Moonbound: The Alpha's Chosen

Morning light filtered through Emily's blinds, illuminating a desktop strewn with printouts of werewolf folklore and mythology. She'd spent the day oscillating between journalistic skepticism and growing unease about the bizarre events surrounding her investigation. Lucas's sudden coldness after their passionate night together had left her confused and hurt, but also more determined than ever to uncover the truth.

"This is ridiculous," Emily muttered, scrolling through yet another website describing werewolf transformations during full moons. Her rational mind rejected the absurdity of it all, yet she couldn't dismiss the strange behavior of both Lucas and Alexander, their cryptic comments about her mother, or the way her pendant seemed to react to their presence.

She picked up the dagger Alexander had given her, studying its intricate wolf-head design that matched her pendant perfectly. According to the mythology she'd researched, silver was supposed to harm werewolves, yet both men had handled these silver objects without issue. Another inconsistency in an increasingly inconsistent narrative.

Emily turned to a folder containing her mother's death certificate. The official report stated Helena Grey had died in a car accident—vehicle found at the bottom of a ravine, victim of a rainy night and dangerous mountain roads. Yet when Emily had requested the autopsy report from county records, she'd been told it was "unavailable." No photos of the wreckage existed in newspaper archives, and her father had cremated her mother's body with unusual haste.

"What were you hiding, Mom?" Emily whispered, touching the pendant at her throat. "And why did you make me promise never to enter the forest?"

Her research shifted to her mother's life before marriage. Helena had appeared in the small town seemingly from nowhere at age twenty-two, with no family and few possessions. She'd met and married Emily's father within six months. Before that, her history was a blank slate—no school records, no childhood home, nothing to indicate where she'd come from.

The few photographs Emily had of her mother revealed a beautiful woman with Emily's same honey-blonde hair and deep green eyes. In every picture, Helena wore the wolf pendant, never seen without it. Just as Emily had never been without it since her mother's death.

Exhaustion crept over Emily as evening approached. She hadn't slept properly since Lucas's visit, her dreams haunted by wolves and moonlight. Leaning back in her chair, she closed her eyes "just for a moment," a faded photo of her mother clutched in her hand.

The dream began differently this time. Emily wasn't running through the forest but standing in her childhood home. She watched as her mother paced the kitchen, agitated, the pendant glowing against her skin.

"They've found me," dream-Helena whispered to someone off-scene. "I can feel them getting closer. The full moon is tomorrow, and I don't think I can suppress it any longer."

The scene shifted, and Emily saw her mother drive frantically along a mountain road, rain lashing the windshield. A second vehicle appeared in the rearview mirror, gaining quickly.

"No," Helena gasped, accelerating. "I won't let them have her. I won't let them make Emily what I am."

Suddenly, Helena's eyes changed, glowing amber in the darkness. Her features contorted in pain as bones began to shift beneath her skin. She fought against the transformation, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.

"No!" she cried. "Not now!"

The pursuing vehicle rammed her from behind. As the car swerved toward the guardrail, Helena turned toward the passenger seat—where a younger Emily sat, frozen in terror.

But that couldn't be right. Emily hadn't been in the car. She'd been at college when her mother died.

Dream-Helena's face elongated, teeth sharpening into fangs as she howled in anguish. "Run, Emily! When I'm gone, run from them all! Never enter the forest! Never let them awaken what sleeps in your blood!"

The car crashed through the guardrail, plummeting into darkness as Helena's human scream transformed into a wolf's howl.

Emily jerked awake, heart pounding, her mother's warning echoing in her mind. She touched her damp cheeks, realizing she'd been crying in her sleep.

"It was just a nightmare," she told herself firmly, though the dream had felt more like memory than fantasy. "I wasn't even in the car. Dad said she was alone."

But doubt had taken root. Why would her mother warn her away from the forest? Why did Alexander and Lucas seem to know secrets about Helena that Emily didn't? And why did they both react so strongly to her pendant?

Emily unclasped the necklace, studying it in the fading light. Perhaps it was the source of her disturbing dreams and the strange sensations she'd been experiencing. Perhaps removing it would restore some normalcy to her increasingly chaotic life.

"I am not a werewolf," she stated firmly to her empty apartment. "My mother died in an accident. All of this—these dreams, these delusions—they're just the result of stress and suggestion. Of spending too much time with Lucas and Alexander and their mind games."

Decision made, Emily set the pendant beside the dagger on her desk, the first time it had left her neck since her mother's death. An unexpected sense of loss washed over her, but she pushed it aside.

"I'm Emily Grey, journalist," she reminded herself. "I deal in facts, not folklore. And I'm going to find the truth about A Group and these attacks, without magical thinking or werewolf fantasies."

Outside her window, the nearly-full moon rose in a cloudless sky, its silver light falling across the abandoned pendant that seemed, just for a moment, to pulse with its own inner glow.