Moonfire Queen

POV: Aria Moonstone (Silver Hollow Pack)

The scent of pine and ash lingered in the air, mingling with the metallic tang of blood. Aria lay crumpled on the cold stone floor of the ceremonial chamber, cheek pressed to the ground, her skin mottled with bruises and shame. Her shoulder throbbed, the spot where her mating mark once burned with Ryker Thorne's name now cold and bare.

Gone.

She blinked against the sunlight filtering through the stained-glass window above her. Dust floated like dying stars in the stillness. Her wolf-the inner presence that had once growled with fire and instinct-was gone. Silent. Empty.

Aria tried to sit up, gasping as pain tore through her ribs. Each breath felt like swallowing knives. She touched her mark's absence with trembling fingers, barely daring to believe it. No glow. No bond. Just raw, reddened skin.

The memory returned in fragments.

"You were never mine," Ryker had said, his voice colder than the ice-blasted cliffs of the Northern Ridge. "I revoke the bond."

The words had struck harder than claws, a rejection that burned deeper than any wound. And behind him, wrapped in silver and smugness, stood Lyla Vexmoor-the Alpha's daughter, flawless in the way only cruelty could polish.

"She tried to bind him with scent magic," Lyla had hissed to the Council. "She was desperate. Dangerous."

And they believed her. They always believed her.

Aria blinked away the hot sting behind her eyes. She wouldn't cry. Not now. Not in front of them.

The heavy oak door creaked open, and the echo of footsteps reached her ears. Two enforcers approached, broad-shouldered and masked in silver.

"Moonstone Aria," one growled. "The Council has ruled. You are to be cast out by sundown."

She opened her mouth to speak-to plead, maybe-but no words came. Her tongue was dry. Her heart shattered. The second guard yanked her to her feet. Her legs buckled, but they didn't care. They dragged her between them like a broken trophy.

Behind them, Lyla's laugh echoed faintly.

And as the chamber doors slammed shut behind her, Aria knew one truth: she was no longer Silver Hollow's Luna. She was nothing.

But in the distant trees beyond the pack border, hidden among the dense wildwood, eyes watched.

Kade Ashbourne's jaw tightened as he leaned against the bark of a gnarled oak, the shadows hiding him from the guards' senses. He had seen enough.

He didn't know her name. Not yet. But he knew pain. And betrayal. And that look in her eyes when she was dragged across the stones-the one that promised fire would return.

Kade whispered to no one, voice gravel and heat: "That girl just lost everything... maybe she's finally ready to be found."

And with that, the rogue vanished deeper into the woods.

---

The pack square reeked of iron and judgment. Blood soaked the dirt beneath Aria's bare feet, staining her as a traitor before the trial had even begun.

The Council stood in a half-circle-hooded, robed, and faceless. Behind them, the Silver Hollow Pack watched like vultures, their eyes gleaming with curiosity and cruelty. Some whispered. Others smiled.

They'd come to see the she-wolf destroyed.

Aria swayed as she was dragged forward, each step a scream in her bones. Her wrists were bound behind her back, her once-proud shoulders slumped, torn robe fluttering in the mountain wind.

And in the front row, Ryker Thorne stood beside Lyla Vexmoor.

The girl who wore Aria's scent like stolen perfume. The one who had always lingered in the background-pretty, poisonous, patient.

Lyla clung to Ryker's arm now, smiling sweetly as if Aria's fall were just a formality. She wore a new mark on her neck. Fresh. Crimson. Still gleaming.

Ryker had claimed her.

Aria's stomach twisted. Not with heartbreak, but with something colder. Something ancient.

Betrayal.

"Aria Moonstone," Elder Rowan's voice boomed, silencing the murmurs. "You stand accused of treason, of using forbidden magic to bind a mate unwilling, and of attempting to harm your Luna successor. How do you plead?"

She raised her chin despite the pain.

"I plead," she rasped, voice dry, "that you all look into your own rotten hearts before judging mine."

Gasps echoed. A slap cracked across her cheek-the Beta enforcer, Mason, his face blank.

"Watch your tongue, wolf," he growled.

Aria spat blood onto the ground. "I have nothing left to lose."

Rowan's eyes narrowed. "Your wolf is gone, your bond broken. You're barely one of us. The law demands exile."

Lyla stepped forward, mock concern twisting her lips. "She could still be dangerous. We should strip her of her name, her right to shift. A true severance."

"Don't pretend concern," Aria snapped. "You only ever wanted what was mine."

Lyla's smile didn't falter. "And now I have it."

Ryker looked away.

Aria saw it. The flicker of guilt.

But guilt doesn't unbreak bonds. It doesn't unscar souls.

The crowd roared for punishment. For blood. For removal of the last threat to their perfect facade.

"Any last words?" Rowan asked.

Aria closed her eyes. Her wolf remained silent. Her heart bled.

But somewhere in the back of her soul, a whisper stirred.

Not yet.

"I may be broken," she whispered. "But I am not finished."

Rowan raised a hand. "By order of the Silver Hollow Council, Aria Moonstone is hereby cast out. Let her name be struck. Let her bloodline fade."

Two guards seized her arms.

They dragged her through the crowd, through spit and curses, down the mountain path that led into rogue territory.

But none of them noticed the shadow watching from beyond the trees.

Kade Ashbourne leaned against an ancient pine, golden eyes flickering in the dark.

He'd seen enough.

His voice was soft as he whispered into the wind, "They marked the wrong girl to die."

And then he followed.

---

The climb down the mountain was never meant to be taken alone, especially not at night.

Snow bit into Aria's bare feet, her body shivering with each gust of wind as she stumbled forward-blood drying on her thighs, her lip split from where Lyla had struck her. The bruises from the trial still bloomed like wilted violets across her ribs, and her torn ceremonial dress clung to her skin, soaked and crusted in betrayal.

Her wolf still didn't speak. Not a whisper. Not a growl. Just... silence.

She was truly alone.

"Keep moving," one of the warriors growled behind her, jabbing the butt of his spear against her back. "You're lucky the Alpha spared your life."

Aria didn't answer. Her voice had broken back at the summit when Ryker had turned his back on her. When he let them tear off her mating mark like it meant nothing. When Lyla Vexmoor, his Luna-now, spat the final lie that sealed her fate.

The air was thinner at this altitude, and her vision began to blur. Trees surrounded her-tall, skeletal sentinels watching as her shame was marched through snow and shadow. Her steps slowed. Every muscle screamed. Every breath tasted like metal and loss.

And then, her knees gave out.

She collapsed onto the frost-crusted trail, her breath catching in a ragged sob. The guards didn't stop. One muttered, "Not our problem anymore," and turned back, their footsteps crunching into the night as they left her to die like trash on the edge of their territory.

Aria curled into herself.

Her fingers dug into the snow. Her blood seeped into the earth. And her heart cracked one final time.

"I did nothing wrong," she whispered. "I didn't do it..."

The forest didn't answer.

But something else did.

From deep within her chest-beneath the silence where her wolf should've been-a warmth flickered. A pulse. A breath of gold inside her blood. Not fire, not yet... but the promise of it.

The Moon didn't speak. But something ancient, something buried, stirred awake.

And the snow began to melt beneath her trembling fingers.

---

Darkness swallowed Aria whole.

She floated in a void between pain and silence, her body unmoving as her blood cooled on the snow. Yet in that stillness... something watched.

Golden eyes narrowed in the shadows.

Kade Ashbourne had seen enough.

From the moment the Silver Hollow Pack dragged her to the edge of exile, he'd followed-silent as a ghost, deadly as winter. He hadn't planned to interfere. Rogues didn't meddle in pack business, especially not when it reeked of politics and betrayal.

But when she crumpled like a discarded corpse-when her blood smeared, the ice-Kade moved.

Fast.

The rogue Alpha crossed the treeline and dropped to one knee beside her. His black coat billowed with the wind as his fingers pressed to her throat.

A heartbeat.

Faint, but stubborn. Like her.

"Damn fools," he muttered. "You don't throw away wolves like this."

Her face was a mess of bruises and tears. Her mark was gone, ripped clean off her skin. But it was the absence of her wolf that struck him like a punch to the chest.

Still, something shimmered under her skin. Not pack magic. Older. Wilder. Forgotten.

Moonfire.

Kade slid one arm beneath her knees, the other around her shoulders. She was freezing-bones sharp beneath flesh, fragile as porcelain in his grip.

She whimpered once, eyes fluttering.

"Hush," he whispered. "I've got you now."

He carried her through the forest, slipping into the rogue territory only he commanded. Trees grew denser. Magic tangled the air like mist. The night embraced them both-unseen, unsensed.

By the time he reached the hidden cabin near the cliffs, she was drifting between dreams and fever.

He laid her on a thick bed of furs, built a fire with practiced hands, and stared down at her-this girl with a broken bond and too much power sleeping beneath her ribs.

She didn't belong in Silver Hollow. Not anymore.

She belonged to something greater.

And he'd be damned if he let the packs ruin her again.

---

Aria (waking)

Aria gasped.

The room around her was dark, smoky, warm. She didn't recognize the heavy stone walls, the low crackle of fire, or the scent of cedarwood and steel. But more than that-she didn't recognize the wolf presence nearby.

Not pack.

Not enemy.

Not friend.

Something else.

Her eyes fluttered open. Across the fire, a man leaned against the wall-arms crossed, golden eyes burning like a slow sun.

"You're safe," he said.

"Where... where am I?"

He didn't smile. "Not where they left you."

Aria's throat tightened. Her hand touched her shoulder-where her mark had been. Gone.

Tears welled. "Why did you save me?"

Kade's gaze never wavered. "Because you're not finished yet."

The fire flared between them, and in that light, something stirred inside her again.

Her wolf didn't speak... but it watched.

And somewhere deep in the marrow of her soul, Aria knew:

This wasn't the end.

It was the beginning.