The Rejected Luna’s Dragon Sovereign

Chapter 7: The Gathering Shadow

Chapter 7: The Gathering Shadow

Rain lashed against the tall stained-glass windows of the Bloodmoon Pack’s War Room, casting jagged, bloody shadows across the massive oak map table.

Alpha Kaelen sat at the head of the table, his head resting in his broad hands. The heavy fur mantle across his shoulders felt like lead. Beneath his high-collared leather tunic, the dark gray veins of the Rejector's Curse had spread further, crawling up his neck and reaching the sharp line of his jaw. Every breath he took burned like inhaling broken glass.

Around the table, eight senior pack elders and commanders were shouting over one another, their voices tight with panic.

"Three more patrols collapsed at the western border this morning!" Elder Vance bellowed, slamming a fist onto the table. "Their wolves refused to answer the call! They are stuck in human form, weak as newborn pups!"

"The livestock in the lower pastures are dying of a strange black fever!" another commander yelled. "The water in the northern river tastes of ash! Alpha, you must do something!"

Kaelen lifted his head slowly. His golden eyes, once brilliant and full of predatory life, were now bloodshot and shadowed by deep black circles. "Silence," he commanded.

His voice lacked its usual thunderous weight, sounding raspy and hollow, but the sheer authority of his rank forced the room into an uneasy quiet.

Victoria sat three seats down from him, her face pale beneath her heavy powder. She no longer wore her shimmering silk gowns; she was clad in a structured riding suit, her fingers twitching nervously against her leather belt. The political alliance her father had promised was crumbling—nobles from neighboring packs were already pulling their troops back, afraid the "Bloodmoon Rot" would spread to their own lands.

"We know why this is happening," Victoria hissed, her voice cutting through the silence. She glared around the table, trying to project strength despite her trembling hands. "It is a temporary sickness caused by the unusual winter alignment! It has nothing to do with that dead omega!"

"Do not speak her name with such flippancy, Lady Victoria!" Elder Vance snapped, turning his glare onto her. "The ancient texts are clear! When an Alpha rejects a mate granted by the Moon Goddess for reasons of pride, the land itself rejects the Alpha! You pushed Kaelen to cast her out!"

"She was a wolf-less freak!" Victoria shrieked, standing up so fast her chair screeched against the stone floor. "She brought no army, no wealth, no power! She was nothing!"

"She was his MATE!" Vance roared back. "And now our pack is dying!"

"ENOUGH!" Kaelen roared, slamming both palms down onto the table with enough force to c***k the thick oak wood.

The elders flinched, falling silent as Kaelen stood up slowly. He leaned over the map table, his chest heaving as he fought back a coughing fit that brought the taste of metallic iron to his mouth.

"Seraphina is dead," Kaelen growled, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and hidden terror. "The guards left her at the edge of the Forbidden Mountains three nights ago. No wolf-less human survives a night in those peaks. A Frost-Worg took her."

"Then why does the curse grow stronger every hour?!" Vance demanded, pointing a trembling finger at the black veins creeping up Kaelen’s neck. "If she were dead, the bond would be permanently severed by fate, and the curse would freeze! The rot is active, Kaelen! It is pulsing! That means she is alive!"

The War Room went deathly still.

Kaelen froze, his heart pounding against his ribs like a trapped beast. *Alive?*

The image of her fragile, tear-stained face flashed in his mind. But alongside it came a memory he had buried—the strange, blistering heat that had radiated from her skin right before the guards had dragged her away. The way her hazel eyes had flickered with a terrifying, golden light.

"Alive..." Kaelen whispered, the word tasting like bitter poison on his tongue.

"If she is alive," Victoria said, her voice dropping into a desperate, paranoid whisper, "then she is hiding in the lower valleys. She is conspiring with rogues to weaken us!"

"No," Kaelen said, his eyes locking onto the northernmost region of the map—the dark, unmapped peaks labeled *The Forbidden Realm*. "She isn't in the valleys."

He turned to his chief tracker, a scar-faced warrior standing by the door. "Assemble the elite hunting squad. Fifty trackers, twenty war-bound wolves. We are riding north to the mountain pass."

"Kaelen, no!" Victoria gasped, rushing to grab his arm. "No wolf enters the Forbidden Mountains! It's suicide!"

Kaelen looked down at her hand on his arm, feeling only a cold, detached revulsion. He shook her off with brutal finality.

"If she lives," Kaelen growled, his golden eyes burning with a dark, obsessive hunger, "I will find her. I will drag her back to this altar, force her to accept my mark, and break this curse. And if she refuses... I will chain her to the pack stone until she submits."