Lunar Bonds: Bound By Fate But Stronger Alone

ing its breath. Elara walked carefully along a narrow dirt path leading to the pack healer's hut, her arms filled with bundles of herbs she had spent the last hour gathering in the woods.

n. The voices were familiar-members of her own pack. Her heart beat faster as she recognized Mara's sharp, arrogant tone, and the deep, grumbling voice of Cain

ds again?" Mara was saying, her voice laced with a venom th

No wolf, no power, no future. It's a wonder they even keep her arou

t wasn't the first time she'd heard those words, but the pain was as fresh as ever. She forced he

a strain to hear. "Her parents were supposed to be loyal to the pack, right? Why would t

's what she'd always been told. Their deaths were supposed to have been a tragic accident, nothi

it, do you?" Cain asked, though there wa

hiding something. No one goes to that part of the forest without a reason, especiall

shade Pack, hadn't they? She had never questioned the official story. But now, as she li

s," Cain said dismissively. "Elara will never be anything m

thy of the legacy her parents had left behind. She had always known she was different, but to hear it laid

sing through her veins. They knew nothing about her parents. They didn't know the kindness in her mother's smile, the strength in he

r to the truth might somehow make it clearer. But as she edged forward, her foot snagged on a

Inside the hut

eath, heart pounding so hard she feared they would hear it. She could fe

the sound of chairs scraping against the floor, followed by their retreating footsteps. She stayed f

what she had overheard. Her parents' death had always felt like a wound that had never qu

t have the energy to deliver them to the healer, not tonight. The only thing she could think about now was the truth

gainst her skin, grounding her as she slipped deeper into the woods, where the shadows grew thicker and the path more treache

arents had supposedly saved? And why had they risked everything to protect them? The more she though

t loomed before her, dark and silent, a forbidding presence that seemed to watch her as she lingered. Somewhere out th

nother day in a world that had cast her aside. She was tired of being the outcast, the wolfless girl that

ered a quiet vow to herself, her voice lost in the wind. "

life began-one filled with questions, danger, and the promis