Chapter 4 — The Pendant's Warning

Elena Blackwood

The Luna's Tears pendant burned against Elena's skin as she dissected the Q3 revenue projections on her office's wall-to-wall screens. What had been cool moonstone for years now pulsed with an ancient heat, each throb matching her heartbeat. She reached up, manicured fingers trembling as they brushed the pendant that had graced her mother's throat for decades before her death. The stone flickered with an inner light—dormant since the night she'd walked away from the pack, leaving behind everything but this one piece of her heritage.