Blood Moon Contract

The letter smelled like smoke and old paper. Mara read it twice before she let herself believe it.

One contract. One target. Full payment on completion.

She sat alone in the back room of the Order's outpost, the candle burning low, and thought

about her sister. Amara was eighteen and dying slowly of a sickness the healers had no cure for

— not without the kind of medicine that cost more money than Mara would earn in ten years of

normal work. This contract would change that. One name. One night. Enough gold to buy Amara

a real chance at life.

The name on the page was Kael.

Alpha of the North Pack. The man — the wolf — the Order called a monster.

Mara had heard the stories since she was a child. The North Pack massacre, twelve years ago.

Whole villages burned. Hunters slaughtered in the dark. Kael was said to be the last of a

bloodline that hated humans, and he had grown into something worse than his father ever was.

The Order had hunted him for years without success. Now they wanted her.

She was good at disappearing. Good at getting close to people who didn't want to be found. She

had never failed a contract, and she told herself this one would be no diferent, even though

something about it sat wrong in her chest.

"You understand the terms," said the man across the table. Commander Voss. His voice was flat,

the kind of flat that made people nervous without knowing why. "Kill him before the Blood

Moon. Bring proof. Your sister's treatment begins the same day."

"I understand," Mara said.

"The Blood Moon is in three weeks. That is not a generous window, Mara. Kael does not sleep in

the same place twice, and his pack is loyal to a fault. You will need to get close before you can

strike."

"I'll get close."Voss studied her for a long moment, the way he always did before sending her somewhere

dangerous, like he was trying to decide if she'd come back at all. "The North is not like the towns

you're used to. It's wolf territory, all of it, for a hundred miles past the river. If they catch you,

they won't ask questions first."

"They won't catch me."

He almost smiled at that. Almost. "Go tonight. Every day you wait is a day your sister doesn't

have."

That was the only reason Mara needed.

She left before sunrise, a pack on her back and two blades hidden under her cloak one at her hip

where anyone could see it, and one sewn into her boot where no one would think to look. The

road north grew wilder with every mile. Farms gave way to thick pine forest, and the pine forest

gave way to something older, trees so tall they blotted out the sky, roots thick as a man's waist

breaking up through the dirt road.

By the second day she felt it the sense of being watched. Not followed. Watched, the way an

animal watches from cover, patient and unhurried. She didn't stop walking. She didn't reach for

her blade either. Whoever, whatever, was out there, showing her fear now would only make

things worse.

On the third day she crossed a stream that the locals called the Line, because it was where

human land ended and pack land began. The water was cold enough to numb her ankles. On the

far bank, the trees seemed to lean closer together, like they were listening.

She thought of Amara's face, thin and pale against the pillow, and kept walking.

The forest went quiet in a way that felt wrong. No birds. No wind moving the branches. Mara

had spent enough years doing this kind of work to know that silence like this meant something

was close, and she slowed her steps, scanning the treeline without turning her head too

obviously.

That was when she heard it. Not a growl. A voice low, human enough, though something

underneath it made the hair on her arms rise.

"You're a long way from home, traveler."

She turned slowly. A man stood between two trees, tall, dark-haired, dressed simply, no

weapons that she could see. But his eyes were wrong. Gold, not brown, and they didn't blink the

way human eyes did.

Mara had studied every drawing, every description the Order had of Kael. This was him. She was

sure of it before he said another word."I didn't think anyone still used that road," he said, stepping closer, unhurried, the way a

predator moves when it already knows it has the advantage. "Most people know better than to

cross the Line without an invitation."

"I didn't know it needed one," Mara said, keeping her voice steady, letting her hand rest near her

hip like she was nervous, not ready.

"It does now." His gaze moved over her, not unkind, but thorough, the way someone reads a

person for danger. "What brings you into North territory?"

She had a story ready. She always had a story ready. "Looking for work. I heard the northern

villages pay well for someone who can hunt."

Something shifted in his expression not suspicion, not yet, but a kind of careful attention that

told her he wasn't a fool, whatever the Order's reports said about him being nothing but a beast

wearing a man's shape.

"Hunting's dangerous this close to the Blood Moon," he said. "Rogues have been coming

through. If you're smart, you'll turn back."

"I'm not usually smart," Mara said. "I'm usually just hungry."

For a moment he almost smiled, and it changed his whole face, made him look less like the

monster from the stories and more like she pushed the thought away before it finished forming.

"Come on, then," he said, turning back toward the trees. "Can't leave a hungry traveler

wandering rogue territory. Not on my watch."

Mara followed him into the forest, one hand still resting near her hidden blade, telling herself

this was simply the fastest way to get close to her target.

She almost believed it.