The Luna Queen Is Reborn

Authorn

The Crestfallen packhouse smelled of soap, frantic cover-ups, and the suffocating, insecure ego of an Alpha trying too hard to prove his dominance.

I stayed near the grand double doors, my hands shoved casually into the pockets of my jacket, letting the autumn wind roll past my shoulders. Mistvale's heir had told me to stay back, playing her political cards with the Council Elders inside, but I wasn't paying attention to the chatter. I didn't care about local pack treaties or the succession lines of a territory that felt entirely too loud and transparent.

These people didn't care. They were only here because the Crestfallen pack was under the Lycan King. The Crestfallen Alpha had never been popular, but his daughter was the role model parents held up for their own children. And now, something had happened to the very heir they wanted their kids to look up to.

Then, the air in the foyer shifted.

It didn't happen when the Councilmen spoke, or when Alpha Crestfallen let out his practiced, heavy sighs. It happened the exact moment a small, slight figure began her descent down the grand staircase. She was draped in heavy black silk, a thick lace veil completely obscuring her face.

Summer was meant to take me to school today, introduce me to the environment, and make sure I got the hang of the activities there. Instead, we had to take a detour. The official story she had relayed to me on the drive over was that the Crestfallen heir had been mangled by a rogue hunter's trap—her wolf destroyed, her body fragile. Although she hadn't said anything more, I knew there was more to the piece. The little I had understood about Summer these past few days was that she never bothered herself over anybody's affairs, yet she was risking everything here.

But as the Crestfallen heir took her first step into the room, a violent, invisible shockwave slammed directly into my chest.

My lungs locked. My heart didn't just skip a beat; it hammered against my ribs with a sudden, localized ferocity that had nothing to do with the environment. A phantom scent cut through the sterile pine polish of the house—a sharp, breathtaking mix of crushed pine needles, dark ozone, and a fierce, biting frost that felt intimately familiar, yet agonizingly distant.

Beneath that layer of cold, there was something else. A chemical bitterness. Medication.

What did they do to her?

Summer watched the scene for a moment before storming inside, signaling for me to stay by the door. Even the warriors Alpha Crestfallen had placed at the entrance couldn't stop her from getting what she wanted.

I watched from the threshold as the heir stood beside Summer. Her hands were trembling beneath the silk sleeves, a physical manifestation of the terror she was hiding from the room. Yet, when she spoke—her voice a raw, scraping rasp that should have sounded weak—there was a hard, obsidian edge to it that resonated straight through my bones.

“I am attending school. Today.”

The Alpha’s aura flared in raw fury, a blood-red pressure meant to crush her into compliance. I felt the edge of it clip the borders of my own patience, and it took every ounce of my royal restraint not to step into the foyer and rip the throat out of the man standing by the fireplace. But I forced my focus back to the girl. Logan's command was sliding right off her. She didn't have a wolf—the bond in the room confirmed the hollow space where a beast should live—but her spirit was holding the line alone.

Twenty minutes later, the heavy oak doors opened, and she stepped into the morning light.

The black silk dress was gone, replaced by a pair of boyfriend jeans and a gray hoodie. She looked small. Intentional. Like someone desperately trying to blend into the brickwork of a mundane high school so nobody would look closely enough to see where she was bleeding. But she couldn't blend in, even if she wanted to. Just by barely standing there, she had taken over the space.

"You shouldn't have done that, Summer," I heard her whisper as they reached the bottom of the steps. Her voice was still a shattered piece of glass. "You don't know what he's capable of."

"Exactly what is he capable of?" Summer questioned coldly, unlocking the car doors.

I didn't follow after them. I still needed to see Elder Vance—the annoying man who derived joy from making other people's lives hard. I needed to let him know officially that I would be staying over at the Mistvale packhouse. I brushed my palm down my face, already tired out before the conversation had even started. I wanted to follow them. I wanted to hold her, to console her, to shield the Crestfallen heir from the storm she was experiencing.

My silver-blue eyes locked onto the dark shadow of her hoodie, imagining what her eyes would look like—probably frost blue, a reflection of mine.

Where did that come from?

What was wrong with me? I barely knew this girl with the raven hair.

As she took the final step onto the gravel, her knees buckled. Her body was running entirely on the chemicals she had taken; she was starving. Summer caught her arm, grunting under the weight, entirely oblivious to the fact that my own hands had instinctively jerked out of my pockets to catch her myself.

The pull was a physical cord tying my center to hers. It was muted, dragging through a thick, traumatic fog, but it was there. Unmistakable. Ancient.

Summer guided her into the passenger seat, missing the way the girl's head tilted slightly toward my silhouette. Her gaze passed over me as if she had just seen a total stranger.

Did she feel what I was feeling?

"Your warrior?" the girl asked, her voice muffled by the glass as Summer climbed into the driver’s seat. She was looking back at me through the side mirror.

"He is there to complete the meeting," Summer replied, shifting the car into reverse and tearing out of the gates.

I stood on the gravel for a long moment, watching the dark car disappear down the highway toward the neutral borders. The local Crestfallen sentries were watching me now, their shoulders tense, their instincts finally registering that the temperature around the driveway had dropped below freezing.

I didn't look back at the packhouse. I pulled my jacket tighter around my neck, my mind already feeling hollowed out by the sudden lack of her presence. She thought she was a ghost hiding in a gray hoodie. She didn't realize she had just unraveled the only peace I had ever known.

"Prince Authorn," I heard an annoying voice call from behind me.

It was Elder Vance. The man knew I was trying to avoid attention, but that didn't stop him from weaponizing my royal title.

Again, I brushed a palm down my face before letting out a low grunt in reply. Even without turning around, I could easily picture the evil, mocking smirk he wore.