Chapter Eight: Letters from the Grave
The rain pounded against the infirmary windows, relentless since the crack of dawn.
The atmosphere felt heavy. Heavy with blood. With secrets. With memories too painful to utter.
Luna hadn't left her aunt Elena's side. Elena lay unconscious, breathing shallowly, her chest wrapped in bandages where cruel words had been etched.
Una Regina non può essere sporca.
A Queen cannot be impure.
It was a message, a warning, a curse.
Luna couldn't decide which part frightened her more.
She had not seen Dominic since the previous night. After the kiss. After the claiming.
He had slipped away again.
Just like he always did when things got serious.
Coward or king? Maybe both.
So, she sat alone by Elena's bedside, gripping her mother's necklace tightly, when she felt it.
Not magic.
Metal.
Click.
The pendant popped open.
Inside, folded neatly like a diamond, was an old piece of parchment. It looked worn, cracked, but the faded ink was still readable.
It was a letter.
From her mother.
"My dearest Luna,
If you're reading this, I am gone.
There are things I promised I would never share with you. For your safety. For your sanity. For your soul.
But I realize now I was mistaken.
They will come for you. Just as they came for me.
The curse is in your blood. Not your father's. Mine.
It predates the wolves. It predates the Mafia. It's older than the moon itself.
Your birth was a miracle—and a mistake.
Because when you cry, the ancestors awaken. And when you bleed, they remember.
And when you love, they rage.
There's a man... he will seize your heart and shatter your world. But he isn't the villain.
The real villain wears white.
He'll offer you salvation, but it'll cost you your life.
You must either run, my love. Or rule.
There's no middle ground.
Mamma."
Luna's breath hitched. She read the letter multiple times.
Each line seared hotter than the last.
The curse didn't come from the wolves. It stemmed from her mother's bloodline—her mysterious, graceful, silent mother who had passed when Luna was just a kid.
No one had ever told her the details.
Now she understood why.
She rose from the chair, anger coursing through her.
What terrified her more: the prophecy, the priest, or the power surging through her veins?
But one thing was clear:
She wouldn't run.
Not again.
Elsewhere on the compound, Dominic was losing his grip.
He stood beneath the icy spray of the shower, blood from his knuckles washing away down the drain. Another mirror shattered. Another wall wrecked. Another promise to himself broken.
He couldn't shake Luna's voice from his mind.
"Then let them."
"I'd rather burn for you than live without you."
He hadn't confided in her. Not about the priest. Not about the bounty on her head placed by his own father. Not about the dreams.
God, the dreams.
They started the moment she turned twenty-one. Images of her standing bare under a blood moon. Sacrificed. Crowned.
He'd tried to suppress them. Drown them in alcohol. Throw himself into the darkest corners of the Mafia world just to forget her scent.
But last night?
She belonged to him.
And now the world would be gunning for them.
He slammed his fist into the tile, panting.
Then he noticed it.
A white envelope slipped under the door.
No name.
Just the seal.
A cross within a wolf's jaw.
The Order.
He tore it open, already bracing himself for the contents.
"Your Queen has been marked. The ritual will begin on the next blood moon.
Free yourself of her, or be buried alongside her.
—Padre Elio"
Dominic sank to his knees.
His father might be a monster.
But Padre Elio?
He was a ghost in robes.
The last priest of the Old Pact. The man who'd sacrificed Dominic's own mother in that same ritual. The one who'd raised him for three years after she died. The one whose prayers felt more like daggers.
And now he sought Luna.
Not to cleanse her.
But to destroy her.
That evening, Luna called for a meeting.
Not with the High Pack. Not with the council.
Just her inner circle—what remained of it.
Antonio, the tech witch. Mirella, her cousin and fighter. Lorenzo, still searching for ways to help. And Elena's maid, Renata, who used to be a seer until grief robbed her of her visions.
"Someone is targeting the bloodline," Luna stated calmly.
She passed along her mother's letter across the table. They read in silence. Mirella gasped. Antonio cursed. Lorenzo looked at Luna as if he were seeing her for the first time.
"You didn't know any of this?" he asked softly.
She shook her head. "I had no idea my mother was fleeing from something."
"You were never meant to," Renata said, her voice trembling. "She wanted you to be safe."
"But I'm not," Luna responded, lifting her chin defiantly. "And neither was she."
Dominic lingered in the shadows. He hadn't been invited.
But he understood where things were headed.
Luna would never run.
Which meant she'd choose to fight.
Which meant... he'd have to kill again.
The blood moon was just six days away.
And they were already behind schedule.
Meanwhile...
Inside an ancient cathedral in Palermo, Italy, a man knelt before a fire glowing green.
His robes were pristine white. His hands bore holy tattoos. His eyes were completely black.
Padre Elio.
He spoke in Latin. Then in Italian. Then in the old tongue—the one only wolves recalled.
He held a doll made of bone.
Wrapped in black velvet.
With hair the same color as Luna's.
He drove a dagger into its chest.
And smiled as the flame sizzled.