Chapter4
915 Words
The Alpha’s Secret
Ivy didn’t sleep.
After Kian vanished into the night like a shadow slipping beneath the moonlight, her thoughts spiraled into every corner of her mind she’d fought to keep quiet.
Moon-Blooded.
Crown, not curse.
Your power doesn’t ask. It waits.
The words looped through her like a chant, matching the slow, steady burn of the mark on her hand.
She needed answers.
Real ones.
By noon the next day, she was back in the restricted wing of the library.
Her hand trembled as it hovered over the journal.
Isla Cross.
Her mother’s name burned brighter than the gold-trimmed pages. Her mother, who supposedly died in a car crash. Her mother, who told bedtime stories about warriors with glowing eyes and wolves that whispered truths in dreams.
Her mother, who—according to Luka—was once his mate.
Ivy’s fingers curled around the journal and pulled it close. She didn’t know what she’d find, but she knew she had to see.
The pages weren’t written in full thoughts. They were scattered entries, some messy, others burned at the edges like someone tried to destroy them. But one stood out.
> “The Blackfang Alpha thinks I belong to him. But he doesn’t see it yet. I wasn’t sent here to fall in love. I was sent to protect the heir. The moment I saw his future mate in my dreams, I knew she’d need me more than he ever would.”
> “My daughter.”
> “She will be stronger than me. Because she’ll be born broken.”
Ivy closed the book, heart pounding in her ears.
Her mother had seen all of this. Maybe not every detail, but enough.
She came to Blackthorn not just as a student—but as a guardian. A protector. A seer.
And she had known Ivy would be left alone to face this future.
Someone was watching her.
She looked up from the desk—and found herself staring straight into Luka’s eyes across the aisle.
Again.
No one else in the library. Just the two of them.
He didn’t say a word.
Neither did she.
But the tension snapped like a wire when she stood.
“Follow me,” she said coldly.
She led him to the garden behind the library, where the scent of rain clung to the air and the trees swayed gently in the wind.
He leaned against the stone archway, arms crossed. “That journal—”
“Is mine,” she interrupted. “It belonged to my mother. Something you conveniently never mentioned before.”
Luka didn’t flinch. “Because I didn’t think it would ever come to this.”
“Come to what? Me awakening into something you can’t control? Or the part where I find out you were in love with my mother?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
She laughed bitterly. “No? Then what was it?”
Luka’s voice dropped, quieter than she’d ever heard it. “I was thirteen. She was seventeen. A seer. She came here under council orders. She wasn’t supposed to fall for anyone. But she protected me from a curse that was meant to kill me.”
Her blood turned to ice.
“What curse?”
“She took it into herself,” Luka said. “But it didn’t leave me entirely. The curse—whatever it was—tied itself to the next Alpha heir’s mate.”
He looked at her.
“You.”
Ivy’s vision swam.
“So you rejected me… to protect me from a curse?”
“I thought the rejection would break the bond, sever your fate.”
She stepped back, shaking her head. “Then why did you humiliate me? Why say those things?”
His jaw clenched. “Because if I let myself care, I wouldn’t have been able to walk away.”
“I never asked you to walk away!” Her voice cracked. “You made that decision for both of us!”
And there it was. The truth finally out.
The pain. The rage. The confusion.
Luka looked at her, eyes stormy. “You’re not the only one who’s hurting, Ivy.”
“No. I’m just the only one who was set on fire.”
The air shifted.
Suddenly, a high-pitched whine filled her ears. The world tilted.
And then—
A howl.
Not Luka’s.
Something else.
She turned sharply.
At the edge of the garden stood a figure cloaked in black.
Its face hidden.
But its eyes glowed the same red as the mark on Ivy’s palm.
Luka moved fast—too fast.
He shoved Ivy behind him, shifting midair, his body exploding into fur and fang.
The thing didn’t move.
It simply raised its hand and spoke.
A voice like gravel, like wind through a tomb.
“The Luna awakens. The blood debt begins.”
And then it vanished.
Gone without a sound.
Ivy’s knees buckled.
Luka shifted back, panting. “That wasn’t a wolf.”
She nodded slowly. “No. That was something older.”
Later that night, Ivy stood by the window of her dorm, staring at the mark on her hand.
The flame had spread—up her wrist, faint as a tattoo but unmistakably alive.
She clenched her f
ist.
“I don’t need saving,” she whispered.
Behind her, the shadows stirred.
And Kian’s voice murmured in the darkness.
“Then it’s time you learn how to fight back.”
- Writer
