure any tracker within a mile could hear it.

I was a fugitive. A ghost. And for the first time in my sixteen years, I was truly alone.

By the time the sun began to bleed over the horizon in shades of bruised purple and sickly orange, I reached the Neutral Zone. This was the scar on the earth where the laws of Alphas held no sway. It was a strip of lawless land where the desperate, the exiled, and the monstrous congregated. 

This was where the Rogues lived,wolves who had been kicked out of their packs for crimes too dark to name, or whose packs had been wiped out by war.

The air here changed. It lost the clean, crisp scent of the Red Moon forests and took on a foul, heavy quality. It was a mixture of unwashed fur, rotting meat, and the metallic smell of old blood.

I ducked behind a massive, lightning-scarred oak tree, my breath coming in shallow hitches. I caught the scent of woodsmoke,but not the cozy, hearth-fire smoke of home. This was acrid.

Three of them were huddled around a small, sputtering fire in a clearing fifty yards ahead. They didn't look like the proud, groomed warriors of my father’s unit. These were lean, desperate creatures with matted fur and eyes that glowed with a feral, hungry yellow. One of them was gnawing on the raw leg of something, I didn't want to know what,while the others argued in low, guttural snarls.

"I’m telling you, I smelled a pup," the largest one growled, standing up and sniffing the air with a predatory intensity that made the hair on my neck stand up. 

"A fresh one. Smells like... Red Moon royalty. Silver and cedar."

"Red Moon wolves don't come this far out unless they're looking for trouble or they're running from it.”

The second one replied, sharpening a jagged piece of rusted steel against a flat stone. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. The sound set my teeth on edge.

"If it's a Red Moon girl, she’ll fetch a king's ransom at the border markets. The Alphas in the West pay well for high-bred breeders."

The word breeder sent a jolt of ice through my veins. My hand instinctively dropped to the small silver dagger tucked into my boot. It was the only thing I had left of my life.

A  gift from my father on my fourteenth birthday. 'A Thatcher never hides from the truth, Selene,' he had told me that day, his hand heavy on my shoulder. 'But a Thatcher always knows when to strike.'

I wasn't a warrior yet. I was a girl with whiskey on her breath and mud in her eyes. But as the largest Rogue started walking toward my tree, his nose twitching, a cold, hard clarity washed over me. 

The girl I had been,the one who liked to drink with Justin and complain about high school,could not survive here. If I stayed Selene, I was nothing but a prize to be sold or a snack to be eaten.

I didn't wait for him to find me. I burst from behind the tree, not away from them, but toward the steep ravine that marked the edge of the Choice of the Goddess territory.

"Hey! The pup’s running!"

The roar behind me was followed by the horrific, wet sound of bones snapping and reforming. They were shifting mid-sprint. I didn't look back. I ran with a desperation that bypassed my exhaustion, my lungs screaming as I pushed through the dense undergrowth.

I reached the edge of the ravine. It was a twenty-foot drop into a rocky creek bed, the water rushing white and angry below. 

Behind me, the snarling of wolves was inches away. I could feel the heat of their breath.

I didn't think. I leaped.

The fall was a chaotic blur of stinging pine needles and breaking branches. I hit the water hard, the cold shocking the air from my lungs. I rolled, my body slamming against the slick stones of the creek bed until I came to a halt against a stone pillar that looked like it had been carved by giants.

"Well, well. Look at what the creek washed in."

I looked up, coughing out a mouthful of freezing water. I wasn't in the forest anymore. I was standing in the shadow of a sprawling, industrial building that looked like a fortress of neon and steel. A sign flickered above the heavy iron doors in a sickly, pulsing pink: THE MOON’S ECLIPSE.

Standing over me was a woman who looked like she had been forged from flint and iron. She wore a heavy fur coat that seemed to absorb the light, and her eyes were a piercing, unnatural violet. Ms. Alyssia as I later learnt. 

She didn't look down at me with pity. She looked at me with the weary boredom of someone who had seen a thousand broken things.

"Please," I rasped, my voice a broken whisper. "I need... a place to hide. They're coming."

Alyssia tilted her head, her gaze lingering on the Red Moon crest on my torn, muddy jacket. Behind me, at the top of the ravine, the three Rogues skidded to a halt. They growled, their yellow eyes fixed on me, but they didn't jump. They paced the edge, their tails tucked.

"This is the Choice of the Goddess," Alyssia said, her voice not loud, but carrying a resonance that made the stones beneath my feet vibrate. "And in my house, the Goddess chooses who lives. Today, she chooses the girl. Be gone, or I’ll have your hearts for my stew."

The Rogues whimpered,a sound of pure terror and retreated into the darkness of the trees.

Alyssia turned her violet eyes back to me. "You’re a long way from the Red Moon, little Thatcher. Marcus’s daughter, aren't you? You have his stubborn chin and your mother’s healers' eyes."

"You knew them?" I asked, trembling as I tried to stand.

"I was the pack’s healer before your mother," she said, her voice softening just a fraction. "Thorne’s father exiled me because I knew too much about the bloodline he stole. It seems the Thatchers are finally learning what happens to those who are too loyal to the wrong Alpha."

She led me inside, away from the cold. The air inside The Moon’s Eclipse was thick with the scent of heavy perfume, expensive gin, and the underlying musk of wolves. 

It was a nightclub for the elite of this pack,a place where secrets were traded over crystal glasses.

She took me to a private room in the back, a small space dominated by a large, ornate mirror. She handed me a pair of heavy, industrial shears and a straight razor.

"Thorne’s scouts come here every week," she said, leaning against the doorframe. "They look for a 'lost daughter.' They look for a girl with long hair and a soft face. They will never look for a man." She opened the door and we were in room,the one she was probably using as her private space,before me was a large standing mirror. 

I looked at my reflection. I saw the girl my father had called his princess. I saw the hair my mother had spent every Sunday morning braiding with lavender oil. It was the only thing I had left of them.

"The girl dies today," Alyssia said, grabbing shears somewhere nearby. "If you want to live to see your parents again, you have to become someone invisible. My son, Cyrus, died in the border wars ten years ago. He was a shadow. No one remembers his face, only his name. Today, the ghost of Cyrus returns."

I grabbed the shears.

The first cut was the hardest. The blades crunched through the matted hair near my ear. A long, dark lock fell to the floor, looking like a dead bird on the tiles. 

I felt a sob rise in my throat, but I choked it back. Every snip was a strike against Thorne. Every inch of hair lost was a layer of armor gained.

I hacked away until the floor was covered in dark silk. Alyssia stepped in then, her hands steady as she used the straight razor to shave the sides, leaving only a short, jagged mess on top that I could sweep over my brow.

Then came the binding. She handed me a ten-yard strip of heavy, unbleached linen.

"Wrap it tight," she commanded. "If you can breathe comfortably, you aren't doing it right. You are a warrior’s son now. You must be flat, hard, and silent. A man’s silhouette is built on discipline."

I stripped off my ruined shirt, my skin pimpling in the cool air. I began to wrap the cloth around my chest. I pulled it until my ribs groaned, until the air in my lungs felt like a luxury I hadn't earned. I bound myself until the curves of my girlhood were crushed into a straight, masculine line.

Finally, Alyssia brought out a small ceramic bowl filled with a pungent, dark oil. "This is a blend of copper, tobacco, and black walnut. It will stain your skin a shade darker and mask your feminine pheromones. To a wolf, you will smell like a man who lives in the mud and the smoke. You will smell like a guard."

I rubbed the oil into my face, my neck, and my hands. The scent was bitter, biting into my nose, but it felt like a shield.

When I looked in the mirror again, Selene Thatcher was gone. In her place was a boy with hollowed-out cheeks, sharp, dangerous eyes, and a short, military cut. I looked older. I looked harder.

"Who are you?" Alyssia asked, her voice a test.

I straightened my shoulders, lowering my voice to the deep, resonant tone my father used when he was addressing the Council. It was a voice born of iron and grief.

"I am Cyrus," I said. "I am the son of Alyssia. And I am here to serve."

Alyssia’s thin lips curled into something that might have been a smile. "Good. Because the Alpha’s son, Rayder, has just run off his seventh bodyguard. He’s a brat, he’s arrogant, and he’s fated to mate an enemy,which makes him a very popular target for assassination. He’s looking for a guard who doesn't care about his title. You look like you don't care about anything at all."

"I care about one thing," I whispered, looking at the pile of hair on the floor,the last remains of a girl who no longer existed.

"And what’s that, Cyrus?"

"The day I get to wrap my hands around Thorne's throat."

Alyssia nodded. "Then let's get you to the palace. Try not to let the Prince see you bleed. He hates the smell of weakness."