Under the second moon

I was bitten twice in my life.

The first time I was seven hours old and I didn't cry.

The second time I was eighteen years old, and the thing that bit me knelt.

My mother always said I was born under a curse. She only told the story once a year, on my birthday, and she whispered it like the wind would punish her for remembering. "It was the night the second moon came, Aria Vale," she would say, touching the small blue crescent scar behind my left ear. "The sky had two moons. One white like bone. One blue like a bruise. No one had ever seen the blue one before. The elders said the Goddess made a mistake. That night something came down from Blackthorn Mountain. It went into the valley and bit seven human babies in their cribs. Seven. Six died before sunrise. You lived. You didn't even cry. Don't ask me again."

The scar was small. A perfect blue crescent, hidden by my thick dark hair. It never hurt. Until tonight. Tonight is my eighteenth birthday. And the second moon is back.

I saw it from my window. Everyone saw it. Our normal moon was big and silver. And right next to it, smaller, brighter, was the blue one. Too close. Too wrong. The dogs stopped barking at the same second. The chickens went silent. In the forest beyond the river, the wolves who always howl on full moons went completely silent. The world held its breath.

And my scar started to burn like fire.

I pressed my palm to it. It was pulsing like a second heartbeat. Like it was beating in time with the blue moon.

"Don't go out, Aria!" my mother screamed when I grabbed my coat. "They said the biter returns when the second moon returns!"

I should have listened. But the burn was too much. I needed cold water. I have always been human. Weak human. In a valley where half the men shift into wolves on full moons and can run faster than horses, I was nothing. I couldn't shift. I couldn't heal. I was the girl who survived the bite, which made everyone think I was tainted, cursed. No pack would ever want me. No boy would ever kiss me.

So I ran to my river. My secret place.

The forest was wrong tonight. Too quiet. The air smelled like ozone and wet fur. The moonlight was not silver. It was blue. Everything it touched turned blue - the leaves, the moss, the water. Beautiful and terrifying.

And I felt it. Something watching me. Something that had been waiting eighteen years.

I turned slowly.

It was standing at the tree line. It was not a normal wolf. It was taller than a man on all fours. Black fur that drank the moonlight. Eyes that were silver-white and too intelligent. Too old. This was the thing from my mother's stories. The thing that bit babies.

It looked at my neck. At my scar.

Then it moved. One second it was twenty feet away. The next its teeth were on my neck, in the exact same place as my scar.

I expected pain. I expected to finally die like the other six babies.

Instead, light exploded behind my eyes.

My blood didn't feel like blood. It felt like ice and fire and moonlight all at once. My back arched off the moss. My mouth opened but no sound came out. Only blue light. Brilliant, blinding blue light poured out of me.

My heart stopped. Then started again, but different. Slower. Stronger. Like a drum. Like a wolf's heart.

When the light faded, the creature was still holding me. But it was shaking. Trembling.

I saw my reflection in its silver eyes. My eyes were no longer brown. They were glowing blue. Pure, luminous, terrifying blue. Like the second moon itself had fallen into them. They glowed so bright they lit up the whole clearing.

"What did you do to me?" I whispered. My voice sounded strange. Like two voices at once.

And then the most impossible thing happened.

The creature, an Alpha larger than any wolf in our valley, larger than any wolf in the Northern Territories, slowly lowered its massive head.

And knelt.

It bent its front legs. It put its head down in the moss at my feet. A whimper left its throat - not anger, but submission. Worship.

I knew wolves. One law every human and wolf knows: Alphas do not kneel. Ever. They would rather die. Kneeling is death for an Alpha.

"Stop," I said without meaning to, just to see if I was dreaming.

It stopped breathing instantly.

My hands flew to my mouth. "No! Breathe! Please breathe!"

It gasped and started breathing again, still kneeling.

Oh Goddess. The stories were wrong. I wasn't cursed because I survived.

I survived because the bite was meant for me. It was waiting for me to grow up.

A twig snapped behind me, loud as a gunshot.

The kneeling creature spun, snarling, putting its huge body between me and the sound. Protecting me like a queen.

From the shadows, a man walked out.

No. Not a man.

I had never seen him close but every girl in the valley knew his name and whispered it like a prayer and a warning.

Alpha Kael Blackthorn.

He was shirtless despite the cold, black pants low on his hips, tattoos covering his chest and neck - marks of all the Alphas he had killed. His hair was black and long, his eyes amber, his face beautiful like a knife. Sharp and merciless. He was twenty-four, the most ruthless Alpha in the north. He had sworn to never take a Luna because his mother, a human, was murdered by humans. He hated humans. His wolf had never chosen a mate. He had never bowed to anyone, not even the Lycan King.

He looked at the creature kneeling at my feet. Then at me. His nostrils flared. He scented me.

And his amber eyes turned black. His wolf was coming forward.

"You," he said, his voice low and rough. "What are you?"

I couldn't answer. My glowing blue eyes were locked on his.

For the first time in his life, Alpha Kael Blackthorn felt his knees get weak. His wolf, the wolf that had never bowed to anyone, whispered one word in his head that made his blood run cold and hot.

Mine.

"Mine?" Kael growled out loud, angry at his own wolf. "She is human. Nothing."

The creature at my feet growled back at him, possessive.

Kael took one step closer through the blue moss. Then another. The blue moonlight made his tattooed skin glow. He was close enough that I could see the small scar on his bottom lip. Close enough to smell pine and smoke and Alpha power.

He reached out and grabbed the kneeling creature by the scruff and threw it aside like it was nothing. The creature yelped and ran into the trees, whimpering, but stayed at the edge, watching me.

Now it was just me and him.

And I was still glowing.

"Your eyes," he said. "Humans don't have eyes like that. Humans don't make Alphas kneel."

"I'm human," I whispered, but I didn't believe it anymore.

He inhaled again, his gaze dropping to my neck, to the fresh bite mark that was glowing blue, bleeding light instead of blood.

"No," he said softly, dangerously. "You are not."

His large hand shot out and grabbed my chin, tilting my face up to the second moon. His touch burned like ice.

"Do you know what you did?" he whispered, his amber eyes searching my glowing ones. "Do you know what you made him do? Do you know what that means?"

"He knelt..."

"Alphas do not kneel," he snarled. "Ever. We die first. So tell me, little monster, what are you that makes Alphas kneel with one word?"

I didn't know. But my mouth opened and a word came out that wasn't mine. A word in a language I had never learned, old and powerful and blue. It sounded like wind and wolves and bells. A word of command.

Kael's entire body went rigid like he was struck by lightning.

His amber eyes flared wide. His knees buckled violently.

And Alpha Kael Blackthorn, the ruthless Alpha who had never bowed to anyone in twenty-four years of ruthless life, who had sworn to never take a Luna, whose wolf had never chosen -

Fell to his knees in the blue moss at my feet, his head bowed, his big hands fisted on the ground, submitting to me completely.

The forest was silent. The second moon was bright above us, watching. I could hear both our hearts pounding - his fast and furious, mine slow and powerful and new.

He looked up at me from his knees. His black eyes were full of shock, fury, awe, and something else that terrified me more than fury - something like unwilling love. Something like fate.

His voice was broken, hoarse, reverent, and furious when he said the words that would haunt us both forever.

"Command me again, little Second Moon, and I will have to kill you before you make me love you. Because if you make me love you, I will never let you go. And the six Alphas who were bitten with you as babies? They are already coming for you. They remember your scent. They want what I want. And I found you first. You are mine now, whether you want to be or not. Say you understand".