CHAPTER 001

The hunting horn blew three times, each note deeper and more mournful than the last. The sound rolled across the valley like thunder, vibrating through the cold night air and settling into the bones of every wolf who heard it. It was the signal.

The Claiming Hunt had begun.

Elara stood at the very edge of the Whispering Woods, her bare toes curling against the cold, damp earth just beyond the tree line. Behind her, the pack camp was alive with flickering firelight and the low murmur of dozens of wolves watching in silence. They stood in a wide semicircle, their faces lit by the orange glow of the bonfires, their eyes fixed on her. Some looked excited. Some looked nervous. But Elara wasn't looking at them. She was looking at the forest.

The Whispering Woods stretched out before her like a living, breathing thing. The trees were ancient and massive, their thick trunks wider than three men standing shoulder to shoulder. Their branches twisted together high above, creating a canopy so dense that almost no moonlight reached the forest floor. The air inside the woods was completely still. No wind stirred the leaves. No insects chirped. It was a silence so complete it felt unnatural, as if the forest itself was holding its breath. The cold bit at her skin. She was wearing only a thin white dress that hung loosely around her slender frame, and a pair of soft leather boots that offered almost no protection against the sharp rocks and hidden roots. She had no coat. She had no weapons.

The rules of the Claiming Hunt were absolute: the mate enters the forest with nothing. She must rely on her wits, her speed, and her instincts to survive until sunrise.

But Elara wasn't planning to survive. She was planning to win. And in this case, winning meant losing. She took a deep, shaky breath. The freezing air filled her lungs, sharp and clean, tasting of pine needles and wet earth. She closed her eyes for one brief second and allowed herself to feel everything.

The cold wind against her bare arms. The rough bark of the nearest tree pressing against her back. And, most importantly, the feeling in her chest. The mate bond. It had been there for three days now, ever since Rowan had looked across the crowded hall during the Autumn Feast and their eyes had met. The moment their gazes locked, something inside her had shifted. A warm, golden thread had sprouted from the center of her chest and stretched across the room, connecting her heart to his. It had been beautiful then. Gentle. Like sunlight filtering through a window. But now, standing at the edge of the dark forest, that golden thread felt like an iron chain.

She opened her eyes and took her first step into the shadows.

Yank.

Elara gasped, her hands flying to her chest as if she had been struck. The bond pulled hard, a sharp, physical tug that originated from somewhere deep behind her ribs. It wasn't just a feeling. It was a force. It was gravity. It was telling her, with every fiber of her being, that she was moving in the wrong direction. That her place was behind her, standing next to the man whose heartbeat she could feel echoing inside her own chest.

‘Come back’, the bond whispered. It wasn't a voice. It was a sensation. A warm, heavy pressure that wrapped around her heart and squeezed gently, like a hand trying to guide her home.

‘Come back to him. You belong to him’.

Elara gritted her teeth and forced her other foot forward. Yank. The pain was sharper this time. It shot through her ribs like a blade, stealing her breath and making her vision blur for a split second. She stumbled but caught herself against a low-hanging branch. The rough bark scraped against her palm, but she barely felt it. The pain in her chest was drowning out everything else.

‘Keep going' she told herself, her inner voice fierce and desperate.

’Just keep going. Every step is a minute of his life'

She closed her eyes again, but this time she didn't picture the warm, golden feeling of the bond. She pictured the truth. The terrible, hidden truth that no one in the pack knew except her.

She pictured Rowan's neck. The way the dark, ugly black veins crept up from his collarbone like spiderwebs made of shadow. She pictured the way his hands trembled when he thought no one was watching. She pictured the thick, black blood he coughed into his hand after training, the blood he quickly wiped away before anyone could see. The beast's poison was eating him alive. He had been bitten three months ago during a border patrol. A shadow beast, rare and deadly, had attacked him in the deep woods. Rowan had killed it, but not before its fangs sank deep into his shoulder.

The pack healer had done everything she could, but shadow beast poison was ancient and cruel. It didn't just attack the body. It attacked the magic. It fed on the Alpha's power, slowly burning through his life force like acid eating through metal. Rowan had kept it a secret.

He had hidden his pain behind his pride, pretending everything was fine. But Elara had found out. She had seen the black blood. She had felt the poison through the bond, a dark, cold presence lurking in his chest like a sleeping snake. And she knew what would happen if the Claiming Hunt ended the way it was supposed to.

If Rowan caught her tonight and sealed the mate bond, the massive rush of Alpha magic required to make the bond permanent would burn through the very last reserves of his life force. He would be her mate, yes. They would be bonded forever. But he would be dead in a month.

She would not let that happen.

Elara opened her eyes and started to run. She moved fast, her leather boots crunching against the dead leaves and wet earth. She dodged thick tree roots that twisted across the path like sleeping snakes. She ducked under low branches that clawed at her hair and scratched her bare arms, leaving thin red lines that stung in the cold air.

She jumped over rotting logs and squeezed through narrow gaps between massive trunks. The forest was a maze, and she had no map, no plan, and no destination. She just had to keep moving.

Keep putting distance between herself and the man she loved. Her lungs burned. Her legs screamed. The cold air felt like broken glass in her throat. But she didn't stop. She couldn't stop. Every step away from Rowan was a step toward saving his life. The woods were completely silent around her. No crickets. No wind. Just the sound of her own ragged breathing and the frantic, thundering rhythm of her heart.

Then, the invisible rope in her chest didn't just pull. It snapped tight like a whip. Elara stumbled and fell to her knees in the wet dirt. She clutched her heart with both hands, gasping for air. The pain was blinding, stealing her breath and making her vision swim with dark spots. It felt like her soul was being ripped in half, like something inside her was trying to physically drag her body backward through the dirt. She knew exactly what it meant.

Rowan had shifted into his massive wolf form. And I knew his wolf. Massive, black with eyes that glowed red when he was hunting. He was the most feared Alpha in the North and right now he was hunting me.

The hunt had truly begun. And then, cutting through the dead, suffocating silence of the forest, she heard it. Snap. It was the sound of a heavy branch breaking. Not far away. Maybe fifty yards. Maybe less.

He was coming. And if he caught me we would both die.