Chapter Two - Cut Me Dead
893 Words
POV MARA
No one moves.
The ritual blade burns against my skin, but the pain is clean.
Honest.
Unlike the bond.
Lucian descends from the dais. “Give the blade to the priest.”
The command enters me before the words finish.
For nine years, that tone has made my muscles obey while my mind hurried to justify it. My fingers loosen around the hilt.
The black chain tightens around the golden thread.
There it is.
Not respect. Not devotion.
Compulsion.
I close my hand again.
Lucian stops.
“Mara,” he says quietly. Above the council balcony, the red lights of the ceremony cameras continue recording. “You do not understand what you are doing.”
“Neither did you.”
I move the blade from my heart to the Claim Mark on my left shoulder.
Then I cut.
Silver opens my skin.
Pain explodes through the bond.
I drop to one knee as nine years tear through me at once: Lucian kissing me beneath the first winter snow, sleeping with his head in my lap, promising the Moon had made us for each other.
The memories do not disappear.
They turn sharp.
The golden thread stretches from my shoulder to Lucian’s chest, fraying where the blade touched it. Its broken ends reach for each other, desperate to reconnect.
The black chain digs deeper.
The Tribunal priest grabs my wrist. “Stop. The rejection mechanism has activated.”
“Then disable it,” Lucian orders.
The priest’s hesitation tells me everything.
There is no way to disable it.
The ritual was never meant to separate us.
It was meant to kill me.
Two guards advance.
I know them both. One has a daughter I delivered during a spring storm. The other still carries my healing mark over his heart.
Neither meets my eyes as he reaches for me.
That hurts less than it should.
I twist the blade deeper.
The golden thread breaks with a sound like ice splitting across a frozen lake.
Lucian roars.
He falls to both knees.
The guards freeze.
Black light pours from the severed bond and coils around my arms. For one terrible second, I feel everything the chain carried from me: healing, sleep, warmth, years of strength delivered into Lucian one heartbeat at a time.
Then the stolen power reverses.
It tears out of him.
Lucian’s back arches. Silver flashes across his eyes as he tries to shift.
Nothing happens.
No claws. No fangs. No answering wolf.
Only a man on his knees, staring at his empty hands.
The black chain lashes between us, searching for somewhere to fasten.
I bring the blade down again.
The final link snaps.
Silence fills my body.
The bond is gone.
So is my heartbeat.
I fall.
My cheek strikes the cold stone floor, and the blade spins beyond my reach. Voices blur around me. Boots pound against the stone.
Lucian says my name.
Not Luna.
Mara.
The priest presses two fingers to my throat.
“No pulse.”
The hall goes still.
Ilyra’s hand moves over her stomach. “Is she dead?”
Her voice carries fear, but not grief.
I would like to hate her for that.
Instead, I think of how many women have been taught that safety exists only after another woman is removed.
The darkness beneath me grows warm.
At first, I mistake it for death.
Then a pulse moves through the floor.
Once.
The cameras above the balcony flicker.
Twice.
The blackened windows tremble in their frames.
The third pulse strikes my chest.
My heart starts.
I drag in a breath so violent it feels like drowning in air.
The priest recoils. “Impossible.”
I roll onto my back, coughing. The painted moon above the hall blurs into a silver circle.
Lucian remains near the throne. Ilyra grips his shoulder, trying to help him rise. Without my power flowing into him, the brightness in his eyes has faded to ordinary blue.
He looks shocked.
Not because I died.
Because I returned.
“What did you do to me?” he asks.
My dress clings to the blood over my shoulder. I press my palm against the wound and force myself upright.
“I stopped feeding you.”
A murmur spreads through Greymark.
Lucian hears it. Humiliation hardens his face.
“Kneel,” he commands.
Several wolves lower their heads instinctively.
I feel the word reach for the place the bond used to occupy.
It finds nothing.
No pressure inside my skull. No invisible hand around my spine. No need to soothe his anger before acknowledging my own pain.
I stand.
My legs shake, but the choice is mine.
“You are no longer Luna of Greymark,” Lucian says.
“Then you are no longer my Alpha.”
The silence afterward is almost beautiful.
The priest crawls toward the fallen blade. Seven symbols have appeared along its silver surface. The central one glows gold. Six others are dark.
When he reaches for it, black veins spread across his fingertips.
He hides his hand inside his sleeve.
I notice.
His eyes find mine, and for the first time tonight, the Tribunal priest looks afraid.
Not of what I have done.
Of what has answered.
Another heartbeat touches mine.
Male. Powerful. Distant.
Somewhere far beyond Greymark, buried beneath stone, a second heart begins to beat.
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