Rejected For His Brother's Widow

Chapter 3 – Three Days to Bleed

I woke up to the feeling of someone watching me.

Not Lira. She was curled warm and awake in my chest for the first time in six years, purring like a cat.

It was him.

Riven was asleep sitting up against the sanctuary door, his huge sword across his knees, his head tipped back. In sleep his face lost the cruelty. He looked younger. Tired.

He'd guarded me all night.

Lira stretched inside me. *He smells like home. Like snow and pine.*

I touched my throat. The silver mark was cool now, but it pulsed once when I thought about him.

He woke instantly when I moved. Amber eyes locked on mine.

"Did you sleep?" he asked, voice rough.

"No," I lied. "Did you?"

He stood and offered his hand. I didn't take it. Not yet.

"Come. If you want him to bleed, we start now."

He led me down stone steps under the tower to a round pool of black water. Moonwell, he called it. Old Lunas trained here.

"Your power isn't claws," he said, standing behind me. His hands hovered over my shoulders, not touching. "Blessed Lunas don't fight. They command. They feel a bond and they... pull."

He placed two fingers lightly on my mark.

Heat shot through me. The water rippled.

"Think of him," Riven whispered. "Think of what he did."

I thought of Kael putting Selene on my throne. Of two years of teas and pitying looks. Rage rose so fast I choked on it.

The mark flared white.

Across the castle, a scream echoed down the stone.

Riven's mouth curved. "Again."

Guards burst into the moonwell. "My King! Alpha Kael just collapsed in the dining hall! He's clutching his chest, says it burns!"

Lira snarled with satisfaction. *Good.*

My hands shook. I had done that. Me. The barren girl who couldn't even growl.

Riven turned me to face him. "You feel that guilt? Keep it. It means you're not a monster. But he will feel every tear you cried for two years before the three days are up."

Before I could answer, the door opened again. Kael stood there, pale, sweat on his forehead. He'd felt it.

He held out his hand. In his palm was my mother's silver locket. The one I'd sold last winter to buy bread when Kael cut my allowance.

"I bought it back," he said softly. "Elara, please. Five minutes."

Riven growled but I nodded. I needed to hear it.

Kael knelt and took my cold hands in his. His familiar pine scent made my stomach turn.

"Selene threatened you," he whispered, tears in his eyes. "She said if I didn't name her pup and give her the throne, her father would have you killed on a hunt. I was protecting you. I never touched her, I swear on our bond —"

Lira lunged inside me. *Liar.*

My mark burned where Kael's skin touched mine. The world tilted.

And then I saw it. Not a memory of mine. His.

Kael and Selene in my bed. The bed I'd picked out. His hands on her bare stomach. His voice, clear as day: "Give me a son, Selene. Give me an heir and I'll put you on her throne tomorrow. She's empty anyway."

I ripped my hands away, gasping.

Kael stared, horrified. "What... what did you see?"

"You," I spat, my voice shaking. "You begged her for a pup because I was 'empty.' You didn't protect me. You replaced me."

He reached again. "Elara —"

Riven stepped between us. One look from him and Kael scrambled back.

"Three days," Riven said quietly. "Then I take her so far south you'll never smell her again."

After Kael left, my knees gave out. I didn't cry. I couldn't. The grief was too old. It had turned to ash.

Riven knelt and didn't touch me. He just stayed there.

"My first mate died of the white cough," he said suddenly, staring at the water. "My whole pack's pups are dying of it now. The elders said only Blessed blood can heal the pack lands. That's why I crossed the border. Not for war. For you."

He looked at me, and for the first time the Alpha King looked scared. "I didn't mark you to steal you, Elara. I marked you because if I didn't, you'd be dead by morning. And I have waited three years to hear you breathe again."

Lira pressed toward him, whining. My own chest ached. He wasn't using me. He was begging me, in his own way.

The sanctuary doors slammed open.

Five elders in gray robes marched in, Selene smirking behind them.

"Seize the witch," the eldest barked. "That mark is Northern sorcery. She collapsed Alpha Kael with dark magic."

Riven stood slowly. Power rolled off him in waves that made the torches flicker.

"Touch her and you challenge the Moon bloodline."

The elder laughed. "You are a King, not a god."

Riven pulled the collar of his tunic down. On his chest, over his heart, was the same silver crescent and star. Bigger. Older. Glowing faintly.

The elders fell to their knees.

"My great-grandmother was the last Blessed Luna," Riven said, his voice carrying. "Her blood runs in me. That's why I could wake her. That's why she lives."

Selene's face drained of color.

The eldest elder recovered first. "Then the Goddess has chosen. The Right of Reclaim is void. A Blessed cannot be claimed by a lesser Alpha."

Kael, who had followed them in, shouted, "No!"

The elder raised his hand. "She will prove it. Tomorrow at moonrise, she walks the Path of Howling Silver. If she is true Blessed, the silver will sing for her. If she is false..."

He didn't finish. Everyone knew. No unmarked wolf survived the Path. The silver burned their blood.

Riven went rigid. "She just woke yesterday. She'll die."

I felt Lira rise up my spine, furious and fearless. For two years I'd let them decide if I lived or died. In the pantry. On the throne. In my own bed.

Not again.

I stepped around Riven, my hand on my glowing throat, and looked the elder dead in the eye.

"I'll walk it."

The hall went silent. Kael whispered my name like a prayer. Selene looked like she'd swallowed glass.

Riven grabbed my wrist, his eyes wild. "Elara, no."

I turned to him, to the only person who had ever knelt to guard my door, and felt my wolf smile.

"If I'm going to make him bleed," I whispered, "I need them all to see what I really am."