All Chapters of Bloodmoon Rising: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

KAELIS The wound was infected. I figured that out before Rhydian even opened his mouth. The heat coming off it was different than before, more focused, right at the spot, not roaming through my body like fever usually does. I kept my hand pressed there, stayed quiet, and kept walking. We stopped about an hour before dawn. Rhydian knelt next to me, peeled back the dressing, looked at the wound, then at me. “How long?” “Since this morning.” “You should have said something.” “Well, I’m saying it now.” He didn’t bother replying. He rummaged through his pack, while I leaned against a tree, looking up at the canopy. I just breathed, tried to tune out what was happening below my waist. The sounds I made while he cleaned it weren’t pretty, but there was no point shoving them down. At least it was dark, and Malek’s back was turned, watching the treeline like he’d decided nothing else mattered tonight. Honestly, I was glad for that, but I didn’t say it. “It needs drawing out,

He just kept talking.I didn’t interrupt. I sat against the wall, legs crossed, my hand on the wound because it was habit by now. I watched his face, really watched it, the way you do when you’re looking for something under the surface, where stories twitch or stall or get careful. I didn’t find any of those spots this time. He told it straight and even, no drama, just facts. The only way you could tell it cost him anything was in how he sat: shoulders rigid, jaw locked, holding himself still, like he was unloading something he’d carried too long.Turns out, the Elder council had known about my bloodline for eleven years. Not guessed. Known. Some routine audit when I was ten picked up a genetic marker, three generations back, on my mother’s side, one that only appeared in direct descendants of the original wolf-kind, those with the pre-hierarchy memory. They noted it, watched me, stayed quiet.When I started training at sixteen, they watched closer. At eighteen, when Zevran kept picki

I didn’t sleep that night. Not because of the wound, though it reminded me it was there every time I moved. Not because of the fever either, which had faded to a gentle heat under my skin, nothing like the earlier surge. I just couldn’t sleep. Something in the old-growth was awake, and I could feel it. Like when you know someone’s staring right at you, but there’s not a sound, not a movement. Just a sense that something’s out there, and it’s really good at hiding. Rhydian stayed awake too. I could hear him, even though he barely moved. He sat at the edge of the platform, back against the trunk, legs stretched out. He wasn’t asleep, you could feel it in the way he held himself. Not relaxed. Watching the dark and waiting for something to change. In the middle of the night, Malek climbed up from the platform below and settled on the far side of the trunk. Didn’t say a word, just closed his eyes. Maybe he slept, maybe he just pretended. I was starting to think Malek could do both, hones

We walked until it got dark. No one talked about stopping. No one talked about keeping going either. We just kept moving as the last of the light bled out, pressing on into a darkness that called up the animal in you, not the human. I let my wolf senses open up, just a crack, nothing dramatic, but enough to sharpen everything around me. The trees sharpened. The ground shifted under my feet in a new way. Every little sound landed and sorted itself in my mind without any effort.Behind us, the first wolves started to move.I never saw them, and that kept tripping me up, these massive creatures, yet they hardly made a sound, nothing that matched their size. Sometimes I caught the brush of movement in the undergrowth, or felt the air shift, like something big had just slipped by. At first, I thought there were three. An hour on, I had no idea.At some point, Rhydian came up beside me.He was silent for a long time. We walked, trees sliding past, the old mark on my shoulder humming warm an

I hit the corridor running.Malek was already there, slipping in beside me and matching my pace. He wore the look he got when everything was falling apart and he was busy calculating just how bad it was. I didn’t ask. We just ran, feet thudding against the floor, the old stone echoing with a noise that hadn’t been there three minutes ago, distant voices, drifting up from below, all hurried and sharp, like someone had just loosed a pack of wolves with orders.“How many?” I asked, not slowing.“Eight, through the main entrance,” he said, barely out of breath. “More from the east.”“Rhydian?”“Already out. Gareth too.” He flicked a glance at me as we tore along. “Soren held the passage.”We crashed down the stairs. The storage room waited ahead, Soren guarding the passage. He looked at me, at the bundle of texts in my hand, the mark visible through my shirt, whatever my face was doing. He didn’t speak, just turned and headed inside.I followed.The passage was louder making our way back,