Chapter 1
The castle smelled of blood again.
Not the kind spilled in glorious battle or shed beneath moonlight, but the stagnant, metallic scent of power lost—of a king struck down in his prime and a throne left cold before the body had cooled. The mourners had gone. The guards remained stiff and quiet. And somewhere in the endless stone hallways of Blackridge Keep, a boy who had just become a man was forced to become more.
Kaelen stood before the iron throne alone. No council. No crowd. Just stone, silence, and the eyes of a thousand ancestors carved into the walls, their wolf-shadows watching from torchlight and dust.
He hadn't cried.
Not when they told him his father had fallen during a late patrol. Not when they brought the body home wrapped in crimson and silence. Not even during the Moonfire Ritual, when the flames took the Alpha's flesh and scattered it to the sky.
Alpha Darius Blackridge—Kaelen's father, his mentor, his shadow—was gone.
And now, the throne had chosen him.
Kaelen didn't sit. Not yet. To sit would be to accept it, and part of him still waited for the old Alpha to stride through the doors with that commanding gait, to cuff him for delaying patrol, to dismiss the whispers of war at the borderlands as if they were just the howling of wind and fools.
Instead, he waited for a ghost.
Behind him, the great hall doors creaked.
He didn't need to turn. Her presence was always a shift in the room—soft as silk, tense as a held breath.
"Everyone's gone," Elira said, her voice delicate but not fragile. "You don't have to stay."
He kept his eyes on the throne. "I know."
"You've been here for hours."
"I know."
She didn't approach immediately. Her footsteps were cautious, as though even her nearness might shatter something fragile in him. But it wasn't fragility she sensed—it was rage. A cold, simmering fire that had nowhere to burn. Not yet.
"You shouldn't be alone tonight," she murmured.
"I am Alpha now," he replied, voice low. "I'll be alone every night."
Elira frowned, stepping beside him. She didn't challenge the claim. Perhaps because she knew it was true. Power always came with a shadow, and Kaelen had just stepped fully into his.
"You could at least eat," she said.
He turned toward her. Finally.
Her hair was unbound. A rare thing. Thick chestnut waves tumbled down her back, catching flecks of firelight. Her eyes—hazel, too wide for her face—were filled with something soft. Pity, perhaps. Or love.
He hated both.
"Why are you here, Elira?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be resting? Or hiding in the village again with your books and your questions?"
She stiffened. "You know I only go to the village for the archives."
"And to escape this place," he added bitterly. "We both do."
That silenced her. But only for a moment.
"You're grieving," she said carefully. "I won't let you bleed it alone."
Something shifted in Kaelen's chest—tight and sudden.
You're not my sister.
The thought struck him like lightning. Uninvited. Vicious.
She was. Of course she was. Raised together since infancy. Held as a child while his mother still lived. Taught to walk beside him. Always beside him.
And yet…
There had always been something off. Something he dared not name.
He turned away.
"You should go," he muttered.
She lingered.
"I will… after you do one thing."
He looked back at her with suspicion. "What thing?"
Elira took a step forward. She stood directly before the throne now—between him and the iron seat, between him and destiny.
"Sit," she said.
He stared.
"Sit on the throne," she repeated. "Let them see you. Let the ancestors feel your weight."
Kaelen swallowed. His hands clenched.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because if I sit, then he's really dead."
Elira's gaze softened, then sharpened. She reached for him—lightly touching his wrist. His breath caught.
"I saw him," she whispered.
His brow furrowed. "What?"
"Before they brought his body home. I had a dream. He came to me. Blood on his face. He looked at me and said… protect him. The blade came from within."
Kaelen froze. "You dreamed this?"
Elira nodded.
He pulled his arm away, sharply.
"You think I'm weak enough to need protection?" he snapped.
"No," she said calmly. "I think you're angry enough to forget who your enemies are."
His jaw clenched. And yet… he knew she was right.
The wound on his father's body had been precise. Not a rogue attack. Not an ambush. A betrayal. From within their own ranks.
Kaelen turned to the throne again.
Elira stepped back, allowing him space.
This time, he stepped forward. Slowly. Carefully.
And he sat.
The iron chilled him to the bone. Heavy. Cold. Final.
But the moment he settled into it, something shifted.
It wasn't pain. It was… clarity.
The throne recognized him.
A weight pressed on his shoulders—not metaphorical. Real. A binding. A contract.
From this day, he was Alpha.
Elira bowed her head slightly. "Kaelen Blackridge, son of Darius, blood of the Alpha line. The throne accepts you."
He breathed in.
And then, softly: "And you? Do you accept me?"
Her eyes lifted to his.
"I always have."
The words lingered far too long in the air between them.
He stood abruptly. "I need time."
Elira nodded. She turned and walked away, but he didn't watch her leave. He couldn't.
Because as the doors closed behind her, Kaelen's heart beat far too loudly for comfort.
And somewhere deep within the ruined halls of Veylan, the wolves began to stir.
Kaelen didn't return to his chambers that night.
He remained in the council chamber long after Elira left, staring at the throne he had just sat upon—as though some part of him had been left behind, molded into the stone like the bones of Alphas past. There was no celebration. No coronation. Not yet. The pack was in mourning, and the Elders had insisted he wait a full moon cycle before invoking the Rite of Fire and becoming Alpha in full.
A tradition that reeked of politics and delay.
At dawn, he finally made his way out of the hall, cloak trailing behind him, steps echoing across the stone floors of the eastern wing. Every guard he passed bowed stiffly, and every time he met their eyes, Kaelen saw something different than before.
Fear.
He'd always been respected. As the son of Darius, he was trained in combat, raised in court, sharpened like a blade with no sheath. But this—this mantle he now carried—was not respect. It was command. They feared him, and they should. Because Kaelen no longer had the luxury of boyhood. Or mercy.
He took the back corridor to avoid the noble wing. Liora would be awake by now, and he had no interest in her rehearsed sympathies or delicate mourning veils. Her father, Lord Cyrien, had already pressed the council for a wedding date—barely a day after Darius' pyre had turned to ash. Cowardly. Opportunistic.
The kind of man who would smile as he cut your throat.
Kaelen was nearing his chamber doors when he paused.
The scent was faint, but unmistakable—lavender and rain. Elira's scent.
He followed it.
Down the hall, toward the old library—a disused wing of the keep where she often went to avoid court life. Her scent grew stronger, curling with a note of... distress?
He pushed the door open.
The room was dark, lit only by the morning sun bleeding through stained glass windows. Dust hung like fog in the beams of light, and between the rows of books and scrolls stood Elira, facing the far wall. Her body was stiff, unmoving.
She didn't turn when she heard him. She didn't need to.
"You're following me now?" she asked softly.
"Your scent was—off," he said, stepping closer. "Are you hurt?"
"No." A pause. "But I found something."
Kaelen slowed.
She turned now, holding an old scroll in her hands. Her face was pale, eyes wide, like she'd seen something she wasn't meant to.
"This was in the restricted archives," she said. "I wasn't looking for it. It was just… there."
She passed it to him.
He unrolled it carefully. It was fragile, the parchment nearly crumbling at the corners. Handwritten in ink so old it had begun to fade, it was titled:
> "Luna's Oath: The Prophecy of the Blood-Borne Queen."
His brows knit.
He read aloud:
> "When the Alpha falls by a blade not his own,
And the throne cries for fire, not stone,
A Luna not born, but given by fate,
Shall rise beside the blood of hate.
The girl of no name, raised by the king,
The wolves will kneel when the moon does sing.
But blood must spill—
A price, a twin—
And she must choose: to rule, or sin."
Kaelen looked up slowly.
Elira stared at him, her hands trembling. "Kaelen, that's me."
He shook his head. "It's just a myth."
"No," she whispered. "No, listen. Raised by the king. That's you. Not born, but given by fate. What if… what if I wasn't supposed to be your sister?"
The words dropped like stones in his chest.
"Elira—"
"Please," she cut in, stepping forward. "Haven't you felt it? For years now. I'm not like the others. My dreams. My visions. The way I—" she stopped herself, then looked away. "The way I feel near you."
His breath caught.
Dangerous. The way her voice faltered on that last word. The way his body reacted to her nearness, his wolf stirring like it did before the hunt. She was right. He had felt it. But he had always buried it.
Because the alternative was impossible.
Because wanting her was wrong.
But if she was right…
If she was not his sister…
If she was fated to be his Luna…
He backed away, the scroll dropping from his hand.
"This changes nothing," he said sharply. "Even if it's true, it changes nothing."
"It changes everything," she said quietly. "Because if I'm not your sister, Kaelen, then you've been living a lie. And I've been in a cage."
Silence swallowed the room.
Outside, the wind howled against the stone walls like wolves mourning in unison.
Kaelen turned to leave.
"I'll speak to the Elders," he muttered. "Burn this."
"But—"
"Burn it," he said, louder this time. "If anyone finds it, they'll kill you. Or use it to destroy me."
She didn't argue.
But as Kaelen stepped into the corridor and the door closed behind him, Elira stood in the dim light holding the scroll against her chest—unwilling to let go of the truth that had just set her world on fire.