REJECTED BY ONE ALPHA, CLAIMED BY HIS DEADLIEST RIVAL

WHAT MIRA MEANT

Ariana's whole body went still.

She strained to hear more, barely breathing, the fire crackling too loud in the sudden silence of the room.

"She hasn't chosen anything yet," Lucien's voice came, low, careful. "And she won't, if you keep talking like her choice is already decided for her."

"I'm not talking about her choice. I'm talking about what happens to this pack if it goes the wrong way." Mira's voice sharpened. "You know what Kael winning means for us. For everything we've spent years protecting."

"I know exactly what it means."

"Then act like it."

Ariana's stomach twisted. Everything we've built. Not the pack. Something else. Something Mira and Lucien apparently shared, something bigger than one rescued omega and a rival Alpha's wounded pride.

She slid off the bed as quietly as she could, moving toward the door, straining to catch the rest.

"This isn't the time," Lucien said. "She's asleep. Barely, after everything tonight."

"It's exactly the time. Because the longer you wait to tell her the truth, the more it looks like you're hiding something from her too. And after tonight, after everything with the council and the traitor and the bodies stacking up, she doesn't need another reason to stop trusting you."

Ariana's hand froze on the door handle.

"Tell her what," Lucien said, quieter now.

"You know what."

A long pause stretched between them.

"Not yet," Lucien finally said. "Not until she's had one full day without someone trying to kill her."

"That's a luxury we might not have."

Ariana pushed the door open before she could think better of it.

Both of them turned instantly, guilt flashing across Mira's face before she smoothed it into something neutral. Lucien's expression shifted more slowly, something closer to resignation settling over his features.

"You were listening," he said. It wasn't a question.

"I was awake," Ariana said. "And you were talking outside my door about hiding something from me. Forgive me for not pretending I didn't hear that."

Mira's jaw tightened. "This isn't the moment."

"You just said the opposite thirty seconds ago." Ariana crossed her arms. "What aren't you telling me."

Lucien exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand across his face. "Sit down."

"I've been asked to sit down more times tonight than in my entire life. I'd rather stand."

"Fine." He met her eyes directly. "Blackthorn Pack has been searching for the Moonblood line for almost a decade."

Ariana blinked. "What."

"It's not a coincidence that I recognized what you were the moment I caught your scent in those woods." His voice stayed level, but something behind it wavered. "My grandmother was obsessed with an old prophecy about the bloodline returning. She spent the last years of her life gathering everything she could find about it before she died. I inherited that research when I became Alpha."

"So you knew," Ariana said slowly, the pieces sliding together with sickening clarity. "You knew what I might be before you ever offered to bring me here."

"I suspected."

"That's not the same as telling me the truth."

"I know."

"You let me believe you rescued me because you saw something worth saving. Not because I might be some prophecy piece you'd been hunting for years."

"Both things are true," Lucien said, voice rising slightly for the first time. "I did see something worth saving. That part was never a lie."

"But the timing wasn't a coincidence either."

He didn't answer, which was answer enough.

Ariana's chest ached, betrayal and confusion tangling together with the exhaustion still weighing down every limb. "What does the prophecy actually say. All of it. No more half truths."

Mira and Lucien exchanged a glance.

"It says," Lucien began carefully, "that when the Moonblood line returns, it will either unite every pack under one banner, or destroy them all trying."

The fire crackled in the silence that followed.

"So I'm not just a target," Ariana said quietly. "I'm a weapon. Or a bomb. Depending on how this goes."

"You're a person," Lucien said immediately. "Everything else is just what other people are trying to make you into."

"That's easy for you to say when your entire pack has been planning around my existence for years before I even knew your name."

"Ariana—"

"I need air," she said, already moving past him toward the door.

"It's not safe out there tonight."

"Nothing has been safe since the moment Kael opened his mouth in front of that entire pack." Her voice cracked despite her best efforts to keep it steady. "At least out there, I know exactly what's hunting me. In here, apparently, I don't even know who I can trust."

She pulled the door open before either of them could stop her, stepping into the corridor just as a distant sound reached her ears, faint but unmistakable.

Another horn.

Different from before. Slower. Deeper.

Lucien's face drained of color the instant he heard it.

"That's not a perimeter alarm," he said.

"Then what is it," Ariana asked.

His eyes met hers, something close to dread settling behind them.

"That's a war horn," he said. "Silverfang is marching."