Chapter 1
2037 Words
“She ran to save their child. Now the past demands a price.”
Aria’s POV
The rain poured harder the closer I got. My hands were shaking. Lyra was bleeding out in my arms, her breath shallow against my neck.
“Stay with me,” I whispered. “Don’t you give up.”
My feet slipped in the mud again. I fell to my knees, catching her before she hit the ground.
The child was dying.
My knuckles whitened around the steering wheel as the rogue border loomed in the distance. My fingers trembled.
I hadn’t crossed this path in ten years, not since that night beneath the blood moon.
The night that caused everything to change.
Blood soaked through my shirt. Her blood. My daughter’s blood.
“Lyra, wake up,” I begged. “Look at me, just breathe," I cried out, glancing at the frail figure curled in the backseat. "We’re almost there, baby.”
Lyra’s skin was too pale, her breath shallow. Her lashes fluttered in some fever dream.
“You should’ve stayed home,” I muttered in regret. If only Lyra had stayed home, it couldn’t have come to this.
“It hurts…”
“I know, baby. "I know. "I’m getting you help.” I looked up.
“She had a knife…” Lyra’s voice was weak.
“What woman?” I asked. “Did you see her face?”
My daughter has been attacked. The bullet went straight to her chest. Her lifeline was hanging.
She gave a tiny shake of her head. “She said I wasn’t supposed to be alive.”
I gritted my teeth. “Don’t talk. We’re almost there.”
“She said… Daddy would regret everything,” Lyra whispered.
I stopped driving.
My heart dropped.
“What did you say?”
She blinked slowly. “Daddy…”
My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
She’d never used that word before. Not once. Why now? Did Lyra know all along?
It couldn't be—
I never told her. Never talked about him.
“Lyra…” I said quietly. “Why did you call him that?”
She didn’t answer.
She just pressed her bloody hand weakly to my chest and closed her eyes again.
Rowan. The father of my child. I was about to see him again after ten years.
The wardline shimmered just ahead. Midnight Claw’s border.
Ten years of running and hiding. Ten years of silence. Of pretending the bond didn’t exist. I swore I’d never go back.
But my daughter was dying. And his sister, the healer, was the only one who could save her.
My grip on the wheel tightened. I glanced at Lyra in the rearview mirror. She was still breathing. Still burning up.
“Almost there,” I muttered. “Just hold on, baby.”
As the pack’s outer post came into view, a long howl echoed through the forest.
My gut clenched.
They knew.
Of course, they did. A rogue coming this close to Midnight Claw territory? It was a red flag on sight. And her scent, they would recognize it. Even after all these years.
I slowed to a stop just short of the iron gate.
Two wolf guards stepped out. They were armed and alert.
One of them narrowed his eyes the second he saw her. “You've got a lot of nerve showing up here.”
“I need to see Mira,” Aria said quickly. It's urgent. My daughter, she's dying.”
“Rogues don't get access to the healer,” the older one said. His tone wasn't angry, just flat, as if she wasn't even worth getting upset over.
“She will see me,” Aria insisted.
He didn't move. “What makes you think she even knows you?”
“Tell her Aria’s here,” she snapped. Tell her the child's sick. She'll know what it means.”
From the backseat, Lyra let out a weak whimper.
The younger guard shifted, glancing at the car. His posture stiffened. “Did you hear that?”
The older one looked back, nostrils flaring. “Something’s not right.”
Aria spoke up again, sharper this time. “If you waste another second, she might die. "Is that what you want?” she growled.
The two guards exchanged a glance. The younger one lifted his radio.
“This is Gate One. "We've got someone at the border… says her name is Aria.”
There was a pause. Then a crackle came through the speaker. The gate buzzed.
The older guard stepped back. “You've got temporary access. Don't misuse it.”
Just before she pulled through, he leaned down.
“Alpha Rowan won't be happy to see you.”
I didn't respond. I was already aware of that.
The moment I crossed the border, I felt it.
The mark on my neck lit up, burning like fire under my skin.
Rowan felt me.
I kept moving, even as my vision blurred. My legs were numb. My heart pounded. Every memory came crashing back.
His voice in my ear, his hands gripping my hips, the way he said my name like it mattered.
The night he was supposed to mark someone else... and marked me instead.
And then I left.
I didn't think. I just ran. Because that night gave me more than a scar.
It gave me her.
Lyra whimpered, snapping me back.
The park house hadn’t changed.
I still remember the layout, every hallway, every door. I used to clean the healer's den when I worked here. Back then, Mira, Rowan's sister, lived in the west wing, right next to the Alpha’s quarters.
That's where I had to go, where I would find her if nothing had changed.
I shifted Lyra in my arms and kept moving.
The child whimpered, clutching her mother’s coat. Magic pulsed beneath her skin, uncontrolled and dangerous. I could feel it leaking through like a cracking dam.
Then I saw him.
Rowan.
He stood on the stone steps, arms folded, jaw clenched, eyes hard as steel.
The Alpha.
Taller than I remembered. Broader. But the moment our eyes met, my world tilted.
His eyes locked on me first, then the child in my arms, and then the blood.
“What the hell—” His voice stopped. His nostrils flared. “Aria?”
I couldn’t speak. My whole body trembled. I was soaked, freezing, and terrified.
“Who is—” He stepped closer, then froze.
The mark on his chest glowed faintly, right where I’d bitten him all those years ago. He never removed it. It never healed.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he growled.
I held Lyra tighter. “She’s dying. I need Mira.”
He looked down at the girl again.
He knew. I saw it hit him.
The dark hair. The eyes. The shape of her mouth.
“Is she…?” His voice cracked. “Aria, is she mine?”
I said nothing. I didn’t get the chance.
Lyra stirred weakly. Her lips moved.
“Daddy…?”
His whole face changed.
I saw fury. Then confusion. Then something worse.
Betrayal.
“You lied to me,” he said.
“I protected her,” I snapped. “If I stayed, she would’ve been hunted. You know it.”
“Who’s after her?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “They came out of nowhere. Rogues, maybe. Or someone worse.”
He turned, whistled sharply. Two guards ran toward us from the woods.
“Call Mira,” he ordered. “Now.”
One of them hesitated. “Alpha—”
“She’s bleeding out,” he shouted. “Get my sister!”
They ran.
He knelt beside me. “Give her to me.”
I didn’t move. “You’ll take her away. Use Alpha law.”
“I could,” he said. “But I won’t. Not until I know what the hell is going on.”
Lyra cried out. Her back arched in pain.
“She’s not just hurt,” I said quickly. “Something’s happening to her magic. I think it’s breaking through. Mira sealed it at birth. She’s—”
“You let my sister seal my child?” he snapped.
“I begged her to!” I shouted back. “To keep her safe!”
Rowan stared at me. “You knew she was mine. And you ran.”
“Yes. Because Selene found out. She sent someone after me. I almost lost her once already.”
He stood abruptly. “Selene?” His voice dropped. “You’re saying my ex-wife tried to kill you?”
“She did more than try,” I said. “She sent someone to gut me when I was five months pregnant. I only lived because an Oracle warned me. I disappeared. I stayed gone. Until now.”
He looked like he’d been punched.
“I need to take her inside,” he muttered.
“She’s not a weapon,” I said.
“She’s my daughter.”
Those words hung between us, wet, cold, heavy.
Then I whispered the last secret I never planned to tell him.
“She hears you in her dreams.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“She told me she dreams of a man with silver eyes who calls her Little Star? That’s what you used to call me.”
He turned away like he couldn’t stand it, like it hurt to breathe.
Our argument was short-lived.
Mira arrived on horseback, leapt off before it stopped moving.
“What happened?” she gasped, kneeling next to us.
“She was attacked,” I said. “She’s bleeding and burning up.”
Mira touched Lyra’s forehead, then jerked back. “She’s glowing. That’s not blood magic; it’s soulburn.”
Rowan stepped forward. “Can you fix her?”
“I need her in the healer’s den,” Mira said. “Now.”
Rowan looked at me. “I’ll carry her.”
“No,” I said. “She won’t let go of me.”
Mira pulled something from her pouch: a silver rune stone.
“This will stop the internal bleeding temporarily,” she said, placing it on Lyra’s chest. “But I need to undo the old seal. Otherwise, her powers might rip her apart from the inside.”
I gasped. “I thought the seal was permanent.”
“It wasn’t,” Mira said. “I made it weak. Just enough to let her grow. But now… something’s triggered it.”
Rowan’s gaze burned through me. “What triggered it?”
I noticed Mira's hesitation. She kept quiet and didn't respond to her brother. As much as I was curious like Rowan, I stayed silent.
All I wanted was for my Lyra to be okay.
Mira stood. “We’re wasting time. I need her inside. Aria, can you walk?”
“I’ll try.” I was already weak from carrying a ten-year-old wolf all the way here.
Rowan didn’t wait. He bent down and picked us both up, with Lyra in my lap and me in his arms.
It was like nothing had changed, but everything had.
“I need to know one thing,” he said as he walked.
I held Lyra tighter. “What?”
“If she’s mine... why didn’t you come back sooner?”
“Because the Moon Goddess answered me,” I whispered. I begged her to sever our bond. She did.”
He stopped walking.
“What did you say?”
“I begged her to free me,” I said. To protect Lyra. And she listened. Until now.”
He looked like he didn’t believe me, but then he stared at his chest, where my old mark still burned.
“So why is it back?” he asked.
I looked down at my daughter.
“I can't answer all your questions, Rowan.” Calling his name felt strange. It was a reminder of that night and the countless times I moaned his name.
His eyes burned with admiration, but now it was hatred. I could sense it.
I knew he was just being kind, but did he accept Lyra as his child?
- Writer
