His Sacrificial Luna

Chapter 3

Poppy

The hurt is a living thing inside me. It coils around my ribs like a thorned vine, tightening with every shallow breath I take in this cold, empty bed. His bed. The one he never shares.

Jade is asleep down the hall. My sister. His heart. And he is with her, of course. Because she was frightened. Because she whispered that he might come to me, and the very idea made her fragile. As if I would ever take something he didn’t freely give. As if I could.

I am a placeholder. A political Band-Aid. My only purpose is to stand at his side, a silent, healing charm to keep the pack stable and the other Alphas from challenging his ascension to King. The irony tastes like ash. I hold the power to mend flesh and spirit, yet I am the most broken thing in this fortress.

The door crashes open.

I flinch, the scent of frost and sandalwood and sheer dominance flooding the room, stealing the air. Xerxes.

He fills the doorway, a sculpture of brutal perfection in a suit that costs more than my life. His eyes, the color of a sea before a storm, sweep over me. They hold nothing. No warmth, no curiosity, certainly no desire. Only a scowl that carves lines of disgust into his beautiful, unforgiving face.

“What are you still doing in bed?”

His voice is a lash. I scramble upright, my heart a frantic bird against my ribs. “I was just—”

“Today is the mandatory gathering.” He cuts me off, taking three precise steps into the room. He stops as if the air around me is contaminated. “The entire pack, and half the continent’s Alphas, are waiting to see their future King and Queen present a united front. And you are lounging like a spoiled pup.”

The words are meant to flay. They succeed. I stand, the silk sheets pooling at my feet, a pathetic barrier.

“I’ll get ready—”

His hand snaps out, fingers like steel manacles around my wrist. The contact is a brand. It’s the first time he’s touched me in weeks. My traitorous skin sings even as my soul shrivels. I force myself to meet his eyes. To look into that frozen fury is to stare into your own execution.

“Shower,” he commands, his thumb pressing into my pulse point, a cruel mockery of intimacy. “You smell like despair.” He releases me with a shove of disgust, as if wiping something foul from his skin. “The dress is laid out. Do not keep me waiting.”

He turns, hands sliding into his pockets—a picture of effortless, contemptuous control—and is gone.

The shower is a punishment. The scalding water does nothing to melt the ice in my veins. I move quickly, mechanically. The “dress he laid out” is exactly what I feared: a cascade of amethyst silk, the exact shade Jade swooned over last season. “The color of twilight royalty,” she’d sighed. Of course he remembers. Of course he wants me to wear her ghost.

A hot, reckless anger bubbles up, sharp and clean through the murk of my pain.

No.

I let the purple fabric slither to the floor like shed skin. In its place, I pull on a dress of my own. Simple, severe black. It hugs every curve I’m supposed to hide, the neckline a defiant s***h. It is not the dress of a healing saint. It is the dress of a woman who is tired of being a ghost.

“I hope he makes you pay for that,” Nyxaria whispers in my mind, her voice a blend of aching longing and feral hurt. My wolf is bonded to his on a level deeper than my conscious mind can fight. She feels his rejection as a physical sickness. But even she is growing tired of hunger.

When I descend the stairs, a hush falls, then a rising tide of whispers. Healer. Stand-in. Pretender. The words are barely concealed. I keep my chin up, my eyes dry.

Xerxes materializes at the base of the stairs, his public mask perfectly in place: the benevolent, powerful King. His smile is a work of art. It fractures something in my chest, because I know the real one—the one that softens his eyes, that lights from within—is reserved for her.

He takes my hand. His touch is gentle for the crowd. As he pulls me close to guide me into the hall, his lips brush my ear, his breath a hot caress that makes me shiver.

“You’re being stubborn,” he growls, the sound velvet-wrapped venom. “You were told what to wear.” His face, turned to the applauding crowd, remains a masterpiece of adoration.

I paste on my own smile, a brittle mirror of his. “The theme is ‘unity,’ Alpha,” I whisper back, my voice sweet as poisoned honey. “I simply thought it was time I stopped dressing as my sister’s understudy.”

His fingers tighten imperceptibly on mine, a warning crush of bone. Then we are swept into the sea of powerful faces.

My parents look nauseous with anxiety. His parents offer thin, supportive smiles that don’t reach their eyes. His sister, Viola, smirks behind her champagne flute with her coven of sycophants.

Then he approaches. Elder Alpha Sebastian, a vulture in a velvet jacket. His eyes, sharp and assessing, strip me bare.

“Beautiful, my dear,” he says, taking my hand. His skin is papery and cold. “But not… what we expected for our future Queen.” He turns to Xerxes, and I feel the blow coming. “Any progress on dear Jade’s condition? When might we expect the true Luna blood to resume its place?”

The world narrows. The chatter, the music, the light—all of it dims. I feel Xerxes go rigid beside me, a wave of cold fury radiating from him. But his voice, when it comes, is smooth as polished stone.

“Soon,” he says, and the word is a nail in my coffin. He glances at me, a flicker of icy expectation. “Poppy simply has a few things left to prove.”

He drops my hand and melts back into the crowd, leaving me standing alone in the wake of Sebastian’s pitying chuckle. The stares are no longer curious. They are contemptuous. My own parents turn away.

The isolation is a physical chill.

“Looking a bit lost, Luna?”

The voice is new. Warm. I turn to find a man with sun-gold curls and a smile that holds no mockery. He’s young, maybe my age, with eyes the color of summer oak.

“I’m not lost,” I say, but it’s the weakest lie I’ve ever told.

“Caleb,” he offers, extending a hand. “Your mate’s greatest regret on the circuit.” A playful wink. “New transfer. You’ve probably only had eyes for the old winner. But now I’m here, I’m new, I . . . can defeat him.” He sounds so confident with his eyes on me and I couldn’t help but appreciate it.

Before I can process it—the kindness, the lack of agenda—he asks, “May I have this dance?”

I look across the room. Xerxes is holding court, his back to me, utterly unconcerned. A reckless, wounded part of me screams yes.

I place my hand in Caleb’s. “Who am I to refuse a dance?”

His laugh is genuine. “Who are you? You’re the Luna with the hands that could restart a heart.”

He leads me into a waltz. His hand is respectful on my waist, his steps confident. For one minute, two, I am not a placeholder. I am just a girl dancing. I almost forget to hurt.

“So, you’re the one who finally gives Xerxes Morvath a run for his money?” I ask, a faint, real smile touching my lips.

“I’m the one who’s going to beat him,” Caleb corrects, grinning. “Next week, at the Bloodstone Curve, I—”

The music screeches to a halt.

I am ripped from Caleb’s hold so violently I stumble. Xerxes stands between us, his body a wall of unleashed, silent rage. The crowd has fallen utterly silent.

He doesn’t look at Caleb. His entire world has narrowed to me. His eyes are pure, unadulterated hell.

“You’re flirting with random men now?” he snarls, the words so low, so venomous, only I can hear them. His hand grips my upper arm, fingers biting deep. “You dare to flaunt yourself? To smile for another man when you haven’t even earned the right to breathe my air?”

He yanks me against him, our bodies aligned for the stunned onlookers. It looks like a possessive embrace. It feels like being trapped against a falling glacier.

“That dress,” he hisses into my hair, his lips moving like a lover’s, “makes you look exactly like what you are. Desperate. And it disgusts me.”

He shoves me away with a final, vicious squeeze. Not a subtle release, but a public rejection. I stagger, the heat of humiliation burning my cheeks hotter than any anger.

He turns and walks away without a backward glance.

Viola’s laughter tinkles like breaking glass across the silent hall. I stand there, exposed, the black dress now feeling like a target. The whispers return, twice as sharp.

“It’s over,” Nyxaria whimpers inside me, her voice choked with a longing so deep it’s a physical ache. He will never want us. Not like this.

“What are you saying?” I think, despair drowning me.

Save your sister, Poppy. My wolf’s voice firms, cutting through the fog of misery with a stark, clear clarity. It is the only thing you have left to do. The only way to make the pain stop. Save her. And then… let go. Do not plead anymore.

She is right. The crushing weight of it all—my parents’ averted eyes, the pack’s disdain, the searing, relentless hatred in Xerxes’ touch—it all funnels down to one simple, terrible truth.

My worth is tied to a life I cannot live. My only path to peace is through the ultimate sacrifice.

I will heal Jade. I will give him back his true Luna.

Even if the effort tears the very soul from my body.

Even if it kills me.

And perhaps, a final, broken part of me whispers, that is the point.

After all, rumor has it my parents only decided to make another baby, which is me, for my heart to be sacrificed for Jade . . . But her sickness became something else, a curse. And I may not be able to give her my heart, but I can heal her with my being.