The Cursed Heir

As Lyra walked into the dining hall her peers stared. No one dared even to whisper, knowing that her wolf hearing would pick up on it. She didn’t recognise anyone, but she was sure some of these people had been present at her mother’s tribunal. Perhaps if it weren’t for her father, the alpha of alpha’s and ruler of their kind, Andre Lebonair then she would fall victim to the gossiping. She shook these thoughts out of her head as she walked through the masses to sit at an empty table with her two personal guards. “Lady Lebonair.” Her new classmates bowed their heads in respect as she moved past them. She knew that when she was no longer within hearing distance, then the whispers would begin. Lyra had always preferred to keep a low profile, hard as that may be for the future alpha of the clans. Still, she’d never given anyone a reason to talk about her until her mother’s tribunal. Prior to that, the biggest event in the wereworld was to be her wedding. She had all but proclaimed her intentions of mating with Jason Hart before his untimely death. The thought made her chest ache as she remembered how she had lost him. They’d sat at opposite ends of the small room, hands and feet held together with cursed chains, no matter how they tried they did not budge. The moonlight shone through the shoddy curtains of the abandoned house, illuminating her tears. Her parents had been estranged for nearly a decade, and this would be her mother’s revenge. Lyra had often wondered which of her parents was to blame for their broken family. Her father with his mind set only on the duties that came with his role had been distant her whole life. Her mother had been all consumed with power, intending to dominate the wereworld as a Queen. They were not fated mates, but long before her father had ascended to his role they had been in love. It was hard to imagine that, Lyra had only ever seen this side to her parents and she could not imagine them feeling anything besides bitter resentment towards one another. Now trapped like a dog, a pawn in her mother’s plans she understood her father better than ever. Since her first change, Lyra had displayed a completely unique ability to separate herself and her wolf. If she so desired, she could unleash her wolf and still retain her human form. There had been prophecies of her, and how her rule would unite all packs for a divine purpose. For her mother, this purpose was to dominate all the species until werewolves were the top of the food chain. She planned on using Lyra to do it, but she could not do it without her daughter’s cooperation. She needed to read the incantation to complete the spell, something she had refused adamantly. That was why Jason was there, she would have done anything for him. Though he was not her wolfs true mate, she had loved him beyond compare. They had grown up together and he had been her dearest friend, her only companion. She could not picture her life without him, nor did she ever want to. Her mother’s plan was simple. She had stolen witches, coerced them into making the potion which would bind her daughter’s powers to her. The only problem was that Lyra would not complete the ritual willingly, she would not sign over her free will into her mother’s hands. Thus her mother would have tortured Jason until Lyra agreed. His screams haunted her and she had begged her mother to stop, she promised she would do anything. She had meant it too, Jason was the most important person in her life, the only person in her life she could not imagine her life without. He was her solace in an otherwise lonely world, with a destiny she had never desired. Jason would not allow it though. She’d been willing to do whatever it took to stop the pain but he, like her father, was bound by a duty to the pack. He’d phased there and then, despite the chains which were cursed to shatter his bones. As a wolf he would survive it, but since he could communicate with the pack in this form her mother had not hesitated to put him down. A silver bullet spiralled into his forehead, his stormy grey eyes dull as he lay still before her. Lyra had watched her world shatter, her heart splintered into a million pieces that cut through her chest like glass. A part of her had died that day too. Werewolves mated for life and though they had not yet completed the ceremonies which would bind them together, they were as good as mated. She’d fallen into a dark abyss since his loss but that wasn’t what her peers would gossip about. Instead they would whisper about how she’d defied her father at the tribunal, how she had slit her mother’s throat open before the court in an act of vengeance. It was no small thing that she had done and yet she felt no remorse, cared nothing for what would be said of her. Her whole life, she had been taught the rules of the pack. Blood demands blood. All she had done was to right her mother’s wrongs. Her mother had taken a life, the only life that mattered to Lyra and in return she had signed her own execution as far as her daughter had been concerned. She held no remorse, even as she felt her mothers warm blood soaking through her clothes as her body fell to the ground. Still to the rest of their world she had gone against the ruling of the court, more than that, she had disobeyed their alpha. For them it called to question her future within the packs, the wolves feared her ability to disregard a direct order. Her father’s word was the law and she should not have been able to do what she had. Her ability to lead was in question, with some of the elders calling for her to be mated to someone who might tame her. That was another reason she had been sent to the school of night. Her father hoped she would find someone here, someone who could ease the pain of Jason’s loss. She knew that was why she was here and yet for Lyra there could be no replacing him. Jason had died because of her family, and now she was expected to replace him so soon. She was committed to him, though he was gone, she was determined to stay loyal to him even in death. Eighteen was too young for what she had been through, too young to make these decisions. Yet in the wereworld she was ripe for mating, especially as the Lebonair heir and males at the school all vied for her attention. She barely noticed them, barely felt lucid anymore. Lyra felt numb to it all, she still wore Jason’s initials around her neck and his promise ring on her finger. Screw my duty to this world, she had thought. How could she be expected to move on from her grief so soon? Sometimes she thought about leaving behind her world altogether. She could separate from her wolf; she could live as humans did. When she was having an especially difficult day she thought about putting a silver bullet through her own head, and being with Jason where she knew that she had belonged. She closed her eyes for a second, breathing slowly as she tried to banish such thoughts from her mind. She could not do such a thing; Jason can’t have died for nothing. He had been her biggest support, he believed in her destiny as the Lady Lebonair and she would honour him by fulfilling it.