The heavy iron doors of the Midnight Eclipse hall hadn't even finished vibrating from the impact of their closure before the silence was broken. It wasn't by the warriors, nor by Valerius, but by the jagged, uneven sound of my own breathing.
The silver fire that had sustained me during the confrontation was receding, leaving a hollow, bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. My knees buckled, the adrenaline that had made me feel like a goddess suddenly vanishing.
"I've got you," Valerius's voice was a low rumble against my ear.
He didn't just catch me; he pulled me flush against his hard chest, his arms winding around me like iron bands. The warmth of his body was a stark contrast to the frost still clinging to my skin. I leaned into him, my forehead resting against his shoulder, letting the scent of cedar and storm clouds ground me.
"That power," I whispered, my voice trembling. "It felt like... it wanted to take everything. Not just Gideon. Everything."
Valerius tilted my chin up, his violet eyes swirling with an intensity that made my breath hitch. "That is the hunger of the Fenrir, Skaya. It doesn't just want to win. It wants to erase. You controlled it today, but the more you feed it, the more it will demand."
He swept me up into his arms, ignoring the kneeling warriors as he carried me toward the private lift of the Spire. "But today, you didn't just defend yourself. You declared war on the Silver Moon. Kaelen Vancour is a man driven by pride. He won't take this humiliation lightly."
"I hope he doesn't," I muttered, my eyes closing as the fatigue took over. "I want him to come. I want him to see what he threw away."
The Silver Moon Pack House – Two Days Later
Alpha Kaelen Vancour stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of his office, staring out at the lush forests of his territory. By all accounts, he should have been happy. The "Null" was gone, his pack was stable, and Lira—the high-ranking she-wolf he had chosen—was already acting as the pack's Luna.
But there was a poison in his blood. Ever since the night of the rejection, the link in his mind—the place where the fated bond had once hummed with life—felt like a cauterized wound. It throbbed with a dull, persistent ache that no amount of Lira's affection could soothe.
A frantic knock at the door shattered his thoughts.
"Enter," Kaelen growled, his golden eyes flashing with irritation.
Elder Silas and Gideon stumbled in. Kaelen's breath hitched. Gideon looked like he had been put through a meat grinder. His throat was wrapped in thick bandages, and his skin had a translucent, sickly blue tint—as if he had been frozen from the inside out.
"What is this?" Kaelen demanded, stepping away from the window. "Where is Skaya? Why isn't she in the dungeons?"
Silas sank into a chair, his face ash-gray. "She... she isn't coming, Alpha. And we couldn't take her. Not even if we had brought the entire vanguard."
Kaelen's lip curled in a sner. "She's a human, Silas. A Null. Are you telling me three grown warriors couldn't handle one girl?"
"She isn't a Null anymore!" Gideon rasped, his voice sounding like sandpaper. He reached up to touch his throat, his eyes wide with a terror that Kaelen had never seen in his top enforcer. "She's a monster, Kaelen. She moved faster than a Beta. Her eyes... they weren't gold. They were silver. Cold, killing silver."
Kaelen froze. The air in the room seemed to vanish. "Silver? That's impossible. The Silver bloodline died out a millennium ago. She's just a Miller."
"She's the Second of the Midnight Eclipse," Silas added, his voice trembling. "Alpha Valerius has claimed her. He sat her at his right hand. He looked at us as if we were insects beneath her boots."
The ache in Kaelen's chest suddenly flared into a searing, white-hot heat. Valerius. The name was a curse. The Alpha of the North, the most powerful and ruthless wolf in existence, had taken his discarded mate and placed her on a pedestal.
"He claimed her?" Kaelen's voice was a low, dangerous hiss. "He has no right. She was my mate. My subject."
"You rejected her, Alpha," Silas reminded him softly, though the words felt like a slap. "You broke the bond. By pack law, she is a rogue. And Valerius has given her a home."
Kaelen slammed his fist into the mahogany desk, the wood splintering under his strength. The thought of Skaya—his Skaya, the girl who used to look at him with such adoration—standing beside a man like Valerius made his wolf roar with a primal, possessive fury.
She belongs to me, Vane, his inner wolf, growled.
You threw her away, a smaller, darker voice in his head countered. You called her weak. You let them drag her into the mud.
"She stole the Eye of the Moon," Kaelen lied, his voice strained. He needed a reason. He needed a way to get her back, to see with his own eyes that Silas was exaggerating. "I won't let a thief go unpunished. Prepare the warriors. We march to the border."
"Alpha, no!" Silas stood up, panicked. "Valerius promised that if he saw a Silver Moon uniform on his land, he would hang our entrails from the trees. He is looking for an excuse to crush us. If you go there for a girl you rejected, the Council will strip you of your title!"
Kaelen turned back to the window, his eyes fixed on the distant, jagged peaks of the Midnight territory. He could almost feel her now. The faint, ghostly tug of a bond that shouldn't exist anymore.
"It's not about the girl," Kaelen lied to himself, his heart thudding painfully against his ribs. "It's about the insult. Valerius thinks he can take what was mine. I'll show him that a Silver Moon never forgets a debt."
The Obsidian Spire – Midnight Eclipse
I stood on the balcony of the highest tower, the wind whipping my silver-threaded braids around my face. The moon was a sliver in the sky, a cold witness to the darkness brewing within me.
I felt a presence behind me before I heard it. The scent of ozone and ancient woods preceded him. Valerius stepped onto the balcony, his tall frame casting a long shadow over me. He didn't say a word; he simply stood beside me, looking out at the horizon.
"He's coming, isn't he?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"He is," Valerius replied. "I can feel the movement at the borders. Kaelen Vancour is a man who cannot stand to lose, even when he has already thrown the prize away."
I turned to look at him. Valerius's violet eyes were fixed on me, reflecting the moonlight. There was something in his gaze that wasn't just protective. It was possessive. It was the look of a man who had found something he never intended to let go of.
"Are you afraid, Skaya?" he asked, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair from my face. His touch was cold, but it sent a spark of heat through my veins.
"No," I said, my voice hardening as I looked toward my old home. "I'm not afraid of the man who broke me. I'm only afraid that I won't be satisfied until I see the look in his eyes when he realizes he lost everything for a lie."
Valerius leaned down, his lips ghosting over my ear. "Then let us give him a show he will never forget. The Lunar Convergence begins in ten days. The stage is set."
He took my hand, his thumb rubbing over the knuckles where my claws had emerged.
"But tell me, Little Flame," Valerius whispered, his voice dropping to a dangerously low tone. "When he begs for you to come back—and he will—what will your answer be?"
I looked at the silver coin around my neck, then at the powerful Alpha standing before me. I thought of the blood on the altar and the cold of the Blackwood Forest.
I looked Valerius straight in the eye, a dark, icy smile spreading across my lips.
"I'll tell him that a Queen doesn't look back at the trash she left behind. I'll tell him to kneel."
Valerius's smirk was lethal. He pulled me into his arms, his grip tight and unyielding.
"Good," he murmured. "Because I'd hate to have to kill him before he has a chance to see you wear my crown."