The Rejected Luna's Secret Alpha

Chapter 22

The name echoed through the chamber.

Xavier went completely still.

For a moment, I thought he had stopped breathing. His golden eyes remained fixed on the darkness beyond the hidden door, and the blade in his hand trembled almost imperceptibly.

“Who is there?” he demanded.

Something dragged across the stone on the other side.

Then came a quiet laugh.

“Still giving orders, little prince?”

Xavier’s expression changed.

I had never seen him look so vulnerable. Not when the guards had knelt before my power. Not when the black mark appeared on my wrist. Not even when he had remembered the promise his father forced him to make as a child.

This was different.

This voice knew him.

“Stay behind me,” he said.

For once, I didn’t argue.

The darkness beyond the doorway seemed to deepen. The silver crescent on my wrist burned, while the black mark beneath it pulsed like a second heartbeat.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The laughter stopped.

A pair of pale eyes opened in the darkness.

“Ah,” the unseen voice murmured. “The silver heir.”

I swallowed.

“You know who I am?”

“I have waited a very long time for you.”

Xavier stepped forward, raising his blade.

“Answer her question.”

The eyes shifted toward him.

“And you brought the wrong king.”

The words struck harder this time.

Xavier’s golden mark flared, illuminating the chamber. The ancient inscriptions covering the walls began to glow, one after another, until the room was filled with lines of silver and gold.

Then the chains behind the door snapped.

The sound was deafening.

I stumbled backward as a wave of cold air swept through the chamber. Xavier caught my arm, keeping me upright, but his attention never left the doorway.

Something moved inside.

A hand appeared first.

It was pale, almost translucent, with dark metal shackles around the wrist. The chains dragged behind it, scraping against the stone floor.

Then a man stepped into the light.

Or what remained of one.

He was tall, with long black hair streaked with silver. His clothes resembled the ceremonial robes worn by the ancient kings in the archive paintings, although they were torn and stained with something that looked disturbingly like dried blood.

His face was gaunt, but his eyes were sharp.

And on his left wrist rested a golden mark.

The same mark Xavier carried.

I felt Xavier’s grip tighten around my arm.

“No,” he whispered.

The stranger tilted his head.

“You recognize the mark.”

Xavier’s voice turned cold. “Who are you?”

The man smiled.

“You disappoint me, Alaric’s son. Has your father truly taught you nothing?”

“Don’t speak about my father.”

“Why not? He is the reason I am still here.”

Silence filled the chamber.

I looked from the stranger to Xavier.

“Do you know him?”

“No.”

The stranger laughed again.

“A lie. But perhaps not one you chose to tell.”

Xavier raised his blade. “Take another step, and I will end this.”

The man glanced at the weapon.

“That blade was forged to seal this chamber. Not to kill what lies inside it.”

His smile widened.

“And certainly not to kill me.”

Before Xavier could respond, the black mark on my wrist erupted with pain.

I cried out.

The stranger’s eyes snapped toward me.

For the first time, his expression lost its amusement.

“There it is,” he whispered. “The King’s Seal.”

I clutched my wrist. “Why does everyone keep calling it that? What does it mean?”

The man studied me as if I were a page from a book he had spent centuries trying to recover.

“It means the oath has recognized you.”

“Recognized me for what?”

“The truth.”

A sudden pulse of silver energy surged through the chamber.

The stranger staggered.

Xavier immediately moved between us.

“Enough.”

But I barely heard him.

The inscriptions on the walls had changed. Beneath the silver crescents and golden wolves, new words appeared in a language I had never learned but somehow understood.

THE CROWN SHALL COMMAND.

THE BLOOD SHALL REMEMBER.

THE KEEPER SHALL DECIDE.

I stared at the final line.

“The keeper shall decide,” I whispered.

The stranger looked at me sharply.

“Where did you see those words?”

“On the wall.”

“No.” His voice had lost its amusement. “Who showed them to you?”

A memory flashed through my mind.

Silver hair.

Golden chains.

A woman kneeling before a crowned king.

And a voice whispering that something had been taken from her.

“The woman in my visions,” I said. “She showed me what happened here.”

The stranger’s face drained of color.

For the first time, he looked afraid.

“Then she is not gone.”

“Who is she?”

He took a step toward me.

Xavier’s blade immediately blocked his path.

“I wouldn’t,” Xavier warned.

The stranger looked at the weapon, then at the king holding it.

“You still believe you can protect her by standing in front of her.”

“Move another inch, and you’ll discover what I believe.”

For a moment, neither man moved.

Then the stranger slowly raised his shackled hands.

“I don’t want to hurt the girl.”

“That’s what everyone says before they try,” I muttered.

His gaze shifted to me.

“You have her tongue, too.”

My heart skipped.

“Her? You mean the woman?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he turned toward the broken silver crown resting on the pedestal.

“You must understand something, Freya Hale. The oath was never meant to imprison me.”

I glanced at the chains trailing from his wrists.

“Then why are you chained?”

“Because the oath was changed.”

Xavier’s expression hardened.

“We already know that.”

“No,” the stranger replied. “You know someone altered it. You don’t know who, or why.”

He lifted his wrist, revealing the golden mark.

“The first kings swore to guard the sanctuary. The keepers swore to preserve the truth. Neither was meant to rule the other.”

His eyes settled on me.

“Then a king decided that guarding something meant owning it.”

The chamber seemed to grow colder.

“And the First Luna?” I asked.

“She discovered the alteration. She tried to undo it.”

“What happened to her?”

The stranger’s jaw tightened.

“She was betrayed.”

The word echoed through me.

I saw the silver haired woman again, her face twisted with pain as golden chains wrapped around her wrists.

“By the king,” I whispered.

“By the man she trusted.”

I looked at Xavier.

He was watching the stranger with an expression I couldn’t read.

“Who was that king?” he asked.

The prisoner gave him a humorless smile.

“You know his name.”

“Say it.”

“Alaric Blackthorn.”

Xavier’s face went utterly still.

I felt the moment the words reached him. It was as if something inside him had cracked, leaving a silence more frightening than anger.

“That is impossible,” he said.

“Is it?”

“My father was born centuries after the First Luna disappeared.”

“Your father wasn’t the king who first altered the oath.”

The stranger lifted his shackled hands.

“He inherited it. And when he discovered what the oath truly demanded, he made certain the truth remained buried.”

Xavier stepped closer.

“What did he do?”

The prisoner looked directly at him.

“He renewed the binding.”

A deep rumble passed through the chamber.

The golden mark on Xavier’s wrist burned so brightly that he dropped his blade. It struck the floor with a metallic clang.

He staggered, grabbing his forearm.

“Xavier!”

I rushed toward him, but he held up his free hand.

“Stay back.”

His breathing grew ragged. Golden lines spread from his wrist toward his elbow, twisting beneath his skin like living roots.

The stranger watched with grim satisfaction.

“The oath is waking,” he said. “It recognizes its king.”

Xavier dropped to one knee.

A growl tore from his throat, deeper than any sound I had heard from him before. His eyes flashed gold, and for a terrifying instant, I saw the outline of something enormous moving beneath his skin.

His Lycan was fighting to emerge.

I dropped beside him.

“Tell me what to do.”

“Don’t touch me.”

His voice strained against the growl.

The words hurt more than they should have, but I understood. He was trying to protect me from whatever was happening inside him.

Then I remembered the journey to the sanctuary.

The golden mark had hurt him then, too.

And when I touched him, the pain had stopped.

I reached for his wrist.

“Freya, don’t!”

My fingers closed around his hand.

Silver light burst between us.

The pain vanished from Xavier’s face almost immediately. His breathing steadied, and the golden lines beneath his skin slowly retreated