When The Moon Hides Her Crown - Chapter 11: Chapter 11

SERAPHINA
The Alpha who’d set his eyes on me from the very beginning, the one I wanted to keep as far away from me as possible, was now both my hunter and my prey.
But I, Seraphina, refused to be hunted. I would only become prey when it suited me.
The echo of the horn hadn’t even begun to fade before I moved. My pulse thundered in my ears as I bolted forward, shoving myself into the crush of Alpha hopefuls surging toward the forest. I didn’t spare a glance to see where Ronan stood. I didn’t have to. I could feel his gaze, sharp and cold, like the edge of a blade ghosting across my throat. A predator’s stare. A reaper’s mark.
Run. Run now.
I bled into the crowd, jostling shoulders, ducking low, my lean frame weaving effortlessly between the bulkier bodies of the male Alphas. I kept my head down, breath shallow, heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to claw its way free. Every nerve in my body screamed to shift, to let my wolf take over—but I couldn’t.
If anyone looked too closely, if someone noticed the slender cut of my limbs, the unnatural grace in my stride, it would all be over.
I risked a glance over my shoulder.
Ronan.
He had finally stepped into the crowd, moving with a slow, almost lazy gait, eyes locked on me. Every step he took was deliberate, inevitable. Like a storm rolling in. Like a death sentence. The reaper he was rumored to be, clad in shadow and silent promise.
The pack of Alphas around me thinned fast as each broke away to begin their hunt. The evening air filled with snarls and shouted curses as bodies shifted into wolves, pelts flashing silver and black beneath the fractured moonlight.
But I didn’t slow. I pushed harder, darting between a pair of snarling wolves mid-lunge, their clash buying me precious seconds. My only goal was the finish line. Fight only when forced. Survive. That was all.
Then there was an abrupt, sharp pain deep in my gut. Not instinct. A warning.
I glanced to my right, and there he was.
Dante.
His eyes found mine through the chaos of bodies and branches, dark and dangerous. His expression was unreadable, but the intent behind his gaze was unmistakable. A slow, knowing grin curved his lips.
“Seth Darven,” he murmured.
I clenched my fists. He’d made me his prey as well.
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath and dove toward the treeline.
The Cursed Forest swallowed me whole, a rush of mist and shifting shadows closing in around me. I’d heard of this place before. Legends spoke of bloodstained trees, of unseen predators, of the spirits of failed Alphas trapped forever between the gnarled roots. The forest itself was a curse.
Instantly, the air changed. Thick. Heavy. It clung to my skin, cold and wet, and the sounds of the hunt dulled to muted howls. The ancient trees curled their branches like claws overhead. The earth beneath my feet was soft, treacherous, as though it longed to drag me down into its depths.
But I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t.
I knew better than anyone what happened to those who hesitated here.
My lungs burned. The wound from my earlier fight tugged painfully with every stride. I zigzagged between trees, clinging to the dense undergrowth where the mist was thickest, the shadows deepest.
Wasting time hunting others was a fool’s game. The finish line was the only thing that mattered. It was madness to be hunted, or worse cornered, by not one but two unhinged Alphas.
Suddenly, something moved to my left. A low growl. The snap of twigs.
Someone was there.
Phina, my wolf, snarled against my skin, desperate to fight.
“A wolf’s sensed us,” she warned.
I dropped low, tucking myself behind a fallen log as cover. The Alpha barreled past, too focused on his own prey to notice me crouched in the shadows.
I waited for a beat. Then I moved again.
Every breath was a battle, every step a gamble.
I was faster than most of them in human form. If I shifted, I’d be quicker still but it wasn’t worth the risk. Someone sharp enough might see the lie in my shape.
And right now, a single mistake meant death.
I stopped for a moment, catching my breath as my eyes darted to a weathered map tacked to a gnarled tree trunk. The finish line wasn’t marked, but I knew where it lay. Past the old creek, where the Cursed Forest thinned and the crumbling ruins of the Academy’s ancient watchtower stood like a skeletal hand against the sky. I fixed the image in my mind like a beacon.
But just as I turned to move forward, a massive wolf landed in front of me, snarling.
I froze. Black eyes? It was not Ronan. Not Dante. Then who was he?
The wolf snarl, teeth bared at me.
Damn it. It challenged me to fight but there was no way I was shifting!
I dropped low, grabbing a thick branch and swinging it upward when he least expected it. It smacked across the Alpha’s face with a sharp crack. He reeled back, blood spraying. Before he could recover, I spun and sprinted deeper into the trees.
I didn’t look back while the mist thickened and the sound of howls of the wolves in the distance. Fighting. Struggling.
But the path ahead of me was strangely clear. When I glanced back no one was there. Phina grew alert in my mind. How was it possible that no one was coming? But what was this feeling of being watched?
Branches whipped at my face. Thorns bit into my arms.
Then a very strange noise made me freeze.
What was that?
A wet, sickening crunch somewhere ahead.
For some reason my heart stuttered and every muscle tensed.
It wasn’t a wolf’s snarl. Not a fight. It was something else. Flesh meeting earth. Bone splitting.
My instincts screamed for me to turn back, to find another route but the path ahead was the short cut that led to the finish line. The terrain elsewhere was too thick, the mist too blinding. If I hesitated now, I’d lose my lead.
Swallowing hard, I crept forward, keeping low to the ground, my senses sharp, alert.
Then a stench hit me. Coppery. Metallic. Heavy with death.
Then the clearing opened before me.
Limbs. Scattered like a broken doll’s. An arm hanging limp from a branch, a booted foot severed mid-calf resting beside a jagged rock. The earth slick with blood, mud turning to crimson paste.
And there at the center of it all…
Dante.
Chewing flesh.
Jordan’s.
My stomach lurched violently. Dante…he was eating his own friend. He was not even in his wolf form, he was human…
Jordan’s glassy, unseeing eyes stared at the misty canopy overhead, mouth forever parted in a silent scream. Watching Dante eat his own friend, my whole body grew cold. How could he do this? Eat a person.
The Alphas weren’t supposed to kill each other. It was a trial. A test of endurance, hunting, and survival.
But this…this was… I could not name this monstrous act.
Dante’s broad frame was dappled in blood, some of it his, most of it not. His dark hair hung damply over his forehead, a tail of blood ran down his mouth to throat.
Then his eyes lifted, finding me through the mist.
For a heartbeat, I forgot how to move. He found me and then… smiled.
My wolf froze in my mind at that smile. It wasn’t the usual twisted mask of hatred he wore whenever he looked at me. No sneer. No cold disdain. It was… different.
Slow.
Dark.
Bloodthirsty.
The corners of his lips tugged up in a way that made every hair on the back of my neck rise, a quiet, deadly thing that spoke of too many emotions I couldn’t name.
At that moment, it terrified me more than the blood in his mouth.
I immediately spun.
Leaves and earth scattered beneath my boots as I bolted down the side path, branches clawing at my arms.
I didn’t get far before I bumped into a solid wall of muscle.
I stumbled and almost fell when a hand reached out and grabbed my hand. I found myself in mid air, and looked up to a bare-chested person. It was Ronan. His pants soaked and streaked with crimson, his hands slick with blood. A wolf’s severed head dangled carelessly from his other hand, its glassy eyes dull and lifeless. Behind him, two bodies lay crumpled, one half-shifted mid-transition, the other’s throat torn clean through.
My lungs clamped tight. He…he too… and way more brutal than anything I had ever seen.
I pulled my hand back and took a step back, my large eyes staring at his blood splashed handsome face. He was a beast. And this wasn’t a trial.
It was a war.
The Academy…the place I thought was built to test, to mold future Alphas, and the place to win that unclaimed throne of hundred years wasn’t made of stone and sweat.
It was a graveyard.
And one of the predators was standing right in front of me.
I felt my stomach knot, bile burning at the back of her throat.
Ronan’s gaze slid down my body, noting the tension in my frame, the horror in my wide eyes. His bloodstained lips twitched in a way that wasn’t quite a smirk.
Then, with a lazy flick of his wrist, he tossed the wolf’s head aside. It landed with a dull thud.
Before I could react, he stepped closer, his chest nearly brushing mine. I gasped as the coppery scent of blood and earth clinging to his skin hit my nose.
I pulled away and instinctively dropped into a fighting stance, my fingers curling, ready to strike, to claw, to rip if I had to.
But Ronan didn’t lift a hand.
He reached out, his blood-warm palm wrapping around my wrist. His grip was firm, unyielding, but not cruel.
Then he pulled my back to his chest, his voice dropped, low and rough, threading into the fog around us as he asked in a whisper, “Why don’t you shift into your wolf?”