The scent of roasted meat and wine drifted through the banquet hall, mixing with laughter and perfume and polished wood. Lyra moved silently through the glittering crowd, head down, arms aching from scrubbing since dawn.
Today was her eighteenth birthday.
No one knew. No one cared.
She gathered empty goblets and crumpled napkins, careful not to let her hands shake. She told herself it was just another night. Just another mask to wear until it was safe to disappear again.
But beneath her ribs, her heart thudded louder than the music.
“Happy birthday, Lyra,” came the soft voice in her mind. Familiar now. Steady.
Thalia.
Her wolf’s voice had grown stronger lately, like a whisper slowly turning into a song.
“Thank you,” Lyra whispered silently, her breath catching. “ You’re really here. With me.”
“I’ve always been here,” Thalia replied gently. “Even when you forgot how to hear me.”
Lyra blinked hard, her throat tightening. In the crowd, she caught sight of the Alpha’s family - Caden, Regina, Seraphine. And.. Aiden.
Her stomach twisted.
Tall, composed, golden like his father but sharper, crueler now. He was laughing with his friends, drink in hand, head tilted as a girl leaned into him. His smile wasn’t for her. Not anymore.
She looked away. Kept moving. Until the moment it hit her. A scent. Wild, earthy, and electric. Rain on stone. Cedar and fire.
It wrapped around her like a thread, pulling her toward the one person she could never reach. Her breath caught in her throat.
Her hands went cold.
Mate.
Thalia’s voice was sharp now, urgent. “Lyra-”
“I feel it,” she whispered. “It’s him.”
Aiden turned. Their eyes met. And the bond snapped into place. A pulse. A flash. A silent explosion inside her.
She stepped forward, heart racing, pulled toward him like a tide.
His lips parted. For a moment - just a moment - his eyes widened. Something flickered there. Recognition. Awe.
Then, coldness.
Revulsion.
He straightened slowly, his face unreadable, then curled his lip like she’d just stepped in front of royalty with mud on her shoes.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Aiden said loudly, his voice slicing through the noise. “An Omega? You think you’re my mate?”
The music died. The crowd hushed. Heat flooded Lyra’s face. She took a trembling step back.
“Aiden…” she whispered. “The bond - don’t you feel it?”
He laughed. Laughed.
So did Seraphine.
“You’re nothing,” he said, voice like ice. “I reject you, Lyra. I reject the bond. I want nothing to do with you.”
The words crashed over her like a tidal wave. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“No…” she choked. “You can’t-”
But the bond recoiled inside her like a wounded animal. She felt it tear. Felt Thalia cry out inside her mind, a sharp snap of pain.
And then came the laughter. Seraphine stepped in front of her, smirking. “Did you really think he’d accept you? You’re a servant. A stain.”
Lyra shook her head slowly, trembling. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you dared to hope,” Seraphine said. “And hope is for those who belong.”
Her hand flashed out, slapping Lyra hard across the face. Lyra staggered but didn’t fall.
The crowd didn’t stop her. No one did. No one ever did.
Thalia’s voice was faint. “Stay with me.”
But Lyra felt like glass - cracked, hollow, too fragile to keep standing.
Seraphine’s friends surrounded her like vultures. They dragged her through the back of the hall, out into the cold garden. Her shoes scraped over the gravel, her dress catching on the stones. Still, no one stopped them.
“You thought he’d love you,” Seraphine mocked, yanking Lyra’s head back by her hair. “Let’s make sure you remember this night.”
A silver blade flashed.
Pain bloomed across her arm. Burning. Biting.
“Stop!” Lyra gasped.
Another cut. Her skin seared like fire, the metal hissing as it tore her open.
“Maybe now you’ll remember your place,” Seraphine whispered, pressing the blade again, deeper this time.
Lyra collapsed, sobbing silently, curling in on herself.
“Thalia…”
“I’m here,” came the whisper. “You’re not alone.”
But Lyra was slipping.
They left her bleeding in the dirt, the night pressing down like a coffin lid. She heard them walk away, their laughter fading behind her.
The moon was full above, silver and distant. She closed her eyes, and all she could see was Aiden’s face.
You’re nothing.
Her blood soaked into the earth.
She stopped fighting.
But just before the darkness swallowed her, a new scent drifted through the air - clean, wild, powerful.
Lavender. Smoke. Something ancient and dangerous.
Someone was coming.
And everything was about to change.
Vaeleth POVThe thunder of hooves broke the stillness.Vaeleth stood at the edge of the altar, blood and ash drying on her hands, her body trembling with power not entirely her own. Below, weaving their way through smoke-veiled paths, came back the two. Vaeleth didn’t run.She stood still, hands at her sides, as Lyra and Nyxar walked at the edge of the ridge. The air between them buzzed with tension. The quiet hum of fate curling its fingers tighter around their throats.Lyra dismounted first. She stepped forward without hesitation, cloak trailing behind her like shadowed flame.“Are you alright?” she asked.Her voice was steady, but her eyes swept over Vaeleth like a soldier assessing wounds.Vaeleth blinked. She hadn’t expected the question. Not from her.“I’m not hurt,” she said. “But I’m not sure it’s safe.”Nyxar joined her, frowning at the scorched stone and the brittle edges of cracked wards. “What happened here?”“I held it down.” Vaeleth’s voice came out quieter than she mea
Vaeleth POVThe heat didn’t touch her.It should have. The fire poured around her like a living tide - snapping, screaming, tearing through the sky with soundless violence. Ash clung to the air. Magma licked at the edge of the warding circle she’d drawn with blood and stone. But her skin did not blister. Her lungs did not burn.Because it knew her. Because she knew it.And the seal - cracked, ancient, groaning beneath her feet - was screaming for a sacrifice.She held her hands steady, even as her bones shivered.The voices had grown louder now. Not words, exactly. But intention. Hunger. Fury. Echoes of something far older than the gods the wolves prayed to.Something that remembered when the sky still bled gold and stars fell like arrows.Break.Rise.You are the key.Vaeleth gritted her teeth, pressing her palms harder to the jagged obsidian altar. It pulsed beneath her skin like a second heartbeat. She felt the fire rising through her veins, pulling, tempting.Open the door, it whi
Lyra POVThe ground cracked beneath her boots as she ran.Trees blurred past. The scent of burning stone and sulfur stung her nose. The wolves - both in human forms and beast - surged around her in panicked motion, many howling, some already in fur. The children were clutched tight, carried by older siblings or flanked by trembling elders.Behind them, the sky had turned red. Lyra risked a glance back.The southern ridge - once green and silent - now boiled with smoke and molten light. Lava spilled in thin streams down the mountainside like blood. Above it, clouds churned in unnatural patterns, black and rust-colored, spitting lightning without sound.She’d seen battlefields. She’d seen gods bleed. But this was different.This was the earth itself turning against them.“Keep moving!” she shouted, her voice hoarse.Nyxar ran beside her, steady and silent, a beacon in the chaos. His shirt was streaked with ash, his violet-gold eyes narrowed with focus.They had barely reached the edge
Vaeleth POV The wolves were still.Even the children, who moments ago peeked from the roots of houses, had gone silent. The air in the village had shifted - too quiet. Too still.Then, the ground exhaled.Not wind. Not weather. But something deeper. Beneath the soil. Beneath the mountain. A low, groaning sound like the world grinding its teeth.Vaeleth’s breath caught.Moera lifted her head. “It’s begun.”“What?” Lyra asked, stepping closer, her hand drifting toward her belt. “What is that?”“The bindings,” Vaeleth whispered. “They’re weakening.”The ground shook.Not hard. But enough that moss fell from the rooftops and birds rose in a frantic scatter from the trees. A few of the wolves bared their teeth, low growls stirring like a ripple through the gathered crowd.Nyxar turned in a slow circle, scanning the skies, then the horizon. “It’s coming from beneath us.”Vaeleth nodded. “It always does.”Then the heat rose.Not from fire. Not from the sky. But from the stones themselves. S
Lyra POVVaeleth turned without another word, and they followed.Down the slope, past the old stones, into the folds of the earth where mist clung low and thick like breath held too long. The trail beneath their feet wasn’t made by hoof or cart. It had been grown. Woven by roots that curled open at her steps and sealed behind her.Lyra’s wolf growled low. Not in threat. In warning.“She doesn’t control the land,” Lyra murmured to Nyxar. “She is part of it.”“I know,” he replied, voice tight. “It’s humming in my bones.”Ahead, Vaeleth didn’t slow. “The land chose me,” she called over her shoulder. “Or maybe it remembered me.”The mist parted. And the village emerged.Not ruined like the outskirts - this one lived, though barely. Moss-covered rooftops curved from the earth itself, shaped like den and cave. Smoke curled from small vents. Glowing eyes watched from the undergrowth and the shadows of doorways. Children with silver-streaked hair ducked out of view. Mothers pulled them back i
Vaeleth POVThe sky wept blood.She stood barefoot at the edge of the circle - just beyond the old stones, where the forest still obeyed her, where the world hadn’t yet remembered what she was.The red rain struck her skin and steamed off, evaporating before it could stain. The trees whispered of strangers. The roots stirred beneath the moss. The wolves that watched from the hollows made no sound.She already knew they were coming. She had seen them in smoke. In water. In dreams not fully hers. And now, she saw them with her own eyes.Two figures. Shifters. A man and a woman, both cloaked in power. Both walking through the veil without flinching. Both calling something ancient to the surface just by breathing. The rest was unimportant. Only them count. Her breath caught.The woman - Lyra. The one with too much control and not enough mercy. There was fire in her, sharp and honed, but also grief so deep it nearly bled out of her eyes. And beside her - Vaeleth’s fingers curled tightly a