The Alpha’s Vengeance

Chapter 3 The Gate of the Fallen Luna

“You’re not allowed past this point.”

The guard’s voice rang sharply through the drizzle as Seraphina stepped under the looming shadow of the eastern gate. He stepped forward, hand already resting on his weapon, his posture crisp. The other one, a younger male, barely into his twenties by the look of him, shifted beside him uncertainty, eyes flickering over her face like he recognized something but wasn’t sure if he was supposed to.

Seraphina didn’t stop walking until she stood just two paces from them. Her coat dripped with rain, her boots smeared with old road dust. Her hair clung to the sides of her face, still damp from the walk across the outer ward. She looked like a ghost, one returned from exile, but her spine stayed straight. Her voice, when she spoke, carried no tremors.

“Tell Kael Draven that Seraphina Vale is here.”

The older guard didn’t blink. “The Alpha isn’t receiving anyone tonight.”

“You think I care what he’s receiving?” she snapped. “You don’t recognize me?”

The younger one finally stepped forward. His voice was cautious, quiet. “You were Luna... once.”

The pause that followed nearly swallowed them all.

Seraphina tilted her head slowly. “And that doesn’t buy me five seconds of your radio?”

The senior guard gave her one long look, then muttered into the device on his collar. Static buzzed through the air as he relayed her name, his words clipped.

Seraphina let her eyes wander up the tall gate that separated her from the place that used to be hers. The iron spires, the engraved emblem, and Kael's crest still shone silver under the dull moonlight. The same crest that had once hung over their bed. She remembered the sound of Kael's laughter echoing through the east wing, the way he used to pull her into the garden without warning, pressing her against the hedges like the world might end if he didn’t kiss her at that exact moment.

That man wasn’t here anymore.

The radio crackled again. A voice responded, too faint for her to make out, but the guard stiffened. His eyes flicked back at her.

“Escort her to the reception chamber. She is to remain under guard. Alpha Draven will be informed.”

Seraphina didn’t say thank you.

As the gates creaked open, she followed the path inward, flanked by two new escorts in black. The moment she passed the threshold, the scent of home assaulted her like a forgotten lover: cedar smoke, night jasmine, leather. Her feet found the gravel path instinctively, even as her heart stammered against her chest.

Nothing had changed. The hedges were still trimmed into perfect curves. The statues still stood on their marble pedestals, unmoved by time or grief. Even the second-floor light in Kael’s office still glowed a familiar amber.

“You said he’d be told,” she murmured, glancing sideways at one of the guards.

“I did.”

“Do you know who I am?”

The man didn’t look at her. “I know what they say about you.”

She smiled bitterly and kept walking. “Do they say why I left?”

The silence that followed told her all she needed to know. They didn’t. They never would. In the story passed down through the pack’s ranks, she was the Luna who ran. The woman who turned her back on a dying legacy. The one who abandoned their Alpha in his bloodiest hour.

No one ever spoke of what she’d lost. What she had taken with her.

The main doors of the house opened as they approached. The butler bowed stiffly and moved aside.

“She is to remain here,” one guard said. “Until the Alpha makes his decision.”

Seraphina stepped into the receiving room and stopped dead in her tracks.

The space had been redone.

Not completely. The bones of the room remained: arched ceilings, crystal chandeliers, that cold, roaring fireplace, but the warmth was gone. Darker furniture. Glass display cases where the old books used to be. Her portrait, once above the hearth, had been replaced by a black-and-white canvas of Kael’s father. The air smelled different too. Less lavender. More ash.

She let her fingers brush across the edge of the old piano as she walked further in. Her fingers remembered where Kael had once pressed the keys, playing soft melodies for her on nights neither of them could sleep.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The voice was female.

Seraphina turned to see a figure emerging from the hallway: a woman wrapped in a silk robe, hair braided high, dark red lipstick pristine even in the low light. Her name came back to Seraphina in a rush of memory.

“Elyra.”

Kael’s assistant. Still here. Still venomous.

“You weren’t invited.”

“I wasn’t aware Kael required invitations for emergencies,” Seraphina replied.

Lyra's gaze swept her up and down. “You look like hell.”

Seraphina’s lip twitched. “Funny. You sound the same.”

Before Elyra could respond, one of the guards cleared his throat. “She is to remain here under supervision.”

Elyra crossed the room, heels clicking. “You should’ve stayed gone, Sera. There’s nothing for you here.”

“That’s not your call,” Seraphina said, her voice harder now. “And if you speak to me like that again, you’ll find out exactly what I’m still capable of.”

The guard chuckled behind her. Elyra’s face paled slightly before she turned away.

Seraphina watched her go, then moved toward the tall window overlooking the courtyard. She stared into the dark, searching for his shape among the trees.

“I know you’re watching,” she murmured.

The moonlight glinted off the stone fountain below.

She didn’t move when she heard the softest click of a door opening upstairs. She didn’t turn her head when footsteps creaked along the upper landing.

But her spine stiffened. Her shoulders drew inward. Her breath held.

Kael Draven stood at the edge of the second-floor balcony, shrouded in shadow, silent.

She couldn’t see his face.

But she felt his gaze burn through the layers of time between them.

And when he finally spoke, his voice broke som

ething inside her, she didn’t know still existed.

“I should’ve let them shoot you at the gate.”