>Luna Blackwell
I woke up choking on a scream.
The pain in my wrist was fire, hot, sharp, alive. I yanked back the sleeve of my hoodie and stared. It was there. Twisting, glowing, burning.
A mark.
What the hell?
I scrambled upright, heart pounding, hand shaking. The scar pulsed faintly under my skin, silver and black, the pattern almost... moving. I blinked hard. No, it was moving, shifting like smoke, like it was breathing with me.
Panic surged. I didn't get tattoos. I didn't do magic. I didn't wake up with cursed symbols crawling under my skin. This, this wasn't normal.
I leapt off the bed, feet cold on the wooden floor, and rushed to the mirror. My reflection looked just as freaked out as I felt, sweat sticking my hair to my forehead, eyes wide, skin pale. I held up my wrist.
"What is this?" I whispered.
The scar pulsed in answer.
I backed away. This had to be a dream. A nightmare. Maybe I'd finally lost it.
A soft knock broke through my spiral.
"Luna?" My mother's voice, tight, quiet.
I hesitated. "Yeah?"
The door creaked open, and she stepped in. Her eyes went straight to my wrist. She didn't even blink.
"It's begun," she said.
My stomach dropped. "What's begun? What is this?"
She didn't answer. Not right away. She crossed the room in three quick steps and took my wrist in her hands. Her fingers trembled.
"You're marked," she whispered. "The Moonbound have awakened."
Moonbound.
I'd heard that name before; in stories, whispered warnings, half-forgotten village myths. But those were just tales, right? Right?
"Why me?" I asked.
She looked at me like she wanted to say everything and nothing at once. "Because you're the last."
That made zero sense.
Before I could press her, a knock rattled the front door downstairs, loud, urgent. My mother's head snapped toward it.
Her eyes turned cold. "Stay here."
"Wait, what's going on?"
She didn't answer. She turned and vanished out the door. Just like that.
I ran after her, stopping at the top of the stairs. I could hear voices, low, tense. Then silence. Then the sound of the door slamming shut.
I waited.
She didn't come back.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.
My whole body felt wrong, tight, electrified, like something was watching me even when I was alone.
Then the knock came.
Again.
Only this time, it wasn't her.
I didn't move.
The knock came again. Harder. Three sharp, deliberate bangs.
This wasn't my mother.
I crept to the window and peeked through the curtain.
Black car. Tinted windows. Engine still running.
No one on the porch.
I backed away fast, heart hammering against my ribs. Whoever was out there wasn't human. I couldn't explain how I knew, it was like the scar on my wrist buzzed in warning.
Then the door creaked open.
Not knocked, not kicked. Opened.
That's when I ran.
Down the hall. Barefoot. I didn't care. I tore through the back door, into the woods behind our house. The cold bit into my skin, but I didn't stop. Branches scratched my arms, my legs. Still, I ran.
Until something moved ahead.
A figure, tall, cloaked in shadow, stepped into my path like he'd been waiting.
I froze.
His eyes found mine. Red. Glowing. Unblinking.
I turned to run, but a blur of motion cut off my retreat. Another figure. Pale. Silent.
I was surrounded.
My pulse roared in my ears. "Who are you?!"
The red-eyed one tilted his head. "You carry the mark."
I clutched my wrist. "Get away from me!"
His lips twitched into the barest smile. "You don't know what you are yet. But you will."
I didn't wait for more. I ducked low, bolted sideways, and slammed into someone else.
No.
Not someone.
Something.
A growl rumbled through the air, deep, bone-shaking. Fur. Teeth. Eyes like ice.
A wolf.
But not a normal one.
It stood taller than me, silver-gray fur glowing under the moonlight, a crescent mark blazing across its chest, the same shape as mine.
It didn't attack.
It bowed.
What the actual hell.
And then...
Chaos.
The vampires hissed. The wolf lunged. I dropped to the ground as claws and fangs clashed above me, and everything exploded into snarls and shadows.
I didn't know who was saving me.
I didn't care.
I ran again.
And this time, I didn't stop until the forest spit me out on the other side, blood on my hands, the scar on fire,
and a truth I couldn't outrun.
My life was over.
Or maybe, just beginning.