What The Moon Keeps

What The Moon Keeps

Jasmine Smith · Ongoing · 42.7k Words

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Introduction

Left for dead by her own pack, Nyra Blackwell should not have survived.

Rescued by a powerful Alpha and awakened to ancient magic, Nyra must face the truth of who she is—and what she was born to become. As love, loyalty, and fate collide, Nyra learns that survival was only the beginning.

The reckoning has come.
And the moon remembers everything.
(TW: this book contains themes of abuse and SA)

Chapter 1

The world smelled of wet leaves and blood. Not mine—yet. My own blood was still tucked beneath ragged clothes, hidden scars mapped across my ribs, along my collarbone, down my arms. I rubbed my side where someone’s teeth had sunk in last night. Not deep enough to kill. Just deep enough to remind me I belonged to Ironwood.

I could still feel the ache, like a living thing, pounding with every heartbeat. Every movement made my body protest. Every time I shifted, I remembered—how last night had started.

The fire had burned low in the living room. I’d been curled in a corner, trying to make myself invisible. But one of the younger males my mother had over had seen me. The smallest crack in my defense. A snicker had rippled through the room like a predator tasting blood. They came for me in pairs, laughing as if it were a game.

The first one pushed me to my knees. My stomach had collided with the cold stone floor; my cheek scraped against it, leaving a thin line of blood. I tried to curl in, protect my face, but it didn’t matter. One grabbed my hair and yanked me upright. My spine arched painfully.

“You think you’re strong?” he sneered. “You think that wolf of yours means anything?”

Sable stirred somewhere in the edges of my mind, low and restrained. “Do not fight. Wait. Not yet.”

But I couldn’t help the sharp edge of fear mixed with fury. I swung my head back toward him instinctively, catching him in the jaw with my temple. He staggered back, surprised. The laughter faltered—just for a second.

And then it returned. Louder. Crueler.

Another one stepped forward, a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. He landed a blow to my ribs. My breath caught, and I stumbled against the wall. Pain spread in hot streaks, a fire that cut through the cold of the room. My arms, my legs, my body—they all screamed at me to stay down, to accept it. But the wolf inside me, Sable, shifted uneasily.

“Endure. Do not stop.”

I remembered my father then, as if calling his name could pull him from the grave. The only man who had ever looked at me and seen me. Not the scraps, not the bloodline, not the leftover shadow of a mother who couldn’t love me fully.

He had died defending the borders from rogues. I had waited for him, praying, begging the night to let him walk back through the trees where we had trained together. But the pack went silent. My mother returned, smiling hollowly, her eyes empty. The pack acted as if his death was inconvenient. Another body claimed by the wild. Another failure.

I had cried alone in the woods, my wolf restless, confused, angry. Where is he? Why? But Sable had been silent that day too. Waiting. Always waiting.

The abuse last night hadn’t been a one-off. It was ritualized, sanctioned. My mother didn’t intervene; she couldn’t. She let the pack’s flings and favorites use me as an outlet for their frustration—small bites, bruises, scratches, every one leaving me more afraid, more raw.

One of them—Jaren—had pressed a knife to my wrist, tracing the thin line of a scar I had long tried to forget. His breath had smelled like whiskey and iron.

“Your mother’s blood makes you weak,” he hissed. “You’ll never be anything.”

I tasted blood from a split lip, stifled a cry. Sable stirred. I could feel her pulse like a heartbeat in my mind. “Do not let them break you.”

I closed my eyes, rocking slightly, pretending I was smaller than I was. Pretending I was invisible. Pretending it didn’t matter that my heart was hammering so violently I thought it might tear my chest open.

The fire burned down to embers. They left eventually, satisfied that I had been reminded of my place. The echoes of laughter faded into the wind of the night. I remained where I had fallen, shivering, bruised, but alive. My wolf pressed close, invisible, tense.

I whispered her name, almost a plea: “Come. Please.”

“Not yet. You are not ready. The missing piece has not come.”

I hated the waiting. I hated that Sable was right. I hated that I had survived another night. And yet… I had.

I rose slowly, knees shaking, muscles screaming with every movement. My reflection in a dark window showed a girl I didn’t recognize. Lean, wiry, bruised, broken—but with eyes too old for her age. Eyes that had learned how to watch, to listen, to survive.

Outside, the wind carried the scent of rain and iron. My father’s scent. My wolf’s scent. Something ancient whispered on the wind.

And for the first time, I wondered… was Sable waiting for me? Or for something I could not see yet?

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