The training grounds of Moonbound echoed with the sound of movement claws on stone, blades clashing, howls rising beneath the moon.
For the first time, Selena stood not as the rejected Luna… but as Alpha in everything but name.
She trained beside them ,sweat on her brow, power in her veins. Rhea, bruised but healing, stood at her right. Kael at her left, silent as ever but always watching her like a sentry forged in war.
And still, Selena felt it , that pull inside her.
Like something ancient beneath the surface was knocking…
Waiting to be let out.
Later that night, alone beneath the Moonstone Tree, the heart of Moonbound territory, Selena sat cross-legged, palms open, the moonlight pouring onto her skin.
She was meditating when it happened.
A deep pulse in her chest.
A voice not the Moon Goddess this time, but something older, rawer whispered in her blood:
> "Child of silver and sorrow... you are more than light.
You carry the flame of the first shift."
She gasped, eyes snapping open as a wave of heat burst from her chest.
Her veins lit up gold.
Silver and gold, twisting together, burning through her skin like molten truth.
Her bones cracked, but not from pain from transformation.
Her wolf surged to the surface taller, sleeker, glowing with gold-inked fur tipped in silver.
She had not just shifted.
She had evolved.
The First Flame Wolf.
Kael arrived moments later, alerted by the surge.
He stared in awe as Selena, now fully shifted stood beneath the Moonstone Tree, her aura a blinding fusion of light and fire.
> "Selena," he said quietly, "You… you've awakened something the world has not seen in centuries."
She shifted back, breathless, but alive with fire.
> "I'm done being only what they expect," she said. "I'm becoming what they fear.
Meanwhile, in the Shadow Realm…
Damien knelt in the darkness, surrounded by hooded figures. Morren, the Shadow King, hovered nearby, speaking in tongues.
They were summoning something.
A creature older than time. A weapon.
> "The Flame Wolf has awakened," Morren growled. "She must be balanced… or extinguished
Damien smirked. "Then we give them war."