The Alpha's Forsaken Queen

Chapter Eight

Falling was not like it was in dreams. There was no air screaming past my ears. No sense of weightlessness.

Only silence.

Crushing, suffocating silence.

I reached for Elias, our fingers brushing in the darkness. His form flickered, part beast, part man, and for one terrifying moment, I wasn’t sure which version would emerge once we hit… wherever we were going.

But there was no impact.

Instead, the void opened into light.

A violent flash.

And then, ground.

I crashed hard onto ancient stone, my bones rattling with the force of it. Gasping, I pushed myself up. The chamber around me pulsed with a dull red glow. Strange runes floated midair, humming with old magic. The air tasted metallic, like blood and storm.

I wasn’t alone.

Elias was on his knees across the room, his body jerking as though electrocuted. Shadow tendrils slithered over his back, wrapping around his throat, his limbs, burrowing into his skin.

“No!” I screamed and stumbled toward him.

A barrier stopped me. I slammed against it, clawing, howling. My wolf wanted out, wanted to tear through whatever this was, but the magic held strong.

Elias’s eyes snapped open. For a second, they were his. Blue. Clear. And then they blackened again.

“Lyra,” he choked out. “I’m sorry.”

The tendrils yanked him upright.

And a voice, cold and ancient, rumbled through the chamber.

“Alpha King Elias. Marked. Cursed. Claimed.”

I spun around, trying to find the source. But the shadows themselves moved, swirling into a vaguely humanoid shape cloaked in flowing black.

“You are not welcome here,” I said.

The shadow tilted its head. “And yet you stand in the Hollow between Realms. You and your broken king.”

“What do you want from us?”

The figure stepped forward. Where it walked, the stone cracked and wilted. “It is not about want, little queen. It is about fate. You two were chosen long before you took your first breath. The Evercrest bloodline carries the gift. And the curse.”

“I won’t let you take him.”

“You have no say.”

I slammed my palm against the barrier. “Then make me fight for it.”

The creature hissed, retreating into the darkness.

The ground trembled.

Suddenly, Elias dropped to the floor, unmoving.

“Elias!” I shrieked, slamming against the barrier.

But another figure stepped out of the shadows.

This one I recognized.

Ronan.

He was still smirking, but his eyes were different now, burning with the madness of someone who believed he’d already won.

“You really thought you could save him?” he asked, circling me. “You’re not strong enough, Lyra. You never were. You were born to bleed, not to rule.”

“Says the traitor who hid behind shadows.”

He laughed. “I didn’t hide. I waited. Until the prophecy tipped.”

“What prophecy?”

He leaned closer, close enough that I could see the threads of black magic crawling beneath his skin.

“The Alpha Queen born in blood, betrayed by kin, shall rise only when the curse devours the king.”

The chamber pulsed. The runes brightened.

He grinned. “You were always meant to fall before you could rise.”

Then, with a flick of his fingers, the barrier vanished.

I didn’t hesitate.

I lunged.

We collided in a tangle of claws and fire. My wolf took over, teeth aiming for his throat. He parried, fast, too fast, unnatural, and slammed me against the wall. Pain flared through my ribs, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t.

I was done losing.

“I will burn every realm to get him back,” I growled.

Ronan shoved me back, chuckling. “Then come find him. If you can.”

He vanished in a swirl of shadows.

And the ground beneath Elias split open.

“No!” I ran, dived, grabbed his hand, but it slipped from mine.

He fell.

Again.

And this time, I couldn’t follow.

Because the chamber, the Hollow, began to collapse.

Runes cracked. Magic screamed.

I stumbled backward, trying to find an exit, but the walls closed in. I heard Elias’s voice echo through the void, weak, fading.

“Lyra… don’t let me become him…”

I roared in fury, light erupting from my core. My wolf surged, ripping through the magic. The shadows burned away.

And I found myself in the forest again, back in Evercrest territory.

Alone.

Shaking, broken, and empty.

Elias was gone.

Ronan had vanished.

And something was coming for me.

Not a beast.

Not a person.

A force.

Ancient.

Malevolent.

A whisper echoed through the trees.

“She is awake…”

I turned—and saw her.

A woman in white, face hidden beneath a veil.

But I recognized the voice.

It was my mother.

Only she was supposed to be dead.

The veil she wore shifted slightly in the breeze, but her face remained hidden. Her voice, however, cut through me like a blade I had forgotten existed.

I took a step forward, then stopped. My body trembled—not from fear, but from the violent confusion surging inside me. My mother was dead. I had seen her body, pale and cold in the crypt. I had mourned her, screamed her name into the void.

Yet there she stood, wrapped in white as if untouched by time, her scent familiar. Her presence both comforting and terrifying.

“You… you’re not real,” I whispered.

She tilted her head, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “Real enough to have found you. Real enough to bring you back to the truth.”

I shook my head. “You died. The council said—”

“The council lied. They feared what I was becoming, what you would become.”

My throat dried. I wanted to speak, but my voice had turned to dust. All I could do was stare. The forest around us had grown unnaturally still, the usual chirping and rustling gone. Even the wind seemed to wait.

“How?” I finally asked, my voice raw. “Why?”

She stepped closer. “Because they knew the prophecy. They knew you were never meant to follow the path they had set for you. So they took everything from me—my voice, my place, my life—and tried to bury the truth with me.”

I didn’t move. Couldn’t.

“I don't believe you.”

She reached up, her fingers brushing the edge of her veil. “You will.”

The cloth slipped away, revealing a face I barely remembered—worn by time and pain, but undeniably hers. My mother. High Priestess Elinora Evercrest. The woman who had taught me to shift, to survive, to kneel to no one.

But her eyes… her eyes were not the same. They glowed faintly, like moonlight through mist. There was magic inside her, ancient and wild, and it rippled through her every word.

“Elias is lost,” I choked out. “I couldn’t stop them.”

She nodded solemnly. “You were not meant to stop them—not yet. But you are meant to bring him back.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You know where he is?”

“I know what he’s becoming.”

A chill slid down my spine. “What do you mean?”

“The curse is ancient. It does not simply destroy—it reshapes. Corrupts. Elias is no longer bound to this world alone. He walks the Veil, the space between death and power, between memory and madness. If he stays there too long…”

Her voice faltered. I saw it—fear. Genuine, bone-deep fear.

“What happens?”

“He won’t be Elias anymore. He’ll be the Vessel.”

I took a shaky breath. “For what?”

She looked past me, into the trees. “For the one who wakes beneath the earth.”

The words meant nothing and everything at once.

“You’re not making sense.”

She turned from me and began walking, her pace slow but certain. “Then follow. And I will show you.”

I hesitated only a second before following.

The forest shifted around us. Trees bent, shadows moved. It was like walking through a dream—or a memory. Places I didn’t recognize but felt familiar. We walked in silence for what felt like hours until we reached the edge of a cliff.

Below us, a valley stretched, shrouded in fog. In its center stood an ancient ruin, barely visible. I had never seen it before, yet my heart recognized it immediately.

“The Temple of the First Flame,” she said.

I turned to her, my voice little more than a whisper. “That place is a myth.”

She smiled softly. “Like me?”

I swallowed hard.

“What is it?”

“A prison. A sanctuary. A battlefield.”

She paused.

“A birthplace.”

My head spun.

“I don’t understand. What does this have to do with Elias? With me?”

She stepped closer, placing a hand on my chest. “Because you were born in fire, Lyra. And you must return to it to become what you are meant to be.”

I stepped back. “You sound like one of the old seers.”

“That’s because I was one, before I became something more.”

Her eyes glowed brighter.

“I walked the path of prophecy, daughter. And I saw it clearly—your rise would begin with your fall. And your power would be forged in sacrifice.”

I felt sick.

“I’ve already sacrificed everything,” I whispered.

“No.” Her voice was calm. “Not everything.”

The words settled over me like a curse.

She extended her hand.

“Come. The Flame awaits.”

Before I could move, a voice echoed from the trees behind us.

“Don’t trust her.”

I turned sharply, heart pounding.

Standing at the edge of the clearing was someone I hadn’t seen in years. Someone I had once loved like a brother.

Jace.

My cousin.

He looked the same—dark hair, fierce eyes, the scar across his jaw from a battle we’d both barely survived.

“Jace?” My voice trembled. “How—where have you been?”

His gaze shifted from me to my mother.

“She’s not what she says she is, Lyra. She’s working with the ones who cursed Elias.”

I froze.

My mother didn’t flinch.

“Lies,” she said simply. “He was taken by the Shadow Court long ago.”

Jace stepped forward. “She gave them your name. Your bond with Elias. She led them to him.”

“No,” I breathed.

“She told them what to break to get to him.”

My knees nearly gave out.

I looked at her, my own mother, and for the first time since seeing her again, I didn’t recognize the face staring back at me.

“Is it true?”

She didn’t answer.

That was answer enough.

Pain flooded my chest. I wanted to shift, to scream, to rip the truth from both of them, but I couldn’t move.

“Why?” I whispered.

Her expression cracked, for just a second.

“To protect you.”

“No.” Jace’s voice was sharp. “To prepare her. You always knew Elias was never meant to survive the curse. You wanted to use his death as her rebirth.”

My world tilted.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered.

“You can,” she said. “You must.”

“No.”

I turned and ran—into the woods, into the dark, away from the ghosts trying to define me.

Branches tore at my skin. My heart beat too fast. My lungs burned.

I didn’t stop until the air turned cold again. Until I smelled something… wrong.

Rot.

I slowed, heart still hammering.

And then I saw them.

Bodies.

Dozens.

Scattered across the forest floor.

Pack members.

Wolves and humans.

Torn open. Burned.

I stumbled back, bile rising in my throat.

And then a shape stepped from the shadows.

Not a man.

Not a beast.

Something between.

Eyes burning.

Power radiating.

It was Elias.

But it wasn’t.

He looked at me—and smiled.

“Lyra,” he said.

And then he lunged.