Page 91 of The Blood Moon Oath

The trees are thinner here, the air colder. I shiver, pulling the scraps of fabric tighter around my shoulders. My bare feet are caked with mud and blood, and every step feels like walking on shards of glass. The hunger gnaws at me, an endless ache that makes my vision blur and my head spin.

I see movement ahead—a rabbit. My heart lurches with hope, but the sound of my foot snapping a twig sends it darting away. I fall to my knees, the frustration boiling over into a scream that I bury in my hands. My fingers dig into the frozen earth, and for a moment, I want to give up. To let the cold take me. Maybe it would be easier.

But then I hear it. The sound of footsteps. Heavy, deliberate.

I scramble back, my pulse racing. A shadow emerges from the trees, tall and cloaked, his face obscured by the hood of his robe. He moves with a calmness that feels unnatural, his presence quieting the forest around us.

I want to run, but my legs refuse to move. My body is frozen, caught between fear and exhaustion.

“You’re a pitiful sight,” the man says, his voice low and gravelly. He pulls back his hood, revealing a weathered face lined with age and hard years. His eyes, though—they gleam with something sharp, something dangerous. “What’s your name, boy?”

I don’t answer. I don’t even know if I have a name anymore.

He steps closer, kneeling down to my level. His gaze bores into me, and I feel like he’s peeling back every layer, seeing every weakness, every crack. “No family. No strength. Just another abandoned pup, waiting to be devoured.”

I swallow hard, the lump in my throat too thick to speak.

“Do you want to die?” he asks, the question blunt and cold.

My eyes widen, and I shake my head. The answer is instinctual, even if I’m not sure it’s true.

“Good.” He stands, his shadow looming over me. “Then follow me.”

The old warlock doesn’t speak much as we walk. I don’t ask where we’re going, and he doesn’t tell me. The silence stretches, broken only by the crunch of snow beneath our feet. My legs scream with every step, but I force myself to keep up. I’m too afraid to fall behind.

His home is nothing more than a ramshackle hut nestled in the woods, hidden from the world. Inside, it’s just as cold as outside, but at least it’s dry. A single cot, a table littered with jars and scraps of paper, a small fire burning in the hearth.

“This is where you’ll stay,” he says, gesturing to the floor. “Until you prove you’re worth more than that.”

I don’t argue. I drop to the ground, curling into myself, the heat of the fire barely reaching me.

Life with him is hard. He doesn’t coddle, doesn’t comfort. Every day is a test, a lesson, a punishment. He teaches me how to hunt, how to fight, how to survive in the wilderness. His methods are cruel, but they work.

When I fail—and I fail often—he punishes me. Sometimes with words, sharp and cutting. Sometimes with his fists. But never without reason. “The world won’t go easy on you,” he says. “Why should I?”

The years pass in a blur of blood and frost. I grow stronger. Faster. Smarter. But the old man never lets me forget that survival is a privilege, not a right.

“You’re nothing without strength,” he tells me one night, his voice low and cold. “Remember that. The moment you show weakness, the world will tear you apart.”

When he dies, I’m fifteen. He doesn’t leave a note, a final word, or even a look of approval. Just his cold, lifeless body slumped over the table. I bury him in the snow outside, my hands numb from digging. And then I leave.

I don’t cry. I don’t look back.

Tears are weakness and weakness will tear you apart.

Chapter

Forty-Eight

SABLE

Kael sits across from me, his eyes distant as if he's looking at something far beyond this moment. For a man who never lets down his guard, the expression is raw. Vulnerable. It pulls me in, makes me want to ask more questions, to peel back the layers of ice he’s wrapped around himself. When he finally speaks, his voice is steady, but there’s an edge to it, like each word costs him something.

“The first tribe fell quickly,” he says, his gaze fixed somewhere just over my shoulder. “I was twenty-two, still bleeding from the fight that made me Alpha. My body was raw, barely healed, but there wasn’t time to stop. The northern tribes were fractured—too weak to stand alone, too stubborn to unite. And I knew one thing above all: strength respects strength. If I wanted to survive, I couldn’t just take control of one tribe. I had to take them all.”

I sit back, letting his words wash over me. There’ssomething hypnotic about the way he talks, as if he’s reliving every moment.

“It started with whispers,” he continues. “Rumors of a young warlock who’d killed the Alpha of his tribe with nothing but grit and a blade. They called me reckless, an upstart. Said I’d be crushed before the snow thawed. I let them talk. Let them laugh. It gave me time to prepare.”

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