The Heir To The Blood-moon

The silver chains bit into Maureen's wrists, drawing thin red welts into her skin. Cold radiated up from the dungeon's stone floor and settled in her bones — an echo of the ice that had held her heart for weeks. Above her stood Cyrus Enderlin, Alpha of Stormfang and her former mate, immaculate in a tailored suit that only made the fury twisting his handsome face more obscene. His eyes had once held love. Now they held only contempt. The man she'd trusted with her soul had become her executioner. "You bear a stranger's pup." His voice was a low rumble of thunder that seemed to shake the foundations of the Enderlin estate itself. Every word was soaked in anger and betrayal. "A bastard. A taint to my bloodline. An insult to my clan." Cyrus's crimson eyes found her tear-streaked face. "You mock my ancestors by carrying that abomination beneath this roof." The safe haven Maureen had once called home was a prison now, a gilded cage turned tomb, where love had rotted into something she no longer recognized. The accusation branded itself onto her with each repetition. Madam Miranda, the pack healer, had already confirmed what no wolf could deny: the scent of the life inside her didn't match Cyrus's. An anomaly. A biological impossibility in a world where mate bonds left an unmistakable signature. Infidelity was a transgression that threatened the purity of a bloodline centuries in the making. But Maureen knew the truth clawing at the walls of her chest. She was innocent. Impossibly, inexplicably innocent. Cyrus's shadow swallowed her small frame whole. He seized her chin, forcing her eyes to his. His touch, once tender, was pure possession now — a violation that turned her stomach. "Who was it, Maureen? Who dared touch what was rightfully mine?" The possessiveness in his voice made her skin tickle. She wasn't a person to him anymore. She was property. Damaged goods. Her silence was a fragile shield, built from terror and the broken, half-formed memory of a night she couldn't fully recall. She truly didn't know — and admitting that to a man who despised action without reason would only invite worse. Her heart thumped hard and heavy inside her ribs, waging a war she can never win, a frantic counterpoint to the quiet life stirring inside her. Unwanted by him, already loved by her. That child was the only truth she had left in a world built on lies. The torment had only escalated since the healer's confirmation. Cyrus wielded his wealth and influence like weapons, and the whole clan had turned against her with sickening speed — omegas who once bowed with obedience now sneering, old friends whispering behind raised hands. No one believed in miracles. Every day stripped away another layer of her dignity, each one a slow, deliberate attempt to force a confession that didn't exist. "I swear on my father's grave, Cyrus." Maureen's voice was broken, desperation finally breaking through. "I've had no outside courtship. I swore myself to you alone, and I've kept that vow. You can confirm it by scent. I've never even stood near another male since we bonded." Cyrus laughed, bitter and hollow. "I gave you a life, Maureen. A home, a family. I spoiled you like the queen I thought you were." His voice dropped, and the quiet was worse than the shouting. "And you repay me with betrayal." He turned away from her, moving toward a table near the cell, its instruments glinting under a flickering bulb. "Cyrus... What are you doing?" Maureen asked with fright and a shaky voice. her blood ran cold. He was probably choosing something to hurt her with. "I'll ask one last time..." His calm was more frightening than his rage. "Who was he?" "I swear to you, my love. I never..." "Who was he!" Cyrus moved with a speed that shouldn't have belonged to any living thing, an Ironspider clenched in his fist, its barbed tips catching the light. He brought it down before she could brace. The shock stole her breath before the pain did. Blood soaked through her gown, its metallic scent tangling with her own fear. This was the man she'd once called her soulmate. She'd known there was darkness in him. She hadn't known he'd turn it on her. He asked again. But she stayed silent, her spirit too crushed to fight for a truth no one wanted to hear. "You lying..." He caught himself, spat instead. "Keep your silence, then. Be grateful it was only the Ironspider. The Judas Crucible waits, if you'd prefer. Or perhaps I should simply put you in the brazen bull." He let the weapon fall, and it struck the stone with a sound that echoed her shattered heart. At the door, he paused, one hand on the bars. "You'll present your blood ring in the square by the next full moon in two days, where every elder, every pack member will witness me denounce you as my mate." His voice cracked, just once, revealing something beneath the fury. "You really are my greatest heartbreak, Maureen." The cell door slammed. The sound rang through her chest and settled somewhere it would echo forever. Her life flashed before her very eyes. A rejected Luna. The greatest shame a wolf could carry. The world would laugh, would cast her out like garbage. She strained against the chains out of habit, and the silver only burned brighter, sapping her wolf from the inside. "This child is yours, Cyrus!" she screamed into the dark, her voice breaking on his name. "He is not a bastard. I am not a liar. I am telling you but the truth. I am..." The words died against stone. It couldn't rise above the stone cell which held her. She tried to relax her hands, but the silver shackles burned painfully on her skin, which made her grieve even worse. Alone, bleeding and broken, she felt the child flutter inside her — small, insistent, a reminder she wasn't entirely alone. Two days until the full moon. Two days until they came for her for a public humiliation. And beneath the pain, a single question burned brighter than the rest: If she hadn't betrayed Cyrus, who had betrayed her? Why couldn't she remember that night?