Rejected By Seven Alphas, Claimed By The Ghost Lycan King

Chapter 8:Attack On The Castle Of Seven

The Castle of Seven has never been breached. Not in three hundred years.

Seven walls, seven gates, seven packs of guards howling every hour. Silver cannons on towers that can kill a Lycan from a mile away. Runes on every stone that burn any intruder without Alpha blood.

But tonight, a ghost walks through them.

Caelum holds my hand and we are not walking. We are floating through stone, through iron, through screaming guards who cannot see us. His cloak, black and silver, wraps around me, making me invisible like him. Only Ghost, my fire pup, is visible, but only to us. He runs ahead, a spark of silver flame scouting, silent.

"Mother is in the lowest dungeon," Caelum whispers, his mouth near my crescent mark. His voice is cold, but his hand around mine is solid, warm now. He is more solid than ever. I can feel his claws, his pulse that should not exist. My training made him real. "Third level below ground. They put silver chains on her like they put on me. Silver chain burns healer blood."

I nod. I cannot speak. My throat is tight. Silver inside me is pacing, snarling, ready to kill.

We pass through second wall. Guards in black armor of Northern Alliance pass through us. One shivers, looks around, says "cold spot." He does not see us.

"How are we invisible?" I whisper.

"Ghost Palace is between living and dead," Caelum explains as we pass through a solid oak door without opening it. "When you wear my cloak, you walk between. Living cannot see between. Only dead can. And your mother is half dead from silver."

Half dead. My chest hurts.

Third wall. Dungeon stairs. Stone steps wet with blood and melted snow. Torches sputter. The air smells like iron and fear.

Ghost barks, silent, and points with flame nose to a cell at end of corridor.

There she is.

My mother sits against wall, wrists chained above head with thick silver chains. The silver smokes where it touches her skin, burning. Her healer dress is brown with blood. Her face is bruised from Jax's slap. But her eyes, my mother's brown eyes, are open, fierce.

Eli is there too, inside cell, not outside. His hands are not tied anymore. He is trying to pull chains off her, but silver burns his Alpha hands too. His young face, twenty, softest of seven, is crying.

"Auntie, I am sorry," Eli whispers to my mother. "I tried to stop Kaden. I told him we were wrong to reject Aria. He tied me. Then he said if you tell us where Aria is, he will let you go. I told him Aria is dead. He hit you anyway."

My mother touches Eli's hair, despite pain. "You are good boy, Eli. Like your great-grandfather who cried when they chained Caelum. Blood remembers."

Eli freezes. "You know about Ghost King?"

"All Low Pack healers know," mother whispers. "We were there when they killed him. We cleaned his blood. We promised Moon Goddess we would protect his waiting mate. I caged Aria's wolf because Temple priests said if they find Silver Lycan girl, they will kill her like they killed King."

I am behind bars, invisible, hearing this, tears falling silver.

Caelum squeezes my hand. "Now."

He drops cloak.

We become visible.

Eli jumps, falls back, eyes wide. Mother looks up, sees me, and gasps.

"Aria?"

I am in black and silver training clothes, not ghost dress. My silver streak glows white in dark dungeon. My eyes are pure silver, blazing. My crescent mark glows so bright dungeon shadows run away. Ghost, now size of real wolf, made of silver fire, stands beside me, growling, teeth flame.

"Eli, move," I say. My voice is mine, but layered with Silver's growl.

Eli does not move to attack. He kneels. Instantly. Without my aura pushing. He kneels because his wolf wants to.

"Luna," he whispers, head down. "Forgive us."

Mother cries: "Aria, you shifted! Your wolf!"

I run to her, but silver chains burn. I cannot touch them with bare hands or they burn me too.

Caelum steps forward. He is now fully visible to them. Tall, black hair, bone crown now silver ice, pale ghost skin but solid, white silver eyes, muscular, scarred, hole in chest still glowing but small. The Ghost Lycan King, dead a hundred years, standing in dungeon.

Eli screams, crawls back, hits wall. "Ghost King! You are real!"

Mother stares, not afraid, but reverent. "King Caelum."

Caelum does not look at Eli. He looks at silver chains burning my mother. His face twists with old memory and new rage. The same chains that held him hundred years ago.

He raises a claw. No fire. Just cold.

He touches silver chain.

Silver chain screams. It is metal, but it screams like living thing. Frost covers it. Then it shatters, not melts, shatters into black dust.

Mother falls forward into my arms. I catch her. She is light, cold, bleeding from wrists.

"Aria," mother whispers in my arms, touching my silver streak. "You are Silver. Like your father."

"My father?" I whisper. No one ever told me father.

"Your father was Silver Lycan too," mother says, coughing blood. "Not human. He came to our Low Pack ten years, loved me, gave me you, then Temple Alphas killed him because they feared Silver blood. I caged your wolf to hide you from them. Forgive me."

My heart stops. Father Silver Lycan, killed by Alphas. Like Caelum killed by Alphas.

History repeats.

Caelum hears, his white eyes narrow. He understands too.

Before I can ask more, alarm howls from above. Not one guard, but seven horns. Castle alarm.

Ghost barks, loud now, flame howl echoing up stairs.

"They felt veil rip," Caelum says, lifting mother easily in one arm, me in other. "Kaden felt you release power when you broke chain. He is coming."

Footsteps thunder down stone stairs. Many boots. Swords drawn.

Kaden appears first at dungeon corridor entrance, Jax behind him, Rhys, Cole, twins Finn and Leon. All seven except Eli who is still kneeling in cell. Kaden's black armor, grey eyes wild, bloodshot, sword silver. Jax's scar glows red in torch light.

They stop when they see us.

Kaden's sword lowers an inch. His eyes lock on me, not Caelum, not mother. On me.

"Aria," he breathes. He looks at my silver eyes, my crescent glowing, my training clothes torn from floating through walls, Ghost fire wolf growling at his feet. He looks at my mother in Caelum's arm, then at Caelum himself, Ghost King solid.

"You... you came," Kaden says, voice hoarse. Not angry. Broken. Obsessive. "You came back."

Jax snarls, raises sword at Caelum: "Ghost! Kill it! Silver cannons!"

But silver cannons cannot fire in dungeon. And ghost cannot be killed by sword.

Caelum looks at Kaden, then at Jax, and smiles, coldest smile I have ever seen, the smile that made seven ancestors kneel before he killed them.

"You chained her mother," Caelum says, voice that shakes stones, voice that is not loud but every soul hears it as if inside skull. "Like your great-grandfathers chained me. With silver. You never learn, little Alphas."

Kaden flinches. He feels Ghost King aura. All Alphas behind him kneel, involuntary, swords clattering, except Kaden who stands shaking, resisting on one knee.

"You rejected my Luna," Caelum continues, stepping forward, still holding mother and me, Ghost fire wolf leading. "You called her human, trash, wolfless. She is Silver Lycan, Moon Goddess daughter, and my Queen. You threw her to die in my forest. My forest."

Kaden is now on both knees, sweat on forehead, grey eyes still on me, not on Caelum. He is fighting ghost aura to look at me.

"Aria," Kaden whispers, ignoring King. "I... we were wrong. Come back. I will make you Luna. Only you. Not shared. Only mine. I will exile Jax. I will..."

Eli, from cell floor, shouts: "Kaden, stop! Can't you see she is Ghost Queen now! She will never be yours!"

I look at Kaden kneeling, once the coldest, most handsome Alpha who said I was unworthy to lick his boots. Now he kneels, begging, grey eyes obsessed.

I feel no pity. I feel power.

I step out of Caelum's arm, mother still safe in his other arm, and walk to Kaden, Ghost following, flame reflecting in Kaden's grey eyes.

"You had seven chances," I say, voice steady, silver aura making torches turn silver. "Seven rejections. One for each of you. You marked me seven times with rejection. Now I mark you with mine."

I raise my hand, claws silver, and touch Kaden's forehead where his Alpha mark is, where his crown would be.

Silver fire burns, not skin, but soul.

Kaden screams, not from pain, but from bond snapping. The last piece of rejection bond he tried to keep, hoping to pull me back, burns away.

"I, Aria, Silver Lycan, Ghost Queen, reject you, Kaden of Northern Alliance, as Alpha, as mate, as anything," I whisper, words formal, ancient, learned from Silver. "From this day, you have no claim."

Kaden collapses forward, forehead to stone floor, breathing hard, broken.

Behind him, six brothers feel it too, their own bonds burn.

Caelum lifts mother higher, wraps cloak around us all, me, mother, Eli, Ghost.

"We leave," Caelum says to kneeling Alphas. "But in five days, Luna Ceremony at Temple. Your throne under ice is mine. My Queen will sit on it. Come and try to stop her."

Cloak covers us and we vanish through floor, through stone, through seven walls, leaving silver snow that never melts on dungeon floor and seven Alphas kneeling in it.

In Ghost Palace, mother wakes on black fur bed, healed by ghost frost, staring at me and Caelum holding hands.

"Aria," she whispers, touching my crescent. "Your father would be proud. You found a King who does not cage your wolf, but frees it."

Caelum looks at me, white eyes soft only for me.

Five days to Luna Ceremony. And now Kaden knows my mother lives, my father was Silver, and I can walk through walls.

Caelum watches mother sleep, then turns to me, his hand still holding mine, his solid fingers warm now, not cold.

"Your mother said your father was Silver Lycan killed by Temple," he whispers, so mother does not wake. "That means there were other Silver Lycans alive even after they killed me. Temple hunted them. They feared what Silver blood means. Silver Lycan is not just rare wolf. Silver Lycan is judge. We can smell guilt. We can burn only guilty, never innocent. That's why seven families feared us. We would have judged them for their cruelty."

I look at Ghost pup curled on mother's chest, keeping her warm with cold fire, healing her silver burns slowly.

"Father would have judged Kaden too?" I ask.

"Your father did," Caelum says. "And they killed him for it. Just like they killed me. But they failed with you because your mother was smarter. She caged your wolf, hid your scent with healer herbs, made you smell human. She saved you."

Mother in sleep whispers: "Liora... protect..."

Liora. My wolf's true name? Silver stirs inside: 'Liora is mother name for me. She named me before cage.'

Caelum touches my cheek, his white eyes filled with promise that is almost prayer. "No one will cage you again, Liora Aria. Not Temple, not seven Alphas, not even me. In five days, when you sit on my throne, you will judge them. Not with rage. With justice. That is what Silver Queen does."

I nod, tears silver again, but this time not from fear or rage. From belonging. For eighteen years I had no wolf, no name, no family. Now I have Silver, Ghost, mother, and a ghost king who becomes solid because I believe in him.