I was escorted back to my chambers like a criminal.
No one spoke to me.
The bond-link between Kael and me felt different now—muted, distant, as though someone had draped a thick veil between our souls. He didn’t come that night. Or the next.
On the third evening, I finally forced myself to leave the room.
The corridors buzzed with whispers.
“She couldn’t hold the heir…”
“The Moon doesn’t bless traitors…”
“Lyra’s scent is changing—maybe she’s the one meant to be Luna…”
I stood behind a stone pillar, my nails biting into my palms, as my world reassembled itself around my absence.
I went to the ancestral shrine where my father’s spirit lamp was kept—a dim crystal flame that pulsed weakly against the growing shadows.
Papa.
Even bound to the altar, his life-force was fading. The healers had told me weeks ago: without a completed Moon-heir ritual to anchor our bloodline, his spirit would eventually slip into the Veil.
I knelt before the shrine, pressing my forehead to the stone.
“I failed you,” I whispered. “I thought if I could give Kael an heir, he would finally protect you. Protect us.”
The crystal flickered.
For the first time since the ritual, I felt something stir inside me—not warmth, not bond, but fury.
That night, I opened a sealed contact-scroll I had sworn never to use.
Nicero Blackfang.
The rival Alpha.
The wolf Kael had once tried to crush during the Northern Border Wars.
My enemy since academy days. The one who had always looked at me like I was something he wanted to own—not break.
I stared at the glowing sigil for a long time before activating it.
His voice came through low and amused. “So. The perfect Luna finally falls.”
“I need your help,” I said, my voice steady despite the blood roaring in my ears.
A pause.
Then a slow exhale. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that for years.”
“My father is dying,” I said. “His spirit is fading. The only way to bind him is through your ancestral altar. Your territory still holds the old Moon-root.”
Silence again.
“Do you know what you’re asking?” Nicero murmured. “Binding your bloodline to mine is not charity. It is a contract bond.”
“I know.”
“And Kael?” he added softly.
I closed my eyes.
“I will sever the mate-mark.”
When I opened them again, the Moon above the balcony had begun to dim, its silver light thinning like a dying echo.