His Sacrificial Luna

Chapter 2

Poppy

The courage I’d scraped together felt like ash in my mouth. It had taken me all morning to force my feet toward the west wing, to the gilded prison where my sister was fading. Jade resided in the heart of Morvath's Black Vein Pack castle, a place that felt more like a tomb for me than a home.

Last night, I laid rigid on my side of the enormous bed, listening to the angry silence radiating from Xerxes. I’d finally drifted into a shallow sleep, only to wake barely thirty minutes later to cold, empty sheets. He couldn’t even bear to share the same space of unconsciousness.

Now, clutching Jade’s worn copy of Metamorphosis, I hovered outside her door. My knuckle was an inch from the ancient wood when I heard it, a muffled, broken sound from within.

My breath hitched. He’d blocked my scent from him months ago, a brutal, deliberate severing. He didn’t just ignore me; he erased my very presence from his senses. We may be mates, but it doesn’t mean he can feel that. He blocked his inner wolf from scenting me, since he believed this is just a force bond.

“You should… go back to her.” Jade’s voice was a threadbare whisper, but it carried a devastating tenderness.

A cold knife twisted in my gut. ‘Go back to her.’ As if I were a duty, a chore he needed to attend to. The guilt was a living thing, gnawing at my bones. I was a coward, yes. But a selfish, screaming part of me wanted to live, too. Was that so unforgivable?

“I don’t care about her, Jade.” Xerxes’ voice, usually so sharp and cold, was molten, raw with a pain I would never inspire. “I care about you.”

Care about you . . .

I couldn’t stop myself. I peeked through the sliver of the door not fully closed.

He was on his knees beside her bed, his broad shoulders slumped, his face—that face of hardened angles and contempt—buried in her pale, delicate hand. He pressed a kiss to her palm, a gesture of such profound reverence it stole the air from my lungs.

She was ghostly. The vibrant, powerful Luna of everyone’s dreams was now translucent, her eyes like clouded sapphires. Yet, she managed a weak smile for him. “I care about you, too. That’s… why I want you to leave me. For now.”

My heart didn’t just break; it shattered into fine, invisible dust. I had never seen him look at anything with that kind of devotion. Not the pack, not his victories, certainly not me. They were the chosen ones.

The Moon Goddess’s true design. Our bond was a clerical error, a ledger entry signed by our greedy parents. And the final insult? He found my natural scent so repellent he had to magically block it out.

“I will find a way to heal you, Jade. I swear it on my life.” His voice was a thick murmur against her skin, a sacred vow.

A faint, ironic smirk touched her cracked lips. “Oh, I’m waiting.” The hopelessness in it was a physical weight. “I don’t want… my sister to have to…”

“Don’t.” His command was immediate, but soft, layered with a protective agony. “Don’t mention her name here. Not in this room.”

She was quiet for a moment, her frail chest struggling for air. Then, a new, fragile pain entered her voice. “Xerxes… did you sleep with her?”

The question hung in the sterile air, laced with a heartbroken jealousy that felt like a brand on my soul. Good for you, sister, I thought with a hysterical, internal sob. He finds me so repulsive he can barely stand to share a mattress. Our “union” was a series of staged photographs—stiff, cold kisses for the cameras, his hands never touching me with anything but clinical distance. The whole pack knew. They watched our hollow performance and bided their time, waiting for her.

His response was a low, vehement growl. “Hell no, sweetheart. Do you really think I could sleep with a stranger?” He pulled back to look at her, his expression fierce. “She may be bound to me by some ancient contract, but—” he paused, the silence heavy with his devotion, “—my heart only bows for you. My body is loyal to you. In every way that matters.”

A sudden gust of wind from a hallway window swept down the corridor. It caught the loose piece of parchment I’d used as a bookmark—a sketch I’d made of Jade when we were children, smiling and whole. It fluttered from the pages like a ghost, dancing through the open door and landing silently on the Persian rug at his feet.

His head snapped up. His eyes, still soft with unshed tears for her, met mine through the crack in the door. They hardened into glacial shards in an instant.

“Poppy!”

I stumbled back, but it was too late. The door was wrenched open with such force it shuddered on its hinges. His hand clamped around my upper arm, fingers biting into my flesh, and he hauled me away from the room like a sack of rubbish.

“I was just visiting—” I stammered, the book clutched to my chest like a shield.

“You were eavesdropping.” He spat the word, his face inches from mine. The fury in his eyes was a living thing, hot and suffocating. The tender man from seconds ago was utterly gone, replaced by a predator. “You pathetic, scheming little—”

“I wanted to give her the book!” I cried, tears of shame and fear springing to my eyes. “I didn’t want to interrupt you with her, so I was waiting—”

“Your excuses are as shallow as you are,” he cut me off, his voice dripping with disdain. “You are not to come near her. Do you understand? I will not have you parading your false concern in front of her, giving her hope where there is none. She suffers enough without your theatrics.”

“She’s my sister!” The word ripped from me, raw and desperate.

He actually laughed then—a cold, cruel sound that echoed in the stone hallway. “Now you claim sisterhood? If that bond meant anything to you, you would have drained that sickness from her veins months ago, instead of groveling for scraps of my attention. You are an embarrassment. To me, to this pack, and to the title you usurp.”

The tears threatened to fall. I saw the triumph in his eyes—he wanted to see me break. Instead, I swallowed the sob, lifted my chin a fraction, and tried to push past him back toward the door.

“f*****g stubborn,” he snarled, his hand shooting out to shove me back.

A weak, rattling cough sounded from the room.

“Let her… Xerxes.” Jade’s voice was barely a whisper, but it was a command he would never disobey.

His hand dropped as if burned. Of course. Her word was law. Mine was static.

I entered, the air thick with medicine and despair. I took the chair beside her bed, the one still warm from him, and placed the book in her lap. “Your favorite.”

A faint, ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Thank you,” she breathed, her eyes struggling to focus. “I miss… the words. I wish I could forget them… so I could experience them again for the first time.” Her gaze, clouded with pain, found mine. “It’s all… slipping away.”

A tear finally escaped, tracing a hot path down my cheek. Seeing her like this, the brilliant sister who overshadowed me in every way, now reduced to this fragile shell, was its own unique agony.

Suddenly, her cold hand shot out and gripped mine with a surprising, desperate strength. Her eyes, pleading and clear for a moment, locked onto mine.

“Poppy,” she whispered, the sound barely forming on her lips. “Please. Help me.”

I gasped, the weight of her plea crushing me. “Jade, I don’t… I don’t know how. The risk—”

She struggled, a terrible rattling seizing her chest as she tried to draw breath to speak. “But… you’re… my…”

“Jade?!” I whimpered, leaning forward.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!”

Xerxes was a blur of motion. He tore my hand from hers as if my touch were acid and shoved me away from the bed. I stumbled, the chair screeching against the floor.

“Get out of this room!” he roared, his body already curved protectively over Jade, his large hand cradling her cheek. “Now!”

“It’s… okay…” she mumbled, her eyes fluttering closed.

“No, my love,” he murmured, his voice dropping back into that devastating, intimate gentleness. He pressed another kiss to her palm. “Don’t waste your strength on someone who doesn’t deserve a single drop of it.”

My love.

The endearment hung in the air, a beautifully wrapped poison.

He turned to me. All softness was gone, replaced by a rage so pure it vibrated in the space between us. He seized my wrist again, his grip so tight I felt the bones grind. “If you ever upset her again,” he hissed, his breath hot against my ear, “if you so much as make her sigh with disappointment, I will strip you bare in front of the entire pack. I will show every last wolf how useless, how hollow, how truly cowardly their Luna is. You are a placeholder. A scar. And I will make sure everyone sees it.”

He then pushed me out of the hallway, slamming the door closed.