Ciara's Pov:
The fog curled around my ankles like it knew me.
Where am I?
I didn't remember entering this place. The trees were wrong here—bone-pale and leafless, rising like spires through the void. There was no wind, no birdsong, no sign of a sky above. Only endless mist, blank and silver, swallowing everything it touched.
But I kept running.
It was thick—suffocating—and yet I ran through it barefoot, the cold earth stinging beneath each step. I didn't know where I was going, only that I had to keep running. My chest burned. The trees loomed like shadows, but they didn't frighten me. Nothing did.
Because something deeper pulled at me. A hum beneath the air, a call I didn't understand—but couldn't ignore.
Then suddenly… A strange man stood in the clearing of the fog with a look that stared deep into my soul.
He wasn't a vision. He wasn't just a man.
He was impossible.
He was ethereal
He was tall —easily over six feet—and still, with the kind of presence that made everything else feel lesser. His skin was pale, like the glow of a winter moon, and shimmered faintly in the haze. Long waves of midnight-black hair tumbled down past his shoulders, untouched by wind or sweat. His eyes—
Gods.
They were blood red. Not the red of rage or fire—but something older. Deeper. Like they'd been lit by ancient starlight and left to smolder for centuries. They weren't human. They couldn't be.
He wasn't afraid of me. He didn't blink. Didn't move.
He just looked at him in a way that made me blush and made my heart skip a beat.
I should have turned and run the other way. But my feet betrayed me.
He stepped forward, slow and silent, like he belonged to this place more than I did and his eyes never left mine and his eyes felt so intimidating
Then he spoke
"So You are Real"
I was confused by what he just said but his voice—gods, that voice—was made of shadows and smoke. Soft and rough at once and very masculine, like velvet over stone. It slid beneath my skin and made my breath catch and gave me goosebumps on my skin.
I swallowed hard and asked him," Who are you ?"
He studied me with a gaze that stripped me bare. Not with lust. Not with cruelty.
With recognition.
Like he already knew me.
Like he waited lifetimes to see me.
"You were meant to be hidden"
The air vibrated around him, humming like a string pulled too tight. Something inside me twisted—pain and yearning and fear, all tangled into one sickening knot.
His hand lifted, slow and graceful, toward my face. As his hands touched my face a cool breeze passed through my skin and his touch was so warm and comforting
I kept hearing my name
"Wake up Ciara or I will pour the water on your body"
SPLASH!
Ice water crashed into my chest, and the dream shattered.
I jolted upright, gasping, soaked through my shift. The shock ripped through me like claws. My breath came in ragged bursts, heart slamming against my ribs.
The quarters burst with laughter
"Sleeping Beauty's awake," Brenna sneered, lowering the tin bucket in her perfectly manicured hands.
"Shame the moon didn't bless you with better dreams."
I didn't look at her. I didn't have to.
I could feel her smirk from across the room, could smell the lavender oils she always doused herself in to stand out. As if her title wasn't already loud enough.
"You should thank me," she said sweetly. "Wouldn't want you to be late for your humiliation."
Sadness flashed through my eyes as I remembered what was going to happen today.
The Trial.
I gritted my teeth and stood, the soaked hem of my shift slapping against my ankles. The other girls giggled as they passed, their eyes full of pity and poison.
I ignored them.
But inside, I was shaking—not from fear.
From him.
The man from the dream. His voice still echoed through me.
"You were meant to be hidden"
By nightfall, the shifting grounds were alive with firelight and ritual.
A ring of flames encircled the Trial arena, casting long shadows across the soil. The elders stood in a half-moon line, their faces marked in silver ash, their robes stitched with runes that shimmered under the red moon.
The Blood Moon.
It loomed massive above us, swollen and watching like some ancient eye.
One by one, the initiates stepped forward into the circle.
Brenna went first, of course.
She dropped to her knees and lifted her arms skyward with the kind of smug grace that made even the elders nod in approval. The change hit her like a storm. Bones cracked. Limbs twisted. Her golden wolf burst free, sleek and elegant, fur catching the moonlight like spun gold.
Cheers erupted.
Then came the others. Cries of pain, flashes of fur. Each child of the moon provedtheir place in the pack.
Then—my name was called.
My body moved without thought. I stepped into the circle, bare feet brushing warm earth. The world hushed.
I knelt.
I reached deep, past breath and blood, into the place where my wolf should've been.
Silence.
No spark. No pull.
Just an echoing void.
I clenched my teeth, sweat beading on my brow.
Then—a sting.
My right palm flared with sudden heat. I gasped and looked down.
A mark burned there—brilliant red, coiling like a crescent moon bound by thorns. It pulsed once—alive—and then vanished, leaving only a faint warmth behind.
I stared at it, breathless.
The crowd didn't see.
But he did.
Because when I lifted my head, I saw him.
At the edge of the woods, just beyond the firelight.
The man from my dream.
Watching me with those same crimson eyes.
No shadows. Just him—tall, silent, and smiling.
Like my failure was exactly what he'd been waiting for.