The Rejected Luna’s Dragon Sovereign

Chapter 12: The Serpent’s Venom

Chapter 12: The Serpent’s Venom

While the northern mountains warmed beneath the dragon fire, the Bloodmoon Pack house smelled of rot and damp ash.

In the central hall, the grand oak tables were empty. The festive banners of crimson and black hung in tattered, damp strips, ruined by the persistent gray fog that had settled over the valley. At the center of the room, Victoria stood before a heavy stone mirror, violently smearing white powder across her face.

No matter how much makeup she applied, she could not hide the dark, sickly blue circles bruising the skin under her eyes, nor could she hide the faint gray lines creeping up her neck—a secondary symptom of the Rejector's Curse infecting everyone closely tied to the Alpha.

The heavy oak doors groaned open.

Alpha Kaelen stumbled into the hall, supported by two battered guards. His broadsword dragged uselessly along the floor, leaving a thin scratch on the cold stone. His once-striking face was pale, sunken, and caked with dry blood. The black veins of the curse had now covered his entire neck, crawling up past his jawline onto his left cheek.

"Kaelen!" Victoria gasped, dropping her powder box. It shattered on the floor. She rushed forward, but stopped two feet away as the suffocating scent of ozone and sulfur hit her nose. "What happened at the pass?! Where is she?!"

Kaelen pushed the guards away, collapsing heavily into his carved wooden throne. He stared into the empty space of the hall with glazed, unblinking eyes.

"She isn't dead," Kaelen rasped, his voice sounding like dry leaves grinding together. "She was never a wolf."

"What are you talking about?!" Victoria shrieked, grabbing his blood-stained leather mantle. "Did you bring her back or not?! The elders are preparing to strip you of your Alpha title by sunset!"

Kaelen slowly turned his head to look at her. The golden light in his eyes was nearly extinguished, replaced by a dull, terrified gray. "She has wings, Victoria. Wings of black scale and violet fire. She... she is a Dragon Empress."

Victoria froze. Her hands slipped off his mantle as if she had touched red-hot iron. "A... a dragon? That’s a myth! Dragons were wiped out a thousand years ago!"

"Tell that to the fifty warriors lying burned at the mountain pass!" Kaelen roared, a brief, desperate flash of his Alpha aura flaring before he erupted into a violent fit of coughing, spitting dark blood onto the stone dais. "The Dragon Sovereign is with her! He saved her! He called her his Queen!"

Victoria’s mind raced, her shock instantly twisting into a sharp, poisonous rage.

If Seraphina was alive—and carried the blood of a legendary dragon—then Kaelen was completely doomed. The Rejector's Curse would destroy his body within weeks. And when Kaelen fell, Victoria’s dream of becoming Luna, along with all her power, would vanish into thin air. The pack elders would hand her over to rival packs as a scapegoat to appease the heavens.

*No,* Victoria thought, her nails digging into her palms until she drew blood. *I worked too hard for this title. I will not be ruined by an omega servant!*

She stepped closer to Kaelen, her voice dropping into a sweet, venomous whisper. "If she is a dragon... then she is not just a threat to us, Kaelen. She is a threat to every wolf pack on this continent."

Kaelen blinked slowly, looking up at her. "What?"

"The High Council of Alphas," Victoria purred, a dark, wicked smile slowly spreading across her pale lips. "They care nothing for our pack's internal curse, but they *fear* the dragons. If I send word to the Grand Alpha of the Frostfang Coalition—if I tell them a dragon army is preparing to march south to wipe out all wolfkind—they won't just help us. They will assemble the entire Southern Army."

Kaelen stared at her, the dark rot on his jaw throbbing violently. "You want to start a continent-wide war?"

"I want her dead!" Victoria snarled, her eyes flashing with pure hatred. "Let the Coalition tear those mountains down and burn her to ash! We will use their blood to buy our survival!"