5. Lyra
1301 Words
As snow crunched beneath my boots I moved through the courtyard, the winter wind curling around my cloak and biting at my cheeks. The Yuelfang guards bowed their heads as I passed, and the younger wolves gave me wide-eyed glances. They whispered my name under their breath: Darkbane, princess, warrior. It felt strange, almost alien, to be treated as someone worthy of respect in a place that had once been foreign and forbidden.
I let the power of it settle in my chest, filling me with a familiar warmth. The snow glittered like diamonds under the moonlight, but the cold was no comfort. It reminded me of him. Of Aeron.
A wisp of smoke drifted through the courtyard, catching the silver light. And then the scent hit me. Pine, frost, leather, and the raw, impossible pull I’d been denying for ten years. My wolf growled low in my chest, teeth bared under the surface of my control. I didn’t need to turn. I already knew.
He stepped out of the shadows, cigarette—or some ironic trick of Yuelfang smoke—curled between his fingers. His eyes were sharp, glinting with that dangerous light that had haunted my dreams for a decade.
“You’re enjoying the view?” His voice was low, sardonic, a contrast to the tension curling in the air. “Snow-covered and pristine. Yuelfang at your feet. Must feel like a victory.”
I crossed my arms, shoulders squared. “I’m here because I have a duty, Aeron. Not because I want your approval.”
He took a slow step closer, the snow crunching under his boots, the glow of the courtyard lanterns catching the frost on his dark cloak. “And yet, you don’t look like a princess worried about protocol. You look… alive. Different. Strong. Beautiful. And here I am, barely managing to stay upright.”
I let a laugh, sharp and cold, escape me. “So now, when the curse is killing you, suddenly the prophecy isn’t worth believing? Suddenly it’s convenient for you to chase what you couldn’t—or wouldn’t—touch ten years ago?”
He flinched at the words, but only for a fraction of a second. “Convenient? No. Necessary. If I don’t—” His hand trembled slightly as his wolf surged beneath his skin. “If I don’t complete what should have been done years ago, I die.”
“Ah, yes, the dying Alpha,” I said, taking a step closer so our breaths mingled with the smoke and frost. “You’ve been holding the prophecy over our heads, Aeron. Using it as an excuse to reject me, humiliate me, destroy me… and now suddenly, your life is on the line, and the prophecy doesn’t matter? You’ve been a scumbag for ten years, and I don’t need your apology to remind me.”
He swallowed, jaw tightening. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“You did,” I snapped, heat rising beneath my cold exterior. “You hurt me. Publicly. Brutally. You were seventeen, I was fifteen, and you rejected me for… what? A law? A prophecy? A fear of being tied to someone you didn’t understand? That kiss—the one I risked everything to give you—was never meant to be a memory for you to hide behind. It was the only truth I ever had with you.”
The wind lifted his dark hair, and his wolf shifted visibly beneath the surface of his skin. “It wasn’t just fear. It was the prophecy. I couldn’t—”
“And now you can?” I pressed, tone sharp, cutting through the smoke between us. “Now that you’re dying, suddenly it’s fine to ignore the law and the curse? You’re weak, Aeron. And you’re still a hypocrite.”
His hand flexed, clenching as if resisting some internal pull. “I’m trying to survive,” he said, voice tight, ragged. “Trying to keep Yulefang alive. The bond—us—it doesn’t give me a choice anymore.”
I stared at him, heart thundering in my chest. My wolf surged, echoing the magnetic pull that had drawn me to him ten years ago, the pull that had never faded. “If you think that gives you the right to manipulate my feelings, you’re wrong. I didn’t come here to save you. I came here to do my duty. But don’t pretend the bond isn’t real. Don’t pretend the connection we have is some convenient tool for your survival.”
He stepped closer, smoke curling around us, and I could see the strain in his eyes, the hunger and desperation barely contained. “It is real. Every second I’ve fought it has been agony. I tried to ignore it, deny it, but seeing you… being near you… it’s unbearable. I… I can’t live without acknowledging it anymore.”
I let my fingers lift, hesitating only briefly before pressing the Darkbane runes into the center of his palm. The energy hummed faintly against his skin, spiraling through us, binding us in a way neither of us could deny. His pupils dilated, wolf claws flexing beneath his skin as the recognition passed through him like fire through ice.
“You feel it,” I said, voice low, almost intimate. “Even after ten years, you can’t pretend you don’t. Even now, your heartbeat races for me as mine does for you.”
He swallowed again, lips parting, voice barely above a whisper. “You… you’re alive in ways I’ve denied myself.”
“And you were a coward,” I shot back, letting my wolf surge, letting the energy of my marking bloom faintly around us. “But I am not. I survived. I became someone more than the girl you humiliated. I am a warrior. I am Darkbane. And now, I decide how we move forward.”
He inhaled sharply, gaze flickering over the rune glowing faintly on his palm. “Even if it kills your pack?”
I met his eyes without flinching. “Even if it kills your pride. But don’t think for a second you can stand there and pretend you’re the only one making sacrifices. I’ve already lived through what it means to love you and be powerless. I will not do it again.”
A tense silence stretched across the courtyard, broken only by the faint hiss of snow drifting from the lanterns. Our breaths mingled, frost curling between us. My wolf thrashed impatiently, but I pressed my hand gently, marking him, holding the connection, letting him feel the truth of our bond.
Finally, he exhaled, smoke spilling from his lips, and for a moment, he looked… broken. Vulnerable. And yet the fire behind his eyes, the wolf beneath his skin, pulsed with raw, desperate need.
“You have no idea,” he said finally, voice low, trembling, “how long I’ve waited to feel this again.”
I let a small smile tug at my lips, fierce and unapologetic. “Then feel it,” I said. “But remember this: I survived you once, Aeron Frostborne. Don’t think I won’t survive you again.”
He met my gaze fully now, wolf surging beneath the skin, raw and untamed. The bond hummed faintly, undeniable and electric. And for the first time in a decade, I realized that the rush of my heartbeat—the pull of the bond—was something I would not, could not, resist.
The prophecy might warn against our touch, the law might forbid it, and our packs might crumble if we succumb. But here, in the snow-filled courtyard, the only truth I could not ignore was this:
I wanted him.
And my wolf had already promised she would not let me turn away.
- Writer
