Chapter 14: Luna’s Rising
427 Words
Stormfang had changed.
So had she.
Aria stood on the Alpha’s platform in the council chamber her bare shoulder proudly showing Kael’s fresh bite mark, and her posture tall.
Not hidden.
Not shaking.
Commanding.
Kael sat beside her, one arm draped casually over the back of her seat, his body radiating pride and danger in equal measure.
“This is your Luna,” he said to the room of elders, warriors, and ranked wolves. “She fought for this pack. Bled for it. She is not just my mate she is your protector now.”
The room was quiet.
Then, one by one, the council stood.
And bowed.
Later that day, Aria began her Luna training with Jace’s mate, Lyla a sharp, observant strategist who’d helped Kael run the pack behind the scenes for years.
They met in the war room, scrolls, maps, and lineage charts spread out before them.
“You’ll need to understand more than just battle and tradition,” Lyla said, tapping a document. “You’ll need to know who owes you favors. Who fears you. Who envies you. Especially now.”
“Because I’m Kael’s mate?” Aria asked.
“No,” Lyla said seriously. “Because you’ve become what they said you’d never be.”
Aria swallowed.
“Powerful.”
That night, as Aria walked the pack grounds with Kael’s jacket over her shoulders, she felt it again:
That strange chill.
Like eyes watching her from the trees.
She turned.
No one.
But her wolf, Nyra, growled low in her chest.
“Something’s coming.”
She walked faster.
Back in Kael’s room, she told him what she felt.
He didn’t question it.
He stood, crossed the room, and picked up a box from his closet.
Inside?
An old scroll. Leather-bound. Gold-stamped.
“What’s that?” she asked, heart already racing.
Kael sat beside her. “A warning.”
He opened it slowly.
At the top: The Legacy of the First Luna
“A prophecy,” he explained. “Passed down through the Alpha line. It speaks of a Luna born from ruin… with the power to destroy or save every pack.”
Aria stared.
“Destroy or save?”
Kael nodded. “She will be rejected… hunted… and then crowned by blood.”
Her hand trembled.
“Kael…”
His eyes met hers.
“I think it’s about you.”
Far beyond Stormfang’s borders, a dark figure sat on a throne of bones.
A Seer knelt before him.
“She has been marked.”
The figure smiled. “Then it begins.”
- Writer
