Chapter Two
1818 Words
ELIRA
Dawn two.
My shoulder was stitched with fire. Neris did what she could, but wolfsbane still ate through my veins. No shift. No healing. Just human pain.
“Second day’s worse,” the guard sneered, yanking my chains. “Alpha’s mate-to-be is watching today. Lady Kaia wants a show.”
Mate-to-be.
Of course he had one. Pretty. Pureblood. Proper.
The thought shouldn’t have burned. It did anyway.
The pits were louder today. More nobles. More Blackfangs. And on the Alpha ledge, three new faces.
Kaia Draven, spear in hand, eyes like frozen daggers.
Varik Holt, waiting for me to die.
And a male I didn’t know. Younger than Kael. Same black hair, but his eyes weren’t silver-ice. They were warm. Too warm for Bloodfang.
He looked at me in chains and flinched.
KAEL
“Brother, this is barbaric,” Dain said quietly beside me. “She’s half-human. She won’t last”
“She killed six warriors,” I cut him off. “She’ll last until I decide she doesn’t.”
Lie. She should have died yesterday.
I hadn’t slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw moon-white flash behind my eyelids. Heard her voice "Your commands don’t work on me, Alpha".
No one defied Alpha command. Not rogues. Not elders. Not even my father.
So what was she?
The gate opened.
This time, no feral.
Kaia dropped into the pit. Spear spinning. Armor gleaming. The crowd lost its mind.
“Alpha’s favored gets first blood,” Varik announced. “Let’s see if the hybrid bleeds red or something else.”
My wolf went still. Then it growled. Low. Possessive.
I frowned. Since when did I care who drew her blood?
ELIRA
Of course he sent his woman to kill me.
Kaia circled, spear tip kissing the dirt. She was fast. Trained. Not a mindless feral. This was personal.
“You exist, and you’ve already ruined him,” she said, too low for the crowd. “Do you know how long I’ve bled for Kael Viremont?”
“Then you should hate him,” I spat. “He’s the one keeping me alive.”
Her eyes flickered. She lunged.
I moved. Pain ripped through my shoulder, but I ducked. The spear carved air where my throat was. I caught the shaft with my shackles. The wolfsbane burned my palms.
Kaia twisted, kicked my ribs. I hit the ground hard. Taste of blood. Again.
She raised the spear to finish it.
And the entire pit stopped.
KAEL
The scent hit me.
Her blood. Fresh. On the dirt. On Kaia’s spear.
My vision tunneled.
The world went silent except for one sound: my wolf, slamming against my ribs, roaring. Not in rage.
In recognition.
Heat flooded my veins. Possessive. Violent. Wrong.
Mine.
The word tore through my skull, foreign and ancient and impossible.
Hybrids weren’t
She wasn’t
Mates were sacred. Pure. Blessed by the Moon.
Not this. Not her.
“STOP.”
My Alpha command cracked across the pits like thunder. Not aimed at her. At Kaia.
Kaia froze, spear an inch from Elira’s heart. Her face went pale. The whole crowd felt it. Even Dain stepped back.
I was on my feet. Shadows bleeding from my shoulders. My claws were out. I didn’t remember shifting them.
ELIRA
His voice almost knocked me out cold. But it wasn’t the command from yesterday.
This was different. Raw. Uncontrolled.
He looked at me like he’d seen a ghost. Like he wanted to kill me and claim me in the same breath.
What the hell was that?
Kaia was shaking. “Kael, I”
“Get out of the pit.” His voice was gravel. Dangerous. “Now.”
She obeyed. She had to.
He stared down at me. For one second, the ice in his eyes cracked. Behind it was something feral. Lost. Hungry.
Then it was gone. Slammed shut.
“Two dawns,” he said to the crowd, to Varik, to himself. “She fights again tomorrow.”
He left before anyone could speak.
DAIN
My brother never lost control.
Never.
But when that hybrid bled, Kael Viremont looked like he’d been stabbed himself.
And I’d grown up in the temple with Mother. I knew what that look meant.
Moon blessed. Fated. Mate.
Impossible.
I looked down at the girl in the pit. Bleeding. Glaring at the empty ledge where Kael stood.
And I realized two things
My brother was about to go to war with himself
That girl was going to destroy us all. Or save us.
ELIRA
They dragged me out again.
Neris was waiting, face white. “His eyes… girl, his eyes went black when you bled.”
“I know,” I whispered.
My heart was beating too fast. Not from the fight.
From him.
When he roared that command, something in my chest
pulled. Like a chain I didn’t know was there. Like my blood knew his.
No.
I was half-human. Hybrids didn’t get mates. Mates were for purebloods. For them.
This was Moon-Blood Shift. This was trauma. This was hate.
Wasn’t it?
KAEL
I shattered the mirror.
My knuckles bled silver-black. Shadow Alpha blood. Wrong. Impure.
The word echoed in my skull: Mine.
Impossible.
Mates were a blessing from the Moon Goddess. Pure. Sacred. Meant to strengthen the Alpha line.
Not a half-human. Not an abomination that bled in my pits and made my wolf howl like a lost pup.
I gripped the edge of the washbasin. My reflection stared back crownless, feral, eyes still ringed in black from the loss of control.
Father would execute me if he knew. Execute her slower, just to make me watch.
A knock. “My King.” Varik. “The council demands answers. You stopped Kaia’s spear. In public.”
“Let them demand,” I snarled. “She fights at third dawn. Law is law.”
“Law says hybrids die on sight, Kael.” Varik’s voice lowered. “You’re not acting like yourself. Since her.”
My shadows lashed out. The door splintered. Silence.
“Get out.”
I waited until his footsteps faded. Then I pressed my forehead to the cold stone and whispered the one truth I couldn’t command away:
“Why does her blood smell like home?”
ELIRA
Neris didn’t speak while she changed my bandages. She just kept glancing at the door. At the shadows.
“Stop looking at me like I’m a ghost,” I snapped.
“You’re worse,” she whispered. “You’re a omen.”
The cell door opened. I expected guards. Got him instead.
Not Kael.
The warm eyed one from the ledge. Dain Viremont. No guards. No chains in his hands. Just a waterskin and bread he set on the floor.
“My brother would kill me if he knew I was here,” he said. No pretense. No Alpha bark.
“Then why are you?” I didn’t touch the food.
He studied me. Not like Kael did like I was a threat. Like I was a person.
“Because when you bled, his eyes went black.” Dain’s voice was soft. “Do you know what that means in the old tongue?”
“Don’t.” I stood, chains rattling. “Whatever poison you’re selling, I’m not buying.”
“Mate,” he said anyway.
The word punched the air from my lungs.
I laughed. It sounded broken. “I’m hybrid. Hybrids don’t get mates. We get pyres.”
“Neither do Shadow Alphas who reject the Moon,” Dain countered. “Yet here we are.” He stepped closer. “He doesn’t know. Or he won’t admit it. But his wolf does. And if Kael keeps denying it, the bond will rot him from the inside. Shadow into madness.”
My stomach dropped. “Good. Let him rot.”
“Let him rot, and he takes the whole Dominion with him. Including you.” Dain’s eyes hardened. “Third dawn. You survive, and you leave my brother a choice: claim you, or kill you. There is no third option.”
He left the bread. Left me with a truth I couldn’t unhear.
Mate.
No. I wouldn’t.
KAIA
“He chose her.”
The words tasted like wolfsbane.
My father, Lord Draven, paced my chambers. “You’re the strongest Luna candidate in three generations. And he stops your spear for that?”
“It’s not choice,” I hissed. “It’s sickness. Hybrids carry disease. That’s why they’re outlawed.”
“Then cure him.” Father dropped a vial on the table. Silver liquid. Labeled Moon’s Leash. “One dose in his wine. It severs instinct. Wolves who drink it feel no bond. No pull. No weakness.”
I stared at it. Kael Viremont was mine. By blood. By politics. By right.
If he was bound to her… I’d rather him bound to nothing.
I pocketed the vial.
“Third dawn,” I said. “She won’t see fourth.”
KAEL
Midnight.
I shouldn’t have gone to the cells.
I told myself it was to ensure she was fit for third dawn. To ensure the law was followed.
Lies.
She was asleep. Or pretending. Curled on the stone, back to the door, bandages dark with old blood. So small. So breakable.
And my wolf… whined.
I gripped the bars until my claws drew blood.
The scent hit me again. Not just blood. Her. Underneath the wolfsbane and filth was lightning and rain and something wild I’d never known I was missing.
Mates don’t resist commands. Father’s law.
Yet she did.
Mates don’t make you weaker.Pack law.
Yet I’d nearly killed Kaia for raising a spear to her.
I reached through the bars before I could stop myself. One finger, brushing the air above her torn shoulder. Not touching. Never touching.
She flinched awake. Those moon-bright eyes locked on mine. No fear. Just hate. And something else. Something that mirrored the ache in my chest.
“Come to watch me die, Alpha?” Her voice was ruin and defiance.
I should have said yes. Should have reminded her she was nothing.
Instead, my voice came out gravel and broken: “If you die in my pits, Elira Dawnshade…”
I couldn’t finish. I die with you was treason.
So I left.
And her scent followed me all the way to my chambers. Choking me. Claiming me.
ELIRA
He came.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t gloat. He just looked at me like I was a war he was already losing.
And for one insane second, when his hand hovered over me, I didn’t want to move away.
Dain’s word burned in my skull. Mate.
No.
I was Elira Dawnshade. Daughter of Lyanna. Half-human. Hybrid. Enemy
I wouldn’t be the Alpha’s leash. I wouldn’t be his weakness.
Third dawn, I’d walk into those pits.
And I’d make Kael Viremont regret the second he didn’t kill me.
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- Writer
