Chapter 10 - Stone and blood
1198 Words
Seraphine’s POV
The pack house smelled the same.. exactly how it had been before I was thrown out like a useless toy.
Cold stone.. Iron and old power.
It wrapped around me the moment I crossed the threshold, sliding beneath my skin like a memory that had refused to stay buried.
My steps slowed despite my will, my body recalling things my mind had spent years locking away.
Pain.
Insults.
Submission.
Silence.
I slowly lifted my chin. ‘Not today.’
The hall opened before us.. vast and circular, carved directly from the mountain’s heart.
Elders stood along the raised platform, robed and still, their eyes sharp with expectation and unnecessary pride and then Grimfang’s council.
The same men and women who had once watched me kneel and beg without intervening.
Fael walked ahead of us, reclaiming his place with an ease that made my stomach twist in disgust.
“You requested this audience,” I said coolly, breaking the hush. “Speak.”
Murmurs rippled through the hall as they saw me for who I now was.. they were probably expecting a rag doll to show up begging and crying just like I had been six years ago.
Fael turned, surprise flickering across his face before smoothing into something carefully neutral and stupidly calm.
“You haven’t changed even after all these years,” he said.
I smiled beneath my hood as I lowered it and flashed him a cold and stern face devoid of any stupid emotion he was planning to see.
“You’re wrong,” I replied. “I survived.”
That earned a sharper reaction from the crowd.
Darius, although his face still hidden beneath his hood stepped closer, his presence a silent wall at my back and I didn’t need to look at him to feel the reassurance in it.. the quiet promise that I would not stand alone in this den of ghosts and sly wolves.
Fael gestured toward the Elders. “They will explain.”
An Elder stepped forward, staff striking the ground once then twice.
“The Blood Moon has spoken,” she intoned. “The child carries divided power. Two Alpha lines. Two claims. If left unanchored, the fracture will worsen.”
I listened without bowing my head like the others. “And if anchored?” I asked.
“The boy must stand under the sacred stone,” another Elder said. “His lineage verified so his fate will be aligned.”
My heart thudded painfully, but my voice remained steady.
“You speak of my son as if he were a weapon of mass destruction, an instrument needed to be weighed,” I said. “Or a problem to be corrected.”
Fael bristled as he turned to face me. “This is bigger than you this is about...”
I turned to him slowly. “No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
The room stilled, tension made its presence known for I had indirectly told their dearly beloved Alpha to shut his damn hole he called a mouth.
But I had planned on saying it directly..
Darius’s hand brushed my elbow, subtle and grounding.
“The prophecy you just said is different from what I had been told by the messenger you sent to my pack yesterday to beg on his knees..,” I continued making sure I slurred that last part so he could hear and understand me.
“The prophecy you just said did not say my son would die. It said his bloodline would fracture. You assume the fracture is him.”
I met the Elders’ gazes one by one. “But.. What if it is Grimfang?”
Whispers immediately broke out.
Fael stepped towards me. “You’re twisting sacred words Serap...”
“I’m interpreting them,” I shot back cutting him off again. “The same way you always do.. when it benefits you.”
Anger flashed in his eyes but he swallowed it quickly.
“You think Clawfrost’s Alpha can protect him from fate? You think my banished Uncle can protect my son.. our son from fate?” he demanded.
Darius finally removed his hood and loud whispers broke out again as they now knew who stood in their midst and he spoke then, his voice calm and absolute.
“I already have.. I protected him and his mother from the fate you threw at them six years ago, I can do it again if I have to.”
The impact was immediate.
Several Elders straightened.
Fael turned sharply to face him, his mouth now sharper than before maybe because he felt we were on his soil. “This is Grimfang business.”
“It stopped being Grimfang’s business,” Darius replied, “the night you endangered her and her unborn child.”
I felt the weight of his words settle into my bones.
Strength.
“It stopped being Grimfangs bloody business the moment the child became mine”
Fael’s face turned red instantly “He is my so..”
“Do not dare complete that word.. Don’t you bloody dare call my child your son or I swear to the goddess herself.. the calamity about to befall you will come sooner than expected” I coldly and angrily spoke silencing everyone.
The Elder with the staff looked between us.
“The child must be present,” she said. “The prophecy binds him.”
“No,” I said. “The prophecy does not bind him. You do.”
Silence fell again.
I stepped forward, ignoring the way my pulse raced.
“My son will not be tested like some sort of livestock. He will not be separated from his mother. And he will not kneel to any pathetic half baked redundant person seeking a new form of validation to sit on his wooden throne.”
Fael laughed sharply. “You don’t have the authority to..”
“I do. You are the one who has no authority over my son.. you lost that right when you tried to kill us,” I said.
“Because I am his mother.”
Because I survived you.
Because I am still standing.
Darius’s voice came again, lower now. “You heard my Luna.. And if Grimfang insists otherwise,” he said, “Clawfrost will consider it an act of aggression and war.”
Gasps echoed.
Fael stared at him. “You’d go to war over this?”
Darius didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I’d go to war over anything that acts as a threat towards my Luna and our child.”
Something in Fael’s expression faltered.
Fear..
The Elders withdrew briefly, murmuring among themselves.
When they returned, the staff struck stone once more.
“The rite will be postponed,” the Elder said. “Until the Blood Moon peaks.”
Relief and dread collided inside me.
Fael’s jaw tightened. “This isn’t over,” he warned.
I met his gaze evenly. “No,” I agreed. “It isn’t.”
As we turned to leave, my legs finally trembled.. but Darius was there, steadying me without a word.
I walked out of the pack house with my head high.
Shaken.
But not broken.
- Writer
