Chapter 16 — The One Who Knew
726 Words
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Lyra had not meant to find him again.
She had walked into the dead lands expecting a strangerthing some faceless power, some shadowed leader she could manipulate.
Instead, fate smiled cruelly.
He stepped from the ruins like a memory that refused to die.
Lean. Scarred. Eyes too sharp with recognition.
Her wolf froze.
Leah did not snarl.
She whispered.
Mate.
The bond snapped into place.
Not gentle.
Not warm.
Violent.
Lyra gasped as if struck, knees nearly giving way, the world tilting sideways as something ancient locked into her soul.
“No,” she breathed. “Not you.”
He smiled slowly, heartbreak and hunger twisted together.
“Hello, Lyra.”
Her voice came out sharp. “You’re dead.”
“I was rejected,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”
One year.
That was how long it had been.
One year since the bond had first awakened between them since she had felt it, recoiled from it, and chosen ambition over fate.
One year since she told him:
I have an Alpha waiting for me. I won’t bind myself to a rogue.
He had not argued.
He had simply watched her leave.
And never stopped following.
Leah stirred uneasily now.
You broke him.
“I told you to disappear,” Lyra said coldly. “You were nothing.”
He stepped closer.
“And yet you felt me every full moon.”
Her breath hitched despite herself.
“You stalked me.”
“I waited,” he said softly. “For you to realize alphas bleed just as easily as rogues.”
Leah growled.
He never let go.
“What is your name?” Lyra demanded, needing control.
His eyes darkened.
“Eryx.”
The name echoed.
And somewhere far away, in Ironfang
Skyler flinched.
Sai went utterly still inside her.
No… Sai whispered. Not him.
A pressure built behind Skyler’s eyes, a memory clawing up from the past like ash through snow.
Eryx.
Her mother’s warning.
The boy who wanted power instead of balance.
The one who betrayed them.
Skyler dropped a bowl in the infirmary, breath catching.
Kaden appeared instantly.
“What happened?”
She shook her head too fast. “Nothing.”
Inside him, Kane stirred sharply.
That was a lie.
Back in the dead lands, Lyra stared at Eryx with new calculation.
“You were Ironfang once.”
“I was Skyfall,” he corrected bitterly. “Before they burned it.”
“You knew Skyler,” Lyra said carefully.
A broken laugh escaped him. “I knew what she was.”
Leah’s ears flattened.
Dangerous.
Eryx told her everything.
How Skyler’s power first manifested not healing, but lunar command.
How the elders hid her as omega.
How he wanted to train her, shape her, use her.
“And when she refused,” he said quietly, “I told the world she existed.”
Lyra’s pulse raced not with fear.
With opportunity.
“You destroyed her pack.”
“I warned them,” he replied. “They chose chains. I chose fire.”
Lyra smiled slowly.
“So the mighty Luna is really just a buried alpha… with a traitor’s shadow.”
Eryx tilted his head. “And now she belongs to Ironfang’s Alpha.”
Lyra’s eyes glittered.
“And you belong to me.”
Leah whispered darkly.
Use him.
That night, Skyler couldn’t sleep.
The bond ached wrong off-key, like something poisonous had entered the melody.
Sai paced inside her.
He’s near. The one who remembers your blood.
Kaden woke with Kane snarling in his mind.
Something old is hunting you both.
At dawn, Lyra passed Skyler in the corridor.
“You never told me,” Lyra said casually, “that fate had such a sense of humor.”
Skyler froze.
“What do you mean?”
Lyra leaned in, voice silk over steel.
“That your past would come back… bonded to me.”
Sai recoiled.
Skyler’s breath left her. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did,” Lyra whispered. “And he remembers everything.”
She straightened, smiling sweetly.
“Especially what you really are.”
From the shadows beyond the gates
Eryx watched Ironfang.
And the Luna he once burned the world for.
And this time, he had a mate who wanted the same thing.
Not balance.
Not healing.
But ruin.
- Writer
