Ashes and Awakening
828 Words
Seraya’s scream echoed across the ruins, raw and primal. She was on her knees, blood dripping from her knuckles, her breath fogging in the night air.
Lucien stood nearby, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
“That’s it,” he said, voice low. “Feel it. Let it in.”
She gritted her teeth, stood again, and slammed her fist into the stone post. The bones in her hand cracked—then immediately began to knit back together.
“Again.”
Seraya hit it.
“Again.”
Hit.
“You want to kill Kael? You want vengeance on the Elders? Then bleed for it.”
She roared and punched the stone until her hands were slick with blood and moonlight. She wasn’t just angry—she was consumed.
Lucien finally stepped forward and gripped her wrist. “Enough for tonight.”
She yanked her hand away, chest heaving. “I can go more.”
“I know you can. That’s not the point.” He knelt, forcing her to look him in the eye. “You’re fighting like a wounded wolf, not a killer. You’ve got rage—but no control.”
Seraya swallowed the lump in her throat. “I don’t want control. I want them to suffer.”
Lucien’s eyes darkened. “Good. But if you want to break an Alpha, you have to become something more than a broken mate.”
That night, Lucien handed her a blade—long, curved, silver-lined. Not just any blade.
A soulbound fang.
Forged by rogue blacksmiths and imbued with the spirit of a dying wolf, the weapon thrummed in her hand like it had a heartbeat of its own.
She could barely breathe.
“You’re not the first,” Lucien said, sitting across from her. “There’ve been others. Cast out. Left to die. I trained them too.”
“What happened to them?”
“They died,” he said simply.
Seraya blinked. “And you still train others?”
“I don’t train the weak. I train the furious.”
She gripped the blade tighter. “Then I’ll be the last one you ever train.”
Lucien smiled. “Now that’s the fire I’ve been waiting for.”
As the days turned to weeks, Seraya changed.
Her punches grew heavier. Her wolf began emerging more during training, more confident. She sparred, ran, meditated with runes carved into her back—Lucien said the pain was a teacher. And for the first time, Seraya listened.
Her dreams, however, got worse.
Visions of Kael, standing over her with silver eyes. Of Seline in a white gown soaked in blood. Of fire swallowing the Moonstone Pack whole. And always—always—a girl’s voice whispering her name.
“Seraya… you are not what they told you.”
One night, she couldn’t take it anymore. She confronted Lucien near the Reckoning altar, gripping her soulbound fang in one hand.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
He didn’t flinch. “There are many things I’m not telling you.”
She stepped closer. “Why do I dream of her? Why do I hear her voice in the ruins? I feel something. Like… like there’s something inside me that doesn’t belong to me.”
Lucien’s gaze sharpened. “You’ve started hearing her already? Shit.”
“Who is she?”
He hesitated.
Then: “Her name was Lysara.”
Seraya frowned. “That name’s in the old texts. She was the daughter of the first rogue Alpha.”
Lucien nodded. “She was burned at the stake. Her power was split and buried in the bones of banished wolves.”
“Why is she inside me?”
He sighed. “Because the moon never forgets. And neither do the cursed. You carry her bloodline.”
Seraya’s knees buckled.
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s not only possible, it’s why they cast you out,” Lucien said. “You weren’t rejected because you weren’t worthy. You were rejected because you were dangerous.”
That night, Seraya stood alone in the ruins, staring up at the moon.
Her blood felt like lightning. Her soulbound fang glowed faintly in her hand.
Everything she thought she knew—about Kael, her pack, her rejection—was a lie.
She hadn’t been discarded.
She’d been silenced.
And now?
Now she would howl so loud the moon herself would bleed.
Moonstone Pack Territory
Kael paced in his war chamber, fists clenched at his sides. The Elders had called for a meeting. Seline was nowhere to be found, as usual. The pack was on edge.
Something was coming.
He could feel it.
Ever since Seraya had vanished… he hadn’t felt peace.
The mate bond had broken—but not cleanly.
He still dreamed of her.
Still felt her—like a thorn embedded in his chest.
Kael stopped in front of the moon mirror and stared at his reflection.
“What have I done?” he whispered.
- Writer
