The first thing I felt was pain—sharp, pulsing in every limb like my body had been dragged through fire and left to smolder. Then came the smell. Damp stone. Ash. And something wilder. Untamed.
Unclaimed.
I didn't open my eyes. Not yet. My heart was racing with my chest heaving up and down so hard it felt like it might burst out of my chest. I couldn't bring myself to calm down. The last thing I remembered was blood—definitely mine—and someone's face, half-hidden in the dark, pulling me away from it. Not a man.
A rogue.
A beast wrapped in silence and wrath, eyes that looked like they'd made peace with the dark a long time ago.
Where the hell am I?
Wood creaked nearby—slow and deliberate. A door. Voices followed, low and rough-edged, threading through the quiet like smoke.
"She shouldn't be here Damian."
"She wouldn't be, if not for the Crescents."
A pause. Then a voice I recognized—one that used to feel familiar. Now it felt like ice pressed to bare skin.
"It was my call."
I opened my eyes. Slowly. The ceiling above me was jagged rock, soot-stained, with moss trailing across it like veins under translucent skin. I was lying on a makeshift cot. Crude, but clean. A wool blanket had been tossed over me, and someone had bandaged my wound.
They didn't leave me to die.
That should've brought comfort. It didn't.
It just made everything more confusing.
I pushed myself up too fast. The world moved sideways, and I grabbed the cot's edge, knuckles white with effort to keep myself steady. My ribs burned. My arm screamed. But I was breathing.
I was alive. Barely.
The cave—or whatever this place was—had a narrow crack near the back, letting in the first hints of pale morning light. Cold air bled through the stone walls. There were no lanterns, no fire. Just that raw, bitter wind and the weight of somewhere I wasn't meant to be.
The Outlands. I didn't know how I knew. Maybe it was the air—soaked in smoke and resentment. Or maybe it was the silence, sharp and hostile, like it had teeth.
But this wasn't Crescent territory. Not anymore. Not even close.
The door scraped open.
Damian stepped inside.
He wasn't the blurred figure from the forest, all blood and shadows. But he might as well have been. Taller than I remembered. Stillness etched into every line of him. He didn't look at me. Just moved to a worn table, set a steaming bowl on it.
"You're awake," he said. Flat. No warmth. No questions.
I tried to clear my throat. It barely worked. "Yeah."
"You need food. You lost too much blood."
I pulled the blanket tighter around me. "You saved me."
That made him look at me. His eyes were cold. Calculated. Like he was weighing a decision he already regretted.
"I didn't do it for you."
The breath I took got stuck somewhere in my throat.
"Then why?"
His jaw twitched. But he didn't answer.
The door opened again. Another man entered. He looked older, broader, with scars that told just how many battles he had witnessed. A whole lot. He didn't need to speak for me to know he didn't want me here. His stare was enough. All ice and judgment.
"Kellan," Damian warned.
"She's Crescent," the man snapped. "You should've left her."
I didn't move. Damian didn't flinch.
"She was bleeding out less than a mile from a Crescent patrol," Damian said, calm as a blade. "If I hadn't brought her here, they would've…"
"And since when do we give a damn about what they would've done?" Kellan's voice dripped with venom. "How many of ours died because of them? Because of their Alpha? Or did you forget Mira?"
The name cut through the room like a blade.
Mira.
Damian didn't speak, but something in him pulled tight. A flicker of pain, fast and raw, before it vanished behind the stone mask again.
"She stays," he said. "Until she can walk. Then she's gone."
"She's one of them," Kellan hissed.
"I'm Lyra," I said, voice unsteady. "Not them. Just… me."
He barely looked at me. "Don't care."
"I didn't choose where I was born."
"No," he growled, stepping closer. "But you stayed. You wore their crest. You walked their streets while we buried our dead in the snow."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to scream that he was wrong.
But he wasn't.
"I didn't know," I said timidly. "They never told us—"
"Of course they didn't." His eyes burned. "They raise their pups behind walls while ours learn to hide before they can stand."
Damian stepped in front of me then, quiet but firm. A shield I hadn't asked for.
"That's enough," he said.
Kellan glared at him but backed off, jaw tight with fury. "You're getting soft," he muttered, and stormed out.
The silence he left behind was uncomfortable. I let out a slow breath, the knot in my chest loosening a little.
Damian didn't look at me. Just picked up the bowl and brought it over.
"Eat."
I hesitated. "You didn't have to step in."
"I didn't," he said again. "I just don't want a corpse in my cave."
God. Charming.
Still, I took the bowl. The soup was watery and flavorless, but warm. It stopped my hands from shaking. That was something.
"Who was Mira?" I asked quietly.
Something in the air shifted. Damian didn't answer at first. Just stared at the floor like it held a memory he hated.
"My sister," he said finally.
I froze. "Was?"
"She was sixteen. Unarmed. Killed in a Crescent raid." His eyes flicked to mine. "So no—I'm not exactly in the mood to play host."
I put the bowl aside. "I'm sorry."
He didn't blink or react. "That's not enough."
"I know."
He stared at me for a while. Too long. Like he was searching for something. A lie. A crack. A reason.
"You're not like the other crescents," he said.
He didn't mean it kindly.
I didn't respond.
The wind outside wailed through the cave mouth. This place didn't want me. These people didn't want me. And the man who saved me clearly didn't either.
"Why didn't you let them find me?" I asked.
He looked at me, jaw set. "Because your eyes didn't match your uniform."
I couldn't think of the right thing to say. So I said nothing.
He turned to leave. "You stay until the wound heals. Then you go. I don't care where."
I pushed to my feet—unsteady, but standing. "And if I want to repay you?"
He paused at the door.
"Then leave faster."
The door slammed behind him.
I sank back onto the cot, the ache in my chest still very present. I was somewhere I didn't belong. Among people who had every right to hate me.
But the way Damian looked at me just now…
That wasn't hate.
It was something far more dangerous.
And I didn't know how to survive it.