Chapter 2
1133 Words
“Well now, isn’t this something?”
The crowd began to buzz as those who recognized the voice jolted, gazing among themselves in disbelief.
Chrystal's head snapped up, her careful mind immediately registering the threat even as her body betrayed her, pulling toward the sound that seemed to fill her lungs with air so fresh she wondered lightly whether she had ever actually breathed before that moment.
A shifter stepped out from the darkness. Tall, broad-shouldered, with storm-gray eyes and a face carved from stone, moving with a seasoned predator’s steady, purposeful stride.
Scars lined his forearms, a testament to countless battles. His black cloak barely concealed the lethal muscles beneath as the night breeze pulled at it, revealing his broad chest and taught torso.
As he approached, his cold eyes scanned the crowd like a wolf regarding sheep, even as the shifter was alone, in the presence of enemies, a cruel smile playing on his lips as if he were enjoying some private joke at everyone else’s expense.
Whispers swept through the clearing in waves. A name fell from someone’s lips, tinged with horror. “Castian Rhodes!”
“The rogue Alpha!” another whisperer said.
The traitor. What no one said. The words hanging, invisible, in the very air surrounding the controlled disbelief of the gathered shifters.
Chrystal's breath hitched. She knew that name, knew the stories. This uninvited guest had once been a member of their pack, but had been banished years ago under circumstances shrouded in mystery and whispered accusations.
Why is he here? Isn’t he supposed to be dead, his bones turned to dust in the wild? The questions tumbled through her mind as her eyes sought her father more desperately now.
She knew the implications of what was happening. She was the next Luna of the Moonblaze pack, the daughter of the Alpha King, raised to be a queen; she knew the rules.
To have a mate bond with the shifter who had just revealed himself, with a rogue wolf, had too many consequences, each one worse than the other.
At best, she could be banished. At worst, she would be killed. Chrystal could already see the path her pack would have to follow.
She had to get in front of it, to save her life, to fulfill her destiny. She had to talk to the only one who could stop or at least delay any drastic actions.
“Father!” she called out to her father in the pack link, or tried to. The bond formation was a sacred process. Nothing stopped it, not even death; no psychic abilities would get through or to either party.
Chrystal’s eyes shot back to the rogue approaching with a calmness that belied the truth that he, too, was being pulled. The intruder did not appear to be in any discomfort. Is it only me? Why? Chrystal thought as she watched the wolf move with the pacing of a hunter, a warrior, a killer.
Her heart suddenly sped up from a different surge, even as the bond burned every fiber of her being. Her stomach tightened with an unimagined longing, even as the dangers filled her mind like a roiling storm.
He is a rogue wolf, a disgrace to our pack! The goddess wouldn’t make such a mistake as to bind us. But once this ends, I will become a rogue! Moonblaze will brand me as what he is!
Her eyes narrowed as she and Castian continued to approach each other, and pack warriors surrounded the three – Chrystal, Castian, and Dorien – moving silently as the crowd looked on in disbelief.
Slowly, with the regal dignity that had been bred into her bones, Chrystal straightened despite the pain that had not receded by an inch.
She had been taken by surprise, but that shock had passed, and the distraction of the rogue’s raw power beneath the thin cloak had been overtaken as Chrystal analyzed what lay before her, all the while controlling her expression and reactions.
If I become a rogue…No. This isn’t real. It can’t be! Someone has done something…Him! This rogue! He must have done something! This is a plan to harm my father, to cause an uproar in the Kingdom!
Why else would he be here? Disruption. That’s what this is. I’ll talk to Father. I’m not a rogue! Father will look into this…
Chrystal’s face relaxed as determination replaced panic, though her brow was covered in beads of sweat, and her chest was tight, making breathing difficult.
Something flashed across the stone face that her blue-green eyes were boring into. It had disappeared instantly, like shadows in the presence of light, but Chrystal’s sharp eye had caught what seemed like cynicism at its core.
She gritted her teeth, holding back a snarl that would have been unworthy of a Luna, even in such extraordinary circumstances.
When Castian's gaze met hers, his expression was unreadable, but there was a flicker of dark amusement in his cold gray eyes, which seemed to have assessed her in some way that went beyond the present moment, compared or weighed something, but was yet to conclude.
An unwelcome shiver shot through Chrystal's body, stirring something deep in her core, once again, that she refused to acknowledge or name.
She tore her gaze from those storm-grey depths that seemed to see too much, to know too much, to promise mysteries dark, deep, and so much more, scanning the crowd for the familiar anchor of her father's presence in the sudden nightmare that her carefully planned future had turned into in less than a heartbeat.
Alpha Mason Barone stood frozen on the dais, surrounded by guards, his face pale as death as he watched the rogue approaching his daughter. He did not move or speak. He was the Alpha King; he had to maintain his poise.
If his daughter could not rave and scream in the face of real danger, there was no way that he, the ruler of an entire Kingdom, would stoop so low.
Chrystal reluctantly drew her gaze away from her father.
He’s too far away, anyway, she thought hurriedly. If I were a fighter, I could have run for it, but from the way this rogue moves…It would be a joke to try…
Her eyes rested on Castian once again. He had stopped his advance, just feet away from her, those eyes, those lips, radiating a disdain Chrystal could not understand.
“Why…why are you here?” she asked hoarsely, watching the rogue wolf carefully as Darius moved forward on her right, his blue eyes on fire.
Chrystal’s mind was still spinning.
The timing is too perfect…This isn’t random! Is he alone? Is this some kind of trap? For me, for my father? For…Darius?!
Her pulse spiked.
- Writer
