chapter one

The children of the moon will always be reunited.

Carter snapped his eyes open, panting and haggard. He was not in his bed. Looking carefully around him, he confirmed: He was not in his bed at all. He was in the woods around his house, covered in mud, branches in his hair, and worse, a bloody bite mark on his arm. He froze: It couldn't be… He had dreamed that night that a big black wolf had pulled him into the woods and then sunk his fangs into his forearm. But it was not possible. He would have woken up if that was the case. He must have been sleepwalking. Sure, that was the explanation. Shaking his head, he took the path home to get ready to go to school. On his way, the broken branches he passed gave him shivers, reminding him way too much of the traces left by a body dragged through the woods.

Lexa crossed the corridors of her high school with a voluntary approach, smiling triumphantly: This weekend, if all went well, she would officially become the next alpha. Finally . She had been waiting for this moment since she was eight years old and she was counting on not missing her chance. As she passed the dark-haired boy, she felt compelled, without understanding why, to greet him:

- Hey, Carter!

He didn't come back. She… He was so shocked he could only respond with a stupid wave of his hand. She gave him a bright smile and swung her long silver locks behind her shoulder before continuing on her way.

- Lexa Filharmorny knows your name! She spoke to you!

His two friends, Charly and Paul grabbed his shoulders, pinning him against the lockers at the same time. The excitement of her two friends was understandable: Lexa was the prettiest girl in their small town. County . If not of the whole country. With her long moonbeam-colored hair, her golden matte skin and her amber-colored eyes, she was absolutely , amazingly beautiful. She was also incredibly out of reach, for two reasons: the first being that the girl's social status was much higher than that of the three friends, and the second (and least insignificant) that she was a wolf. The lycanthropes may have lived among humans for centuries, they were nonetheless a closed community about which no human knew much. They did not take lightly the selection of those they accepted into their inner circle. Paul, the redhead, excited as always, asked him:

- Wait, how does she know your name?

He shrugged, rubbing the bite on his forearm without realizing it, before answering distractedly:

- We're in math class together. I'm sitting behind her and so we teamed up last week. She is nice !

Charly, the great sportsman with skin as brown as his hair, exclaimed in a big laugh while at the same time giving him a big slap on the back:

- Some people are lucky!

Shaking his head he encouraged the pair to head towards their class and Carter could have sworn he felt a gaze on the back of his neck.

Lexa, completely naked, was about to transform and go running with her pack mates, relishing the change in advance when Jake came running.

- Lex !

She looked up at the newcomer, encouraging him to continue.

- There is an intruder in the territory! The patrollers have just smelled it, but it is already a few kilometers away.

She frowned and turned to the handsome male, both of them paying no attention to her nudity, naked bodies and sex being as normal and natural as the hairs that make up their wolves' fur.

- A loner, I suppose? (He nods) How did he manage to get so deep into our lands without the troopers noticing?

He nodded towards the forest behind them.

- We'll soon find out.

She quickly put on her shorts and top, not caring that she was wearing no shoes as she ran, faster than any human, alongside the patrollers. Now she felt it clearly: there was a new wolf in their territory. The smell intensified, rich and deep, and soon they saw a man, naked, covered in mud and looking lost, sitting on the ground like a disjointed puppet. The wolves stopped and let Lexa pass, already showing her due respect. She approached the wolf and let out a gasp of surprise when she recognized him:

- Carter?

Carter saw a little blurry, but he would have recognized this face everywhere:

-Lexa ?