The sound of running water grew louder in the darkness. Lyra pressed her face against the tower window, searching the moonlit forest.
There beyond the pack walls, between black trees that twisted like reaching fingers—something shone. Water.
Moving water where charts showed only dry land. That's impossible, she thought. Rivers don't just appear. But the sound was real.
Rushing, gurgling, calling to her with a voice she recognized from dreams. The same voice that had whispered Elara's name ten years ago.
A soft knock interrupted her thinking.
Sara stood at the cell door with a breakfast tray and news that made Lyra's stomach drop. "The Alpha wants to see you," Sara declared. "Now." "Why?" "Your father's army reached our lines an hour ago.
They're flying a white flag—they want to talk." Lyra's heart beat. "Is Kael going to negotiate?" "That depends on you." Sara opened the cell with silver keys that made the air smell sharp and metallic. "Clean yourself up. You're going to the great hall."
"Am I still a prisoner?"
"You're whatever the Alpha decides you are." Twenty minutes later, guards escorted Lyra through hallways buzzing with tension. Warriors sharpened weapons.
Messengers ran between rooms. Everyone moved with the quick, nervous energy that came before battle.
The great hall was packed with pack members—more than Lyra had ever seen in one place.
They parted like water as she walked through, some staring with interest, others with obvious disgust.
Kael stood on the raised platform wearing full battle gear.
Black leather and steel that made him look like a military king.
When he saw her, his expression showed nothing. "Lyra." His voice carried across the silent hall.
"Your father is here." The great doors opened with a boom that echoed off stone walls.
A group of guys entered, led by someone Lyra barely recognized. Torin Blackthorn had aged twenty years in the ten since she'd seen him.
His dark hair was now silver, his face lined with sadness and exhaustion. But his eyes—those were the same fierce blue she remembered from childhood. When he saw her, his mask of control broke. "Lyra," he breathed. "My daughter."
The passion in his voice hit her like a physical blow.
All those years of believing he hated her, and now he looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the world.
"Father," she whispered back. Torin started toward her, but Kael's cold voice stopped him. "That's close enough.
Say what you came to say." Torin's look hardened as he faced the younger Alpha. "I want my daughter back." "She's not yours anymore. The mate bond made her mine."
"A bond placed on an eighteen-year-old child. That's not legal by any pack law." Kael's smile was sharp as a blade. "Legal enough.
The Moon Goddess picked us." "The Moon Goddess didn't drag her here in silver chains."
Murmurs spread through the crowd. Even some of Kael's own soldiers looked uncomfortable at the reminder.
"Your daughter is my Luna now," Kael said. "She belongs to the Bloodmoon Pack." "She belongs to no one but herself."
Torin's voice rose with anger. "Lyra, tell him. Tell him you want to come home." All eyes turned to her. The hall fell silent as death. Home.
The word tastes strange after so many years.
She'd dreamed of going home, but that was before she knew about mate bonds and pack politics and the power stirring in her chest.
Before she'd heard that someone planned to kill her. "I..." Lyra's voice cracked. "I don't know what I want." Disappointment flashed across her father's face. "Lyra, please. I've made terrible mistakes.
I blamed you for something that wasn't your fault. Let me make it right." "By starting a war?" Kael stopped. "Three hundred warriors isn't exactly a peaceful negotiation."
"Three hundred witnesses," Torin amended. "To make sure you don't harm her." "I would never—" "Wouldn't you?" Torin's eyes blazed. "You've kept her locked in a tower like a criminal. Fed her scraps.
Let your pack mock and shame her." Every word was true, and everyone in the hall knew it. Some of Kael's fans shifted uncomfortably.
"She hasn't proven herself worthy of better treatment," Kael said, but his voice lacked conviction.
"She's your mate! That should be enough!" The argument might have continued, but a commotion near the entrance stopped them.
A guard burst in, his face pale with fear. "Alpha! Something's wrong with the river!" "What river?" Kael demanded. "There's no river near—" His words died as the sound reached them.
Rushing water, loud enough to hear through stone walls. Impossible, but obvious. "The old maps," the guard gasped. "The ones in the collection.
They show a river that disappeared fifty years ago. It's back." A chill ran down Lyra's spine. The sound I heard last night. "That's impossible," Sara said. "Rivers don't just reappear." "This one did.
And it's... wrong. The water's black as ink, and it smells like death." Elder Voss pushed through the crowd, his old face grim.
"The Forbidden River," he whispered. "It's awakening." "What forbidden river?" Kael snapped. The old man's eyes found Lyra's face. "The one that drowned your Luna's sister ten years ago." Gasps echoed through the hall.
Lyra felt the blood drain from her face. "That river was hundreds of miles away," she argued.
"In Silverfang territory." "Distance means nothing to cursed water," Elder Voss said.
"It goes where it wills, appears when it hungers." "Hungers for what?" Torin asked, though his voice suggested he already knew.
The elder's gaze never left Lyra. "For what it was promised. A soul to replace the one it lost." Elara, Lyra thought.
It wants me to pay for Elara. "Superstitious nonsense," Kael stated, but Lyra could hear uncertainty in his voice. "Is it?" Elder Voss tested.
"Then explain why the river appears now, just as the girl returns to pack lands. Explain why she can bend silver with her bare hands." Every eye in the hall turned to Lyra.
She wanted to deny it, but the truth was written on her face. "You can bend silver?" her father asked, voice full of wonder and fear. "I... yes. Sometimes." Kael stepped closer, his armor clanking.
"Show me."
"I can't stop it. It just happens when—"
"Show me!" His Alpha voice bounced off the walls.
Trembling, Lyra reached for the silver ceremonial cup on the stage. The moment her fingers touched the metal, it began to soften like warm wax.
The cup twisted in her hands, reforming itself into something that looked almost like a flower. Beautiful and impossible.
Silence filled the great hall. "Moon Goddess protect us," someone whispered. Elder Voss nodded grimly. "The river's mark is on her. It has been since she was eight years old."
"What does that mean?" Lyra wanted. "It means you're linked to it. Bound to it.
And as long as that link exists, the river will hunt you."
"Hunt me for what?" "To finish what was started ten years ago." Before anyone could ask what he meant, another guard burst through the doors. "Alpha! The river—it's moving!"
"Moving how?"
"Toward the packhouse. The water level is rising, and there are... things... in it."
"What kind of things?" The guard's face went white. "Bodies, sir.
Floating bodies with their eyes wide open." Panic spread through the crowd. Some people screamed. Others pushed toward the doors.
But Lyra stood frozen, because she could hear something else now.
A voice floating on the air, sweet and familiar. "Sister," Elara's voice called from outside. "Come play with me.
The water's great for swimming." Through the tall windows, Lyra could see it—black water rising around the packhouse walls like a hungry tide.
And standing in the middle of the dark current, her blonde hair floating around her like a cloud, was the ghost of her seven-year-old sister.
Elara waved and smiled, then pointed straight at Lyra. "Your turn," she mouthed. The river surged forward, and the packhouse shuddered like it might fall.
"Everyone to higher ground!" Kael shouted, his Alpha power cutting through the chaos. "Now!" But as people rushed for the stairs, Lyra felt something grab her ankle.
She looked down to see black water seeping through cracks in the stone floor. Impossible water that shouldn't exist, reaching for her with fingers made of shadow and spite.
"The river wants what it's owed," Elder Voss said behind her, his voice calm despite the madness.
"And it always collects its debts." The water pulled harder, and Lyra realized with cold fear that she couldn't break free.
The Forbidden River had come to take her at last.