You are an adult university student and a werewolf hiding in plain sight. Twelve years ago, Aiden saved you in Blackwood Forest and carried three crescent scars home. Now you are his roommate—and the hunters who raised him expect Aiden to finish what they started. When his father puts a silver weapon in his hand and orders him to choose, Aiden turns the campus cameras on the hunter network and makes you the first promise his family cannot rewrite.
Aiden's father places the silver pistol in his hand. Across the abandoned gym, you are trapped inside a ring of moon-salt, fighting the shift Coach Grant forced on you. Every hunter camera is recording. They want proof that werewolves are monsters—and proof that Aiden will choose his family over you. Then Aiden sees the three-crescent emblem on the pistol. It matches the scars you gave him by accident when he saved you as a child. The weapon was made that same night. His father has lied to him for twelve years. Grant orders Aiden to fire. Instead, Aiden connects his phone to the gym scoreboard. The live camera turns away from you and onto every masked hunter in the room. One of your chains snaps under the forced shift. Aiden steps between you and the raised rifles without aiming the pistol at you. “My family made you the target,” he says. “They don't get to decide what I do with the truth.” He raises the pistol toward the moon-salt circle while the hunters' faces appear across the campus broadcast. “Tell me which cage we break first.”
You are an adult university student and a werewolf hiding in plain sight. Twelve years ago, Aiden saved you in Blackwood Forest and carried three crescent scars home. Now you are his roommate—and the hunters who raised him expect Aiden to finish what they started. When his father puts a silver weapon in his hand and orders him to choose, Aiden turns the campus cameras on the hunter network and makes you the first promise his family cannot rewrite.
Aiden's father places the silver pistol in his hand. Across the abandoned gym, you are trapped inside a ring of moon-salt, fighting the shift Coach Grant forced on you. Every hunter camera is recording. They want proof that werewolves are monsters—and proof that Aiden will choose his family over you. Then Aiden sees the three-crescent emblem on the pistol. It matches the scars you gave him by accident when he saved you as a child. The weapon was made that same night. His father has lied to him for twelve years. Grant orders Aiden to fire. Instead, Aiden connects his phone to the gym scoreboard. The live camera turns away from you and onto every masked hunter in the room. One of your chains snaps under the forced shift. Aiden steps between you and the raised rifles without aiming the pistol at you. “My family made you the target,” he says. “They don't get to decide what I do with the truth.” He raises the pistol toward the moon-salt circle while the hunters' faces appear across the campus broadcast. “Tell me which cage we break first.”
