THE LOST KINGDOM OF ELARA

The Final Awakening

(Aurelia POV)

But just then the light vanished, Just Gone.

The chanting stopped immediately, and the breeze died. Silence followed. I slowly opened my eyes.

Nothing had changed, my hands were still my own, no claws, no markings, definitely no wolf.

Nothing, the priest frowned. He glanced toward the elders before looking back at me.

"Again."

The chant began for a second time.

Longer this time. Stronger.

The Moonstones pulsed until tiny cracks spread across their surfaces. The pressure in the air became almost unbearable.

Still... Nothing, not even the faintest whisper from a wolf that had never answered me, the silence stretched. Then came the whispers.

"I knew it."

"So we don't need to worry about the prophecy."

" We were scared for twenty-two years for this?"

"What a disgrace."

I lowered my head, trying to tune the voices out,

"It's over."

"Poor Rowan."

"I heard he gave up the Alpha title because he wanted to protect her."

"What a waste." I clenched my fists.

Not them, they can say whatever they want about me, but not them.

"The former Alpha threw away everything for a wolfless daughter."

Another laugh answered.

"Ashmoor has become the laughingstock of every kingdom."

Something inside me cracked. I looked toward my parents. Dad stood perfectly still. His face revealed nothing, but I knew him. I knew the tiny tightening of his jaw.

The way his fingers curled ever so slightly at his sides. He was hurting. Mom reached for his hand. Neither of them looked ashamed of me.

They looked heartbroken, because I was hurting. That somehow made it worse.

The Moon Priest sighed, His voice carried across the altar.

"It would appear..."

No....I couldn't hear it, I couldn't hear him make it official.

"...that the ceremony has—"

I turned and ran. Someone called my name. Maybe Mom, Dad, or Mira, I didn't know, but I didn't stop to find out.

The shocked murmurs of the crowd faded behind me as I sprinted down the stone steps and into the ancient forest. Branches whipped against my arms.

Roots caught at the hem of my white robe, I stumbled and kept running. I didn't know where I was going, I only knew I couldn't stay.

Not while thousands of people watched my life fall apart. Not while my parents stood there carrying the weight of a prophecy that should have died with me.

Tears blurred my vision, for the first time in years,

I was broken into many pieces. The forest didn't stop me, branches clawed at my arms, roots caught beneath my feet.

The white Awakening robe snagged against thorns until the hem tore, but I kept running.

I welcomed the pain. It was easier than the ache in my chest. I didn't stop until my legs finally gave out.

I crashed to my knees in the middle of a forgotten clearing, near a river, my palms sinking into damp earth.

My lungs burned, tears blurred my vision, for the first time in twenty-two years...

I let myself break, a laugh escaped me, it sounded broken, empty.

"So..." I whispered between ragged breaths. "This is how it ends."

The trees offered no answer. I looked up at the pale moon hanging above the canopy.

All my life, I'd prayed for her, every birthday, every full moon. I'd thanked her for a blessing I'd never understood.

I'd begged her for a wolf that never came. I'd defended her when everyone avoided me because of the damned prophecy.

And for what?

"So this was your plan?"

My voice shook.

"You watched me." I laughed again, louder this time.

"You watched every single failure." The clearing echoed with my words.

"I drank poison because I thought it might wake my wolf."

"I let lightning strike me."

"I burned Moonstones."

"To think you couldn't even give me the very one thing I desired." My hands curled into fists.

"And you watched." The wind died, and even the leaves became still.

"They laughed at me." My voice cracked.

"They pitied my parents."

"They called my father a fool."

"They treated my mother like she had given birth to a curse."

Hot tears spilled freely down my cheeks.

"I could have survived them hating me."

I pressed a trembling hand against my chest.

"But you let them break the two people who never stopped believing in me."

Silence.

"I spent twenty-two years trying..... And you won't let me be the good daughter to my parents."

The words came out as little more than a whisper.

"I hate you." The forest seemed to hold its breath.

"I hate you!" The scream ripped itself from somewhere deep inside me, and birds exploded from the trees.

The ground trembled beneath my knees.

"If this was your blessing..." I looked straight at the moon.

"...then I'd rather be cursed!"

The word echoed in the night. A deafening c***k split the sky. The silver moon bled crimson.

A Blood Moon, far beyond the forest, far beyond the mountains, I heard the sea roar.

I couldn't see it, but somehow, I felt it, the pull of the tides, the crash of impossible waves.

Pain exploded through my body, and I screamed. Every bone felt as though it was breaking and being remade at the same time. Silver light burst from beneath my skin.

It raced across my arms in glowing lines, twisting into patterns that looked like moonlight dancing across water.

"What... is happening?" I groaned.

The earth beneath me pulsed.

Water rose from the stream, floating in the air. It circled me in shimmering ribbons, the air tasted like rain.

Like a storm rolling in from an ocean that shouldn't have been anywhere near Ashmoor.

My heartbeat became the rhythm of the waves. My breath became the wind. I felt something awake inside me. Finally my wolf. I gasped as power flooded every part of me.

The voices I'd spent my whole life waiting to hear finally came.

But it came with something else. I felt a torrent of emotions I couldn't explain overwhelm me, it brushed against my mind before fading like distant echoes.

I slowly opened my eyes, the world had changed.

Every leaf shimmered with life, every heartbeat in the forest echoed through the ground beneath my feet. The stream reflected a face I barely recognized. My amber eyes were gone, in their place shone liquid silver, ringed with deep ocean blue.

Faint markings glowed across my arms like living moonlight, I was nothing like a wolf.

"What am I?" I asked myself, terrified.

A twig snapped behind me, I spun around, and a man stood at the edge of the clearing, tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair stirred by the wind.

The silver crest of Valenor gleamed against his black suit.

"The High Alpha."

His blue eyes were fixed on me with an intensity that stole the air from my lungs.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

He looked as stunned as I felt, then I heard it.

Not with my ears, but with my heart, a deep, possessive growl echoed through the silence.

His wolf muttered one word that sent me crashing to my feet.

"Mate."

Of course, a bitter laugh escaped my lips, how fitting. Another alpha, another chance to be rejected.

I lowered my gaze before he could see the tears threatening to return.

"Go ahead."

His brows drew together.

"Go ahead, what?" I smiled without humor.

"Reject me."

The confusion on his face was almost genuine, he took one slow step toward me.

"Why," he asked quietly, "would I reject my mate?"

My head snapped up, and the certainty in his eyes shook something inside me far more than the transformation ever had.

Nobody had ever said those words to me before. Nobody had ever looked at me like that before.

And as the Blood Moon burned above us, I realized something terrifying.

The man standing before me wasn't afraid of the monster everyone believed I would become.

He wanted me.