Chapter 1 — <strong>Marked by Moonlight</strong>

Aria knelt in the carved circle of wolf tracks at the heart of the Wolf Hall, the cold stone biting into her skin through tattered fabric. Her wrists, bound by iron chains, rested heavy in her lap, the metal clinking faintly with her shallow breaths. Blood streaked her face, a crimson map of fresh cuts and old bruises, one eye half-swollen shut. Her jaw clenched tight, not in pain, but in a quiet, seething restraint. The thin silver ray from the moon’s eye above pierced through the darkness, bathing her in a ghostly glow, as if the light itself sought to expose her defiance.

The air hung thick with the tang of ash and iron, mingled with the sharp bite of healing oils—a scent that clung to the black polished walls. Around her, the symbols of the pack—claws, paws, watchful eyes—stared from their embedded places in the stone, unblinking witnesses to the ritual unfolding. The slab beneath her, rough and stained with rust and dried blood, pressed its history into her bones. This wasn’t a place for justice. It was a forge for breaking wills.

Darius paced before her on the steps, his boots echoing in the cavernous silence of the hall. His shirt, open at the chest, revealed scars that spoke of battles won, not endured. His movements were languid, a predator toying with prey that couldn’t flee. He stopped, tilting his head as if studying a puzzle, his gaze cold but not unkind—a calculated frost.

“You wear your silence like armor, Nightshade,” he mused, his voice low, carrying the weight of command. “But even armor dents under pressure. Tell me, does it still fit after all these years?”

Aria’s good eye flicked up to meet his, a glint of raw, contained fury cutting through the haze of pain. “Pressure builds diamonds, Shadowclaw. Keep pressing. See what you get.”

A murmur rippled through the shadows at the hall’s edges, where guards and Council members lingered like ghosts. Their presence was a wall, unseen but felt, a reminder that this wasn’t just between her and Darius. It was theater, a performance of power etched into the very stone of the Wolf Hall. She felt their stares, heavy as the chains on her wrists, but she didn’t flinch. Her voice had been a blade, sharp and deliberate, cutting through the tension.

Darius chuckled, a sound like gravel underfoot, and crouched to her level, close enough that she could smell the faint musk of sweat and authority on him. His eyes searched hers, not for weakness, but for cracks. “Diamonds, you say? I don’t need beauty, Aria. I need obedience. The pack needs it. And you—” He gestured to her chains, her battered face. “—you’re the lesson they won’t forget.”

Her lips twitched, not into a smile, but a sneer that stung with contempt. “Lessons get old. So do teachers. How long ‘til they stop listening?”

He straightened, the faintest tightening of his jaw betraying a flicker of irritation before his mask of calm resettled. He turned, pacing again, his boots a slow drumbeat on the steps. The moonlight caught the edge of his silhouette, casting a shadow that stretched across the floor, swallowing the circle where she knelt. “They listen because they fear. And fear—” He spun back to her, his voice a quiet blade. “—fear is eternal. You, of all wolves, should know that.”

Aria said nothing, her gaze dropping to the stained slab beneath her. Blood—hers, others’—mingled with the stone’s history. Her silence wasn’t surrender. It was a promise, carved into the marrow of her bones, waiting for the right moment to howl.

* * *

Darius resumed his slow orbit around Aria, his boots scraping a deliberate rhythm against the stone floor of the Wolf Hall. Each step carved an invisible barrier, a cage of presence that seemed to press in closer without ever touching her. His shadow loomed and shifted under the silver shaft of moonlight piercing through the dome’s eye, while she remained the sole figure bathed in its ghostly sheen. Beyond the circle of wolf tracks where she knelt, the hall’s edges dissolved into murk, the guards and Council members mere silhouettes, their breaths a quiet undercurrent to the tension.

His voice unfurled, soft as a whisper, yet it reverberated off the black polished walls, each word a stone dropped into still water. “Do you remember what he called you? The shadow of my left wing.” A pause, heavy, as he circled behind her, his silhouette stretching long across the blood-stained slab. “And so, you plunged a blade into his neck while he slept, not expecting a blow. Without anger. Without honor. Without challenge.”

Aria’s face remained a mask of stone, unresponsive. A trickle of blood seeped from her split lip, carving a fresh path down her chin, catching the moonlight in a crimson glint. Her gaze stayed fixed on the floor, on the hollowed tracks beneath her knees, as if the stone itself held answers she refused to voice. The bruises and cuts on her battered visage stood out stark under the pale illumination, a map of endurance, while the rest of the hall—Darius included—lingered in the penumbra, half-formed specters in her periphery.

He continued, his tone unchanged, a velvet blade slicing through the silence as he rounded to her side. “You were his confidante. His guard. His weakness.” Each accusation landed with precision, meant to sting, to unravel. “You turned privilege into betrayal. And not out of rage. No. Because of ambition. You wanted power that wasn’t given to you. And when they didn’t grant it, you took life.”

He halted directly in front of her, his shadow falling across her like a shroud. Then, with a predator’s grace, he lowered himself to one knee, not as an equal, but as a performer in a grand, cruel play. His face came close, near enough for her to catch the hard glint in his eyes, the scent of authority etched into his skin. His whisper slithered out, intimate yet chilling. “It wasn’t a flash of madness. It was predatory calculation. You’re a wolf without a pack. And do you know what we do with them?”

Abruptly, he rose, a fluid motion that snapped the air taut. He lifted a hand, a signal, and a guard emerged from the half-dark, boots scuffing stone as he approached. In his grip was a thin metal hoop, its surface etched with jagged runes—a traitor’s brand, cold and final. Darius took it, fingers curling around the engraving as if relishing its weight.

His voice boomed now, no longer a murmur but a decree, directed not at Aria but at the unseen audience lurking in the shadows. “From this day on, Aria Nightshade is not part of the pack. Not a wolf. Not a woman. Not an ally. She’s a living reminder. That anyone who sinks claws into the leader’s back will live in chains, on their knees, under the moon, without a name.”

With a sudden, harsh motion, he forced the hoop around her neck. The metal bit into her skin, sharp and unyielding, a cold vice claiming her. Aria’s face twitched, a fleeting wince flashing across her features as the edges dug in, but no sound escaped her. Her silence stood defiantly, a wall against the ritual, even as the brand marked her flesh with its bitter promise.