The Moonmarked Lies

The taste of him was the first poison.

Kellan’s mouth crashed into mine—hot, brutal, claiming more than a kiss. His fingers dug into my jaw until my teeth clicked, forcing my lips open as his tongue shoved inside. I tasted iron and salt and something bitter beneath it, a wrongness that scraped my tongue like ground glass.

“Swallow,” he growled, the Alpha command vibrating straight through my bones.

My wolf whimpered, caught between instinctive submission and blind panic. The bond flared white-hot, trying to drag me under, to make me obey.

No.

I twisted away, but his hand clamped around the back of my neck like a shackle. His other hand brushed my throat in a mockery of a caress, fingers tracing the place where his mark should have been—the place I’d refused him.

“Rose,” he warned. “Don’t fight me.”

The bitterness hit the back of my throat.

Wolvesbane.

I jerked, gagging, but he sealed his mouth over mine harder, wrenching my head back until my neck screamed. His tongue forced the tainted saliva deeper, teeth nipping in punishment. My body betrayed me—my throat convulsed.

I swallowed.

Heat burned down my throat, then hooked claws into my chest. The poison hit my wolf first. One second she was snarling, slamming against my ribs—the next, something cold smothered her howl.

She went still.

Then she screamed.

The soundless agony ripped through my head. My knees buckled, the clearing spinning—trees, shadows, moonlight smeared into chaos. I clutched Kellan’s shirt, not in want, but like something drowning.

My mate.

The thought was hysterical. My mate was killing me.

He broke the kiss with a low, pleased sound. “Good girl,” he murmured against my ear. “You always taste better when you cry.”

I hadn’t realized I was crying until salt slid into my mouth. His eyes watched me like prey.

“Kellan,” I rasped. “What did you—”

The wolvesbane surged.

My heart lurched into a painful gallop. Pain speared through my shoulders, into my skull. He held me upright easily, like I weighed nothing.

“It was the only way,” he said softly. “You wouldn’t come willingly.”

Black spots freckled my vision. My wolf thrashed, then faltered again, choking under the toxin.

“Please,” I gasped.

Another voice cut in behind him. “Alpha. Patrol’s close. If they scent it—”

They don’t want anyone to know.

Rage tried to rise, but my limbs lagged, heavy and slow. Kellan’s grip tightened on my jaw as he studied me—my hair, my freckles, the fading bruises on my throat.

“You should have marked me when I asked,” he said. “Always holding back.”

The bond snapped tight, humming like a wire about to break. It burned—not warmth, not comfort, but raw and flaying. The wolvesbane stained it, spreading like ink along the silver thread between us.

He brushed his lips against mine again. “If I can’t have you whole,” he whispered, “I’ll take what I can get.”

His thumb stroked my throat. “And if it kills you?” He smiled, all teeth. “Then you weren’t strong enough to stand beside me.”

Something inside me broke.

Not the bond—but the last hope that the boy I’d grown up with still existed. That part of me died.

“Let… go,” I slurred.

“Alpha—now,” the voice urged. “The Elders—”

Kellan exhaled, calculating. Then he shoved me.

I stumbled back, roots catching my heels. “I’ll find you,” he said coldly. “Moonmarked or not. You’re mine, Rose Calder.”

Moonmarked.

I didn’t have time to question it before the ground vanished.

I crashed down the slope, clawing at roots and rock. My limbs were clumsy, numb and burning. A root caught my boot, wrenching my leg sideways—white-hot pain exploded.

Then there was nothing beneath me.

The river rose up, roaring silver under the moon.

I hit hard. Cold slammed into me, stealing every breath. Water filled my mouth, clean and wild—and beneath it, the bitter tang of wolvesbane.

My body seized. The current spun me. My wolf tried to shift in desperation; agony tore through my spine as the poison crushed her back down.

Not like this, she whimpered.

The bond screamed as the river dragged me farther away, stretched taut, poisoned along its length. For the first time, I hoped he felt it.

My thoughts blurred. Let go, whispered exhaustion.

No.

I don’t want him to be the last thing I taste.

Through the dark water, I saw the moon.

Impossible and clear. Its light speared down, steady and silver, wrapping around me like cold hands.

Moonlight.

It burned through the wolvesbane.

The poison hissed and shrank. My wolf gasped, drawing her first real breath since the kiss. The light threaded along the bond—and for one frozen instant, I felt him at the other end. Shock. Rage. Fear.

Then the light surged.

The bond didn’t snap. It tore.

Agony split my chest. Images crashed through me—his scent, his laughter, blood on his hands, promises made and broken. For one heartbeat, we shared the pain.

Mine was for surviving him.

His was for losing control.

The silver blaze devoured the poison and bit into the bond itself. Fiber by fiber, it unraveled.

Free, my wolf whispered.

The final strand gave.

Silence.

The absence stunned me—no Kellan, no weight in my chest. Just me. Painful, hollow, alive.

The river reclaimed its roar. I was sinking.

I forced my limbs to move, sluggish but mine. With a final thrash, I broke the surface and dragged in air, coughing, shaking.

I floated, battered and freezing. The bond was gone. Truly gone.

Relief slammed into me, fierce and choking.

Then the moon changed.

Light flared—violent, blinding. The air hummed. Lunar flare, my wolf breathed in awe.

Once in a generation, the moon wakes.

The wave of light washed over me. Ice and fire tore through my nerves. Images slashed across my mind—silver-black wolves, drowned pups lifted from water, blood-red moons.

Drowned. Saved. Marked.

Then it vanished.

The night settled. I drifted until rock scraped my back. I clawed my way to the bank and collapsed onto wet earth, lungs burning, body shaking.

Not Blackthorn forest.

Neutral ground.

“Enough,” I croaked. “We’re out.”

Pain screamed as I forced myself up. Somewhere beyond the trees lay Crescent Hollow—a place to disappear, if I survived long enough to reach it.

I took one step. Then another.

A thin shard of moonlight cut through the leaves, laying a silver line across my path.

Follow it, my wolf urged.

I did.

Every step away from the river was agony, but beneath the poison, something new thrummed in my blood—quiet, waiting.

And for the first time in my life, the hunt wasn’t behind me.

It had only just begun.

By the time I saw the first lights of Crescent Hollow, my body was somewhere between numb and screaming.

Branches had painted my arms in shallow cuts. My jeans were stiff with dried river water and mud, clinging like a second, colder hide. Every breath scraped my ribs. The wolvesbane hadn’t left—it slithered under my skin in waves, nausea rising hard enough to make my knees threaten collapse.

But I was still moving.

Dawn came and went in a pale blur, the sky washing from ink to ash-gray to a thin, rinsed blue. The sun was up, but the forest on this side of the river clung to shadow, holding dusk in pockets beneath the canopy. I walked those pockets like a ghost, avoiding open shafts of light.

Daylight meant eyes. Eyes meant questions.

We’d tracked loners through these woods once—runaways, rogues, the occasional human who wandered too close. I remembered how patrols moved like a net, tightening slow and patient. If Kellan ordered it—and he would—Blacktho