The sky over Ashridge was painted with fractured moonlight. Clouds drifted like shadows over a silver eye, casting cold light across the trembling forest. Something ancient moved beneath the soil, through the roots, whispering to those who could still hear.
And Evelyn Blake was listening.
She stood barefoot at the edge of the clearing, her fingertips brushing the ends of her sleeves. Her heart pounded — not once, but twice. That second rhythm had become a constant, haunting presence in her chest. Louder. Deeper. Like a voice she could not yet understand trying to speak through her pulse.
The clearing where Lucian had found her days ago felt different now. She didn't remember everything — only fragments. Light. Pain. A scream that didn't sound like hers. And his eyes — those silver eyes that didn't look afraid of what hunted her…
…but of her.
She looked up at the sky.
The moon should have been full again. But tonight, it was veiled — not new, not whole. A sliver had vanished, like it had been stolen.
"The Forgotten Moon," she murmured to herself.
She didn't know where the phrase came from. But when she said it, the second heartbeat fluttered inside her like it recognized the name.
⸻
Lucian had sensed the shift long before he reached the cabin.
The air reeked of silence — not peace, but the kind of silence that follows a scream. His wolf instincts had prickled the moment he crossed into the northern ridge. Something was pulling at him. At her.
And the forest was no longer trying to stop it.
He stepped inside the cabin, found it empty. She wasn't in her room, the hall, or near the fireplace where she'd been curled just hours ago.
His body reacted before his mind did. He shifted, mid-step, half-shifting back before his feet even touched the forest floor again.
He followed the heartbeat.
Not hers.
The other one.
⸻
The clearing was too quiet.
Evelyn had fallen to her knees again, this time not from pain, but from weight. A pressure building behind her eyes. A pressure behind her skin.
She could feel it now — something ancient stirring in her bones. Not power, not magic.
Memory.
But not hers.
Images flickered behind her eyes: wolves in armor, a crown dropped in blood, fire over an ocean cliff. A woman screaming in the middle of a stone circle, not from fear, but fury.
Evelyn gasped as her body rocked forward, hands catching her weight.
"What's happening to me?" she whispered to no one.
She was shaking, but not cold.
The earth beneath her pulsed once.
And then she heard it.
A voice.
Whispered. Faint. Like it had traveled centuries to find her.
You are not alone.
⸻
Lucian burst through the tree line just in time to see her glowing again. Not as before — this time the light came from her palms. The earth around her was alive, rippling like heat rising from stone.
He didn't stop.
He crossed the space between them in seconds, dropping to his knees beside her.
"Evelyn," he said, reaching out slowly.
She turned to him with wide eyes. "There's someone inside me."
The words shouldn't have made sense. But Lucian's blood ran cold.
He'd seen this once before. Long ago. In a story no Alpha dared speak aloud.
About the moon who lost her wolf.
⸻
Back at the pack house, Riven was flipping through leather-bound tomes no one had touched in years.
He hadn't told Lucian yet — but after the last rogue attack, something felt wrong. The rogue wasn't trying to kill Evelyn.
It was trying to wake her.
He found it in an old lorebook — a fragment of text scorched with age:
"When the Forgotten Moon returns, she will not remember her name, nor the blood she wore. She will walk with the heartbeat of two, and the old ones will call her daughter again."
Riven stood up slowly.
He needed to get to Lucian.
Now.
⸻
Evelyn couldn't stop shaking. Her skin burned but left no marks. Her head was filled with voices and none of them were hers.
"Make it stop," she cried.
Lucian pulled her into his arms, cradling her gently.
"I don't know how," he admitted.
He wasn't afraid of her anymore.
He was afraid for her.
Whatever was awakening inside her wasn't just power. It was identity. It had rules. A name. A memory. One strong enough to tear Evelyn apart if she didn't hold on to who she was.
"You're not alone," he said, repeating the whisper he couldn't have heard. "I'm right here."
⸻
The sky rumbled low, though no storm had been called.
The forest leaned in again. Listening.
Lucian looked up.
And in that second, he saw it — a flash between the clouds — the forgotten moon.
A second moon.
Faint. Pale. Shimmering like a memory.
And it was watching them.
⸻
Evelyn's breathing steadied.
She looked up at Lucian and, for the first time, her voice was steady. "I don't think the heartbeat is mine."
Lucian nodded once. "I know."
"Then whose is it?"
He didn't answer.
Because somewhere deep inside… he already knew the truth.
⸻
Far from Ashridge, in a dark cave beneath broken stone, something stirred.
A wolf — not rogue, not Alpha — opened its eyes for the first time in a hundred years.
Its heartbeat matched hers.
And it began to move.