The Blood Moon's light burned like acid against Selene's skin.
She crouched on the ledge, her claws digging into the rock as the howl reverberated through the valley below. The sound wasn't just noise...it was a pressure, slithering into her ears and coiling around her spine. Her shadows thrashed in response, the markings on her arms pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Too close. She's too close.
The keep's gates burst open.
Wolves poured out...dozens of them...but their movements were all wrong. Jerky. Twitching. Their fur had taken on a sickly blue sheen in the moonlight, their eyes glowing the same unnatural hue as Roran's. One stumbled, its front legs bending backward with a wet snap, yet it kept running.
Running toward the caves.
Toward Cyrus.
Selene's breath hitched. She had to move...
She nearly gutted her attacker before recognizing the scent: pine and iron. Kael.
He looked... different. His golden eyes now burned with flecks of black, his pupils slit like a cat's.
A hand clamped over her mouth.
The hollow space in his chest where his Alpha power had been was now filled with swirling shadow...her shadow. The bond, though faint, still pulsed between them.
"Don't scream," he murmured, his voice rough with disuse.
She shoved his hand away. "You followed the bond."
His gaze dropped to her marked arms. "Among other things."
A guttural shriek cut through the night...the sound of bones breaking and reforming. The First Shadow was waking fully, and her corruption was spreading.
Kael's claws flexed. "We need to..."
"Selene!"
Cyrus's voice.
They turned as one.
Her brother staggered from a side tunnel, his right arm hanging at an unnatural angle, his chest markings now glowing the same blue as the corrupted wolves. Behind him, the tunnel walls breathed...pulsing inward as something massive slithered through the dark.
"Run!" he screamed.
Then the wall exploded.
The Herald's True Form
Roran emerged...or what was left of him.
His body had stretched into something grotesquely elongated, his ribs split open to form wing-like appendages of bone and tendon. His jaw unhinged, revealing rows of needle teeth, the blue light pouring from his throat like liquid fire.
But his eyes...
His eyes were still Roran's.
And they burned with hate.
"She comes," he rasped, his voice layered with the herald's whispers. "And you will kneel."
Cyrus collapsed at Selene's feet, his blood sizzling where it hit the moonlit stone. "The markings," he gasped. "They're not a curse...they're a cage."
Then the First Shadow's true voice shook the mountain:
"MY CHILDREN."
Kael grabbed Selene as the cliff face crumbled beneath them.