Below the horizon, the moon dipped like a broken disc casting long shadows on a clearing in the forest of Benghazi. It was the settlement of the oldest pack in North America. The same pack had become a chaos raging in columns of smoke, howls that preceded eerie silence and battered arms.
Alpha Roman had called for judgement, and the pack gathered. At the centre, Raven, the Luna, clenched her fist, with furious eyes that blazed like the heat of the sun. Her raven-black hair which earned her the name, whipped in the wind, dancing menacingly under the silver glow of the rising full moon.
" I trusted you. I loved you. I worshipped the ground you walk for five years." Her voice dipped, low and agonising. " This is how you repay me? By stealing my pack...my parents home from its rightful heir?" Her voice trembled.
Alpha Roman's eyes remained cold and unyielding. At his right, Celeste lowered her eyes, lips pursed and trembled. Her fully rounded baby bump pricked Raven's heart. Roman entwined her right hand with his left, assuringly. Everyone Raven looked to for help looked away. Others stared her straight in the eyes, and didn't move.
" This is my home..."
" I am the alpha now, Raven. And this pack is mine. You act like you did me a favour where as I am the one who has covered your inadequacy as Luna." Roman sneered. " What is a Luna without a wolf?"
The crowd gasped. " How come?" One of the elders quizzed hushedly. He looked at a fellow elder. " Does it mean she isn't the true daughter of the late alpha?"
The people picked it up, and murmurs rippled, spreading with the heat of wildfire.
Alpha Roman smirked. " You are no better than any of the Omega's in this pack and the royal blood flowing through your veins is not an excuse." The murmurs died like the embers of a cold hearth. He turned to the pack. " Is this who you need as the head of this pack? Should we leave the glory of the oldest pack in North America to an incompetent princess."
" No!" The crowd chorused. Raven looked at Roman's side. Far to his right. Where the beta, Kyle, watched in silence. The same man who has been her defendant. Her protector, and most especially, the only one who knows she has never shifted.
Her eyes misted. Realisation drowned her memory. Roman snapped his eyes at her. " You claim that this is your home, yet you led a handful of soldiers to ambush us? You should have thought twice before marching them here. Now, you have destroyed the last link you have with your people."
" You know very well they didn't hurt anyone. They accompanied me here to protect me..."
" From what?" He said, and appealed to the people to judge if he had ever harmed her before. People nodded in agreement. Raven was cornered with no escape. Above her, the moon hung like an adversary, watching her every move, stalking her thoughts. Raven bit her lower lips. Everything she ever believed in: the goddess, familiar love and loyalty, the bond and oneness of the pack...they all melted. She was alone, and not even the goddess twitched at her predicament. Raven knew no one was coming to her aid. Fingers clenched, she squared up to Roman.
" This pack is me, and I am crescent pack. I am one with its mountains and rough terrains. I am its river and every river course. You are nothing but the boy my father raised on his training grounds..."
Slap!
Raven's eyes widened, and snapped in disbelief.
In the shadows of the trees, a stranger with hair like the moon, turned sharply at the scene, and snarled. A howl rumbled in his chest. " How dare him?" He shut his eyes, shielding the molten glow in his eyes threatening to give away his presence.
Several feet away, Roman fumed, voice low, curt and menacing. " Don't you ever say that to me again." The memory of his servitude stung his mind like a bee. Being reminded of the harsh training the late alpha put him through, even as a boy, he went berserk.
Celeste tilted her lips smugly. Her eyes wandered briefly to Raven, eyes gleaming with satisfaction. Roman spent the next five minutes persuading the elders to reach a decision. Raven wilted completely like a flower scorched by the heat of the sun. Her palm held the cheek Roman slapped, stung by his palm print like a scorpion's tail.
" She's royalty regardless of what has happened here today." One of the elders stepped up. " Her case must be tried by the high council. Else, it will be assumed that it is indeed an insurrection."
Too stunned to speak, Raven stared blankly into space. Looking at Roman, she remembered the plays in the rain, in the river, in the mountains. Less than one year after her father's death, he changed overnight. Kyle informed her of his affairs. He never said with who. She trusted Roman so much she wasn't fazed, but when he mentioned the insurrection, she marched into the Benghazi, but her people appeared to be prepared for war. What she had come to calm, got pinned on her.
" We should enquire about the soldiers. It should tell us their purpose as well." The elder continued.
" Elder Christopher, are you with us or against us? Isn't it obvious that she planned to ambush us with them."
" I am not for anyone or against anyone. Just before you all take a rash decision. Bear it in mind that Raven is not just royalty. She's of the old bloodlines."
Beta Kyle scoffed. " Speculations. Have you heard of anyone of the old bloodlines that's weaker than an omega?"
Her heart dropped. She was surrounded. Completely. Roman look at her with rays of satisfaction glowing in his eyes. It stabbed Raven's heart. He waved his guards and ordered them to take her away. Raven pulled a dagger and they withdrew, panic lacing their eyes.
" I was five when I first saw you." She said, looking at Celeste. " Your mother died during childbirth. No one wanted you. Not even your father. I begged my royal father to take you in and chose to share everything I had with you. You took everything, and my husband." She chuckled through tears cascading freely down her cheeks. " If the goddess lives, may she judge between you and I."
She turned to Kyle. " You became my brother when you saved me from the rogues. Who could have thought that you would sell me off just as you saved me? May the earth judge between you and I." Her voice quivered, and a tear dropped.
" Raven, don't do this. Come on, Raven." Roman pleaded, desperately, in his mind. He parted his lips, but no word proceeded. He had Celeste, and Kyle. He reminded himself that he owed the two and his unborn baby a duty.
" And you, Roman of the North mountains. The son of frost and dew. I judge you as a maiden taken by a man, as a wife betrayed by her husband. May Jupiter, lord of the realm judge you as an alpha who broke the crown." She said and plunged the dagger into her chest. A sudden gasp rang into silence. Roman froze, heartbeat pulsing.
The elders withdrew immediately. A suicide in the hallowed valley. A royalty too. Strung against the step he took until that second, Roman second guessed himself. He looked at the limp body with a mix of guilt and dread.
Celeste brawled, dropped on her knees before Raven's body. Closed in, she whispered. " I never wanted it to be like this. I hope you will understand me. I have as much right to be Luna as you. The late alpha, your father, was my true father. Please, forgive me." She kissed the ground, pulled a teary face and looked at Roman. " What do we do with the body?"
" She will not get a burial. " Kyle interrupted. " It's suicide. She doesn't deserve one. Even the high council will not stress their time with her case. The guards will throw her into the pit with the rest of the bodies of the people she came with. Maybe they can guard her better in death." He sneered. Roman was mortified, and at a loss of words. Long after Celeste led him back to the mansion, the stranger's eyes glowed, piercing through space and darkness to the forest clearing as the body was carried away in a cart.
He arrived the pit after everyone were gone. By his side, a younger man lingered. " Brother, you should return now. I'll take it from here."
" No, Marcus. I want to be the first person she sees when she wakes. I will not let her go through it alone."
" Are you certain she's the one?" Marcus looked down at the disheveled body of Raven, face down in the pit. " Patience, Marcus. Patience." Jupiter replied, seconds before they heard the bones cracking.