2. Aeron
1380 Words
I used to hold winter in the palm of my hand.
Cold was strength, clarity, dominion.
But now it gnaws at me like a hunger I can’t feed.
The moment Lyra Darkbane’s scent hit the hall, the cold inside me changed—sharpened, twisted, ignited. I felt it like a blade under the skin, pressure building at the base of my spine where my wolf lurked, waiting, watching, starving for something he’d been denied for a decade.
Her.
Oh Gods, her.
I sensed her before I saw her—dark spice, frost-sweetened power, the bite of steel under soft winter blossoms. Her scent wrapped around my lungs before I even turned, and for one suspended heartbeat, the curse fell quiet. The pain stopped. The splitting in my bones eased. The trembling in my muscles calmed.
Then she stepped into the hall.
And the pain came back tenfold.
I had told myself for ten years that I had moved past her. That rejecting her under the blood moon was the right thing. The only thing. The prophecy demanded it. Our packs demanded it. Our families demanded it.
But the bond?
The bond demanded her.
And bonds don’t forget.
When her eyes met mine—gods, those eyes—I felt something deep inside me fracture. Ten years of restraint snapped like twigs under winter ice. My wolf lunged upward so violently I nearly shifted in front of every Alpha in the north.
I saw her freeze.
I smelled her panic and her longing.
I felt her wolf claw back toward me like she’d been waiting, too.
And it ruined me.
Draven stepped into my path before I could reach her. His hand shot out, a silent order to pull back, but my wolf’s fury nearly knocked him flat. I shoved him aside, barely aware of his protest as the pack hall erupted around us. Elders grip their staffs. Warriors tense. My Beta curses under his breath.
But none of it matters.
None of them matter.
Only she does.
My voice cracked when her name slipped out—“Lyra”—because my throat was already raw from holding back months of pain, and because saying her name tasted like salvation.
Her father stiffened at her side.
The entire hall recoiled.
But Lyra… she stared at me like I was something she didn’t recognize anymore. Something monstrous.
Maybe I am.
The curse has been eating me alive for years—slowly, quietly, swallowing pieces of me until only the wolf remains. Some mornings I wake with blood under my nails, the walls of my room clawed and splintered. Some nights I lose hours at a time, slipping into icy blackness where the wolf takes over and I watch myself from behind a wall of frost.
But when Lyra’s gaze locked with mine, that wall cracked clean through.
For the first time in months, I felt alive.
And then the pain hit.
A tearing, bone-deep agony ripped through my legs, forcing me to grab the oath table to stay upright. Claw marks erupted across my forearms as my shifting bones broke through my own skin. My wolf wasn’t just rising—he was detonating.
I heard someone shout my name.
A guard reached for me.
Another retreated in terror.
But my eyes never left Lyra.
“My Alpha—stand down!” Draven barked as he grabbed my arm, but his voice sounded distant, muffled behind the roar of my own pulse.
And when Lyra said “Don’t”—quiet, pained, almost pleading—my wolf lunged so hard I felt my vision blur white.
Her voice still has power over me.
Even after everything.
Even after the rejection that was supposed to sever us.
I tried to speak. Tried to tell her the truth. Tried to tell her what I’ve been holding alone in the dark for ten long years—that I never wanted to reject her. That I wanted her so badly the prophecy terrified me. That the moment our lips touched beneath that forbidden winter moon, I felt like I belonged to someone for the first time in my life.
But the words twisted into a growl as my wolf pushed harder, crushing my control.
“Lyra… your absence is killing me.”
The hall erupted.
Screaming.
Running.
Magic crackling.
Draven yelling for reinforcements.
The prophecy stone beginning to fracture overhead.
And then the guards dragged me back.
I fought them—not out of aggression, but desperation. I needed to reach her. I needed the pain to stop. I needed the bond…the bond that never broke…to finally be whole again.
But they were trained for my strength.
And tonight, I was weak.
Their hands locked around my arms, forcing me back through the wide doors of the hall. I felt the cold before I saw it—icy wind slashing across my skin, snow drifting into the entry chamber as they pushed me inside.
My knees buckled.
Draven caught me before I hit the floor, his voice low and urgent. “Aeron. Listen to me. You have to calm your wolf or they’ll think you’re losing your mind.”
A humorless laugh scraped from my throat.
“I am losing my mind.”
His jaw tightened. “Not like this. You know what the Elders will do if they think you’ve become unstable.”
I do.
They’ll strip me of my title.
They’ll bind my wolf.
They’ll bury me in the mountain’s sanctum like a rabid animal.
I drag in a shaky breath.
“Did you see her?” I ask, though the question is pointless—my voice is still shaking from speaking her name.
Draven’s silence is answer enough.
I press my palms into the cold stone floor, trying to steady the violent shudder in my limbs. The shifting attempt has left my muscles trembling and my bones throbbing as they retract beneath my skin. My pulse thuds unevenly. The runes carved into my forearms burn bright as the curse snarls through them like a parasite.
“She shouldn’t have come,” I whisper.
“You knew she would eventually.” Draven’s tone is firm but not unkind. “Her father signed the treaty. The summit makes her presence mandatory.”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s here. She’s—”
Mine.
The word snarls through my mind, but I bite it back before it escapes my mouth.
Because the truth is worse than my wolf’s possessive instinct.
I’m dying.
Slowly. Brutally. Inevitably.
Because the blood-moon prophecy didn’t just warn of ruin if our union happened. It warned of ruin if it didn’t. Rejecting her didn’t save the pack—it cursed it. Cursed me.
There is only one cure.
One path left.
The mating ritual.
The ritual I was forbidden to complete.
The ritual I denied myself for her sake.
The ritual that has haunted every night since.
A sharp, sudden crack slices through the air—loud enough to echo down the corridor. Draven jerks his head up. “What now?”
I know exactly what it is.
The prophecy stone.
Breaking.
Reacting to her.
The bond pulses through me like fire under my ribs, flaring so intensely I choke on the pain. The curse tightens its claws. My vision flickers white. My wolf roars inside my skull, demanding I go to her, touch her, claim her before the curse takes what little control I have left.
I force myself upright on trembling legs.
Draven tries to hold me down.
I shove him off.
“I have to see her.”
“You can’t,” he argues. “Not while you’re like this.”
“I don’t have time.”
He studies my shaking hands, my flickering eyes, the sweat dripping down my temple despite the winter cold. The truth is written everywhere on my body.
“You think seeing her will calm you?” he asks quietly.
“No,” I rasp.
“It will save me.”
And for the first time in ten years, I speak the truth aloud, the truth the prophecy foretold but I refused to hear.
“If I don’t complete the mating ritual with her… the curse will kill me before the next full moon.”
- Writer
