Blood-Moon Christmas: The Alpha I Can’t Escape

1. Lyra

Snow is a beautiful liar. It covers everything—the scars carved into the land, the ruins we pretend we’ve forgotten, the memories that should stay buried beneath winter’s silence. From the ridge above Nightclaw territory, the world looks peaceful and holy, pine trees glazed in crystalline frost and moonlight shimmering across the slopes like a blessing. But as I step off the trail and sink ankle-deep into the drifts, the truth settles in my chest with the same heaviness it carried a decade ago: this place is not peaceful. It remembers me. And it is waiting.

I pull my hood tighter against the wind, letting its fur brush my cheek as I scan the sprawling expanse below—stone ramparts, ancient pillars carved with runes, lantern-lit pathways leading toward the great hall where the Holiday Solstice Summit takes place every winter. Even from here, the scent of snow-smoke and evergreen curls toward me, mingled with the tang of magic stirred awake for the festivities. My heart thuds an uneven rhythm as I follow behind my father, King Varos Darkbane, who marches several steps ahead without a backward glance. He hasn’t spoken since we left the southern territories. He doesn’t need to. His silence has always been a louder weapon than any command.

Stay quiet, Lyra. Do not cause trouble. Do not look at Aeron. Do not provoke the prophecy. Do not breathe his name.

I grit my teeth as the thought flashes unbidden. Too late. I’ve been breathing his name every night for ten years—even when I hated him. Especially when I hated him.

As we near the pathway leading up to the hall, my wolf stirs with a low, restless growl. She pushes at my ribs as though trying to claw her way toward something she senses long before I do. I shove her down, but she snaps back in irritation, furious at being muzzled on the soil that shaped us both. The snow thickens around us as we climb the final stretch of stairs, each lantern casting jagged shadows across the ice. The entry arch rises above us, crowned with icicles sharp as blades. As my father steps inside the threshold, I follow—

—and freeze mid-step.

A scent hits me with startling force, sharp as a blade to the ribs: pine-smoke, bitter winter air, storm-touched leather, something cold and electric that coils through my bloodstream like lightning. And underlying it all, woven deeply into the scent like a whispered memory, is the one smell I never thought I’d encounter again.

Him.

My chest constricts so fast it nearly knocks the breath from me. His scent shouldn’t be this strong, not from across such a crowded hall, not after a decade of silence and distance and forced forgetting. Not after he stood beneath the blood-moon altar and rejected me in front of both our packs. But it floods the air, saturating everything until my lungs tremble at the familiarity. Ten years vanish in a breath. My wolf hurls herself against my skin, snarling with recognition. My fingers instinctively grip the obsidian blade strapped across my back, the weapon my father insisted I bring as a “precaution.” I try to inhale again, but the scent only grows stronger—raw, uncontained, as if coming from a wolf who has lost the ability to temper his power.

My father doesn’t notice I’ve stopped moving until he turns with a scowl, irritation deepening the lines along his brow. “Lyra,” he snaps quietly. “Move.”

I swallow down the shake in my throat and force my boots forward onto the polished stone floor. The interior of the hall is awash with ceremonial light—gold flames flickering in sconce after sconce, runes carved into the walls glowing faintly as the elders chant before the altar. Alpha representatives fill the room in a horseshoe formation; warriors stand at attention along the walls, their postures rigid with decorum and distrust. The air is thick with politics, threat, and ancient tradition.

But the moment I cross the threshold, something shifts. Not within the room—within the energy that fills it. The chanting falters. Conversations taper off one by one. A few heads turn. Then a few more. An almost tangible stillness sweeps through the hall, a collective intake of breath as if the entire gathering feels the air pressure drop.

Someone is walking in behind me.

Slow, measured footsteps echo across the stone—each one heavy, deliberate, powerful in a way that sets every wolf’s instincts on alert. Dominance rolls across the room in waves, thick enough that warriors stiffen, shoulders straightening beneath their cloaks. The temperature seems to drop several degrees as a cold current drifts through the hall, brushing the back of my neck like the ghost of a familiar touch.

I don’t need to turn around. My bones already know.

My wolf presses forward, heart pounding against mine.

Aeron.

I keep my gaze fixed on the altar ahead, refusing to look, refusing to acknowledge the way my pulse stutters or how my legs threaten to buckle. But his presence draws closer, and with every step he takes, the tether he once severed pulls taut inside my chest—an invisible thread dragging sparks beneath my skin.

A low growl vibrates the air behind me. Not aggressive. Not warning. Recognizing.

Claiming.

Heat races up my spine in a traitorous wave, curling beneath my ribs. My breath shivers out of me. Gods, not like this. Not here. Not in front of every Alpha in the north.

I finally lift my eyes—

And meet his.

Aeron Frostborne stands at the base of the stairs, framed by the blazing altar light behind him, snow dusting his shoulders and the dark fur lining of his cloak. He’s even broader than I remember, carved in harsh lines and winter steel, all power and storm-wrought beauty. But his eyes—moonlit ice, once steady and cold—are fractured. They flicker with something unstable, something that burns too brightly and too wildly to be contained.

His gaze locks on mine.

He stops breathing.

I stop existing.

The world narrows to a single point of contact—the place where his eyes meet mine and ten years crash into the center of my chest with the force of a falling star. Aeron’s pupils dilate sharply, his jaw tightening as his throat works through a swallow. His fingers twitch at his sides as if holding himself back from reaching for me. And then, as if he can’t stop himself, he takes one step forward.

My breath catches so hard it hurts.

Every elder and Alpha in the room feels the shift. A ripple of unease spreads across the gathering. My father stiffens beside me. Aeron’s Beta, a massive male named Draven, steps into his path with one hand raised in silent warning. But Aeron doesn’t look at him—he doesn’t look at anyone but me.

My name leaves his mouth in a voice that sounds scraped raw, hoarse and broken in a way that hits me like a blow: “…Lyra.”

The sound of it cracks something inside me I thought had long since died. My knees weaken despite every effort to stay upright. The prophecy stone above the altar hums faintly, reacting to the energy between us. And before I can decide whether to run or stand my ground, Aeron steps closer, his wolf pushing violently against his skin, a surge of white-hot magic that ripples across the hall.

He looks at me like he hasn’t slept in years. Like I’m the only thing holding him together. Like seeing me is both salvation and torture.

My throat tightens. “Don’t,” I whisper, barely audible.

But it’s too late. His control shatters. The air churns with a sudden burst of power as his wolf slams upward, his eyes flashing incandescent white. Gasps erupt around the hall as several elders stagger backward. Warriors reach for weapons.

Aeron grips the edge of the oath table so hard the ancient wood groans beneath his fingers. His shoulders tremble with the effort to stay human, to keep his body from tearing open under the weight of the transformation. His breathing breaks in uneven bursts.

Something is wrong with him. Terribly, unmistakably wrong.

I feel it all the way down to my bones.

He won the throne. He became Alpha. He grew stronger than any Frostbane before him. But now he stands before me like a man possessed—haunted—his wolf cracking through his skin as though something inside him is breaking.

The truth hits me with brutal clarity:

The rejection never severed our bond.

It poisoned it.

It’s been killing him.

The shock stings my lungs as Aeron lifts his gaze to mine again, the look in his eyes a mixture of pain, hunger, and desperation. It cuts right through me. The room erupts into chaos—shouting, commands, the sharp scrape of chairs and weapons—but I barely hear any of it. My father grabs my arm. Aeron’s guards rush toward him. Elders raise staffs, runes glowing as they prepare to subdue him if necessary.

Through the noise, Aeron’s voice cuts through everything—every cry, every command—with raw, cracked intensity, meant only for me.

“You shouldn’t have come home.”

His wolf surges again, eyes blazing so fiercely white that cracks spiderweb across the prophecy stone behind the altar. The guards seize him, dragging him backward as he fights to stay upright. The entire hall is in uproar by the time he is pulled from the center of the room.

But before the doors slam shut behind him, his voice reaches me again—low, gutted, broken in a way that chills my blood.

“Lyra… your absence is killing me.”

And as the world erupts in panic, I realize one terrible thing:

I believe him.