THE REJECTED LUNA

Captured

She felt the dart before she heard it.

A sharp sting at the side of her neck, a flash of heat, and then the world tipped sideways like a ship in a storm. Elara staggered. Lyra roared a warning, and she tried to shift, but her bones wouldn't answer. The forest tilted around her, the trees smearing into long, dark streaks.

Her limbs went heavy as lead.

Silver, Lyra gasped. Wolfsbane. They've drugged us.

Figures stepped out of the trees, five, six, hooded and silent. Elara tried to run. Her knees folded. She hit the ground hard, the dust rising around her, and she clawed at the dirt, trying to drag herself forward, trying to scream. No sound came out. The last thing she saw before the dark was the cloaked figure from the road, standing over her, utterly motionless.

She woke to the smell of damp stone.

Her head throbbed badly. Her wrists burned as if they'd been held above a fire. She tried to move and found them bound above her head with chains that glowed faintly, silver, threaded with something that made her skin crawl. Wolfsbane-laced links, sapping her strength with every breath.

She tried to call Lyra. The wolf answered, faint and slurred, as if from the bottom of a deep well. Elara... can't... too heavy...

Stay with me, Elara begged. Please.

She was in a cell. Black walls, a single flickering torch, a drain in the floor. The air was cold and thick with a smell she knew too well; Blackpine's cellars. She had scrubbed these floors as a girl, on her hands and knees, carrying buckets of icy water down the narrow stairs while the other omegas whispered of ghosts. She had never once imagined that she would hang here in chains.

Fear crawled up her throat, cold and slick. She forced herself to breathe in slowly, the way Rowan had taught her. Think, she told herself. Don't panic. Think. But every thought splintered when she tried to hold it, scattered by the drug and the cold.

Her whole body ached. Her mouth was dry and cracked, her tongue thick with the taste of the drug. She tried to take stock. Her feet were bare. Her knife was gone. The little pack she had carried from Silvermoon was nowhere to be seen. And through the bond, the thin, aching thread that still stretched across the mountains to a man she was trying hard to hate, she felt nothing. Only silence, as if someone had cut the line.

Kael, she thought, before she could stop herself.

No answer.

Seraphine's been coming down here at night, Lyra said slowly. All those nights.

Elara's blood ran cold. She had never known why, but somehow she wasn't surprised.

Footsteps echoed on the stairs.

They were light and unhurried, the footsteps of someone who had all the time in the world. A key scraped in the lock. The door opened, and Seraphine stepped in, carrying a lantern, her dress the color of old blood swaying with each step. Behind her, two hooded figures took positions on either side of the door, still and silent as statues.

Elara studied them out of the corner of her eye. Neither moved. Neither breathed, as far as she could tell. And the hands hanging at their sides were gray, almost translucent, threaded with faint black lines.

"Elara." Her smile was gentle. "You look terrible."

"Where's Dante?"

"Sleeping." Seraphine set the lantern on a hook. Its light threw long shadows across the wall. "I've been giving him herbs in his tea. A little something to quiet his thoughts. He's become so sentimental lately."

Elara's stomach turned. "What are you?"

"Oh, darling." Seraphine laughed, light and delighted. "I'm what your pack has needed for years. Someone clever enough to take what she wants."

She lifted her hand. Black smoke curled from her fingertips, thin and oily, writhing in the air. Elara's skin prickled. It was the same darkness she'd seen on the rot-cursed wolves.

"Witch," Elara breathed.

"Such a vulgar word." Seraphine's eyes glittered. "I prefer weaver." She chuckled darkly, stepping closer to Elara.

"You see... a pack's strength comes from its bonds. From the Luna's bond to the Alpha, and the Alpha's to his wolves, and I discovered, a long time ago, that if you cut a Luna's thread and redirect it..." She smiled. "You can feed on a pack's life like a leech on a vein."

Elara's mind raced. The sick warriors, the empty hunting grounds, Dante's silent wolf. It all fit together with a horrible, clicking certainty. "Dante's strength. It was never his. It was mine. Even before he rejected me. Even before I shifted."

"Clever girl!" Seraphine chuckled softly. "You've been the engine of Blackpine since birth. Dante never knew. He thought his power was his own." She tilted her head, crossed both arms, then chuckled darkly again. "I had to get you out of the way before you realized what you were. Before you awoke. Imagine my frustration when Kael found you first."

"You rejected me through him."

"I manipulated him. A little whisper here, a poisoned tea there." She sighed. "He's a weak man. Easily led."

A strange, bitter ache rose in Elara's chest. She had spent weeks hating Dante, and he had been a puppet all along, dancing on strings he never knew were there. It didn't excuse him. But for a moment she almost pitied him.

Elara tugged at the chains. They burned. Pain shot up her arms, and she bit down on her lip until she tasted blood. "Why am I here?"

Seraphine stepped close. Up close, her face was cruel and beautiful and very, very tired. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and faint dark lines showed beneath it, like cracks in porcelain. Elara had never noticed them before.

She wondered how long Seraphine had spent hiding them.

"Because I'm dying," she said softly. "The rot has been eating me for years. Everything I take from the pack only slows it. But the Silver Moon blood..." Her fingers closed around Elara's chin. They were cold as winter iron. "The Silver Moon blood can cure anything. It can rebuild a person."

Elara went rigid. Every instinct screamed at her to pull away, but the chains held her fast, and the cold hand tightened. Seraphine's eyes searched her face, hungry and fierce and almost sad.

"I didn't take you for revenge," Seraphine whispered. "I need your blood."