Chapter 4

There was nothing left in my heart to break. Every word from Damien was just poison seeping into the ashes of what we once were.

I looked at him and spoke calmly. "It's your temple, Damien. You're free to let anyone you want live inside."

He stared, stunned. He probably expected me to cry, to scream, to beg for his pity like I used to.

He got none of it.

I simply turned and left the suffocating command center, leaving the signed rejection agreement on his desk and his look of utter shock behind the closed door.

Damien's composure shattered far sooner than I expected.

The next day, on the training grounds, a scream tore through the din.

Lyra had fallen during a combat drill, an arrowhead having grazed her arm. For a Beta warrior raised on the battlefield, it was a trivial scratch.

But the moment her cry reached his ears, Damien was a blur of motion, a gale-force wind descending from the top of the Alpha's watchtower.

He abandoned a high-level strategy meeting—one that would determine the pack's next five years—in a heartbeat.

Before the stunned eyes of all the elders and commanders, he swept a weakly groaning Lyra into his arms and shot like a black bolt of lightning toward my healing chamber.

"Elara!"

He kicked the door open, roaring my name.

I had just finished a twelve-hour energy channeling, stabilizing the lives of three warriors who had been mauled by a dire bear on patrol.

My healing power was nearly depleted, and my face was as pale as paper. I hadn't even had a sip of water.

"Heal her!" he snarled, placing Lyra on my healing table. His eyes were fixed on the shallow cut on Lyra's arm, completely blind to my near-total exhaustion.

Before I could speak, Gideon, one of the pack's Gamma warriors, stepped in front of me.

"Alpha, the Luna needs rest! She's already pushed herself to her limit!" he pleaded.

"Beta Lyra's wound is minor. It just needs a simple bandage!" Gideon's younger brother was one of the warriors I had just saved.

Damien's gaze turned to ice. "Move."

Just then, Lyra pushed herself up slightly on the table, clutching her bandaged arm with a look of pure innocence.

"Alpha, please don't trouble the Luna," she said softly, though her eyes shot me a triumphant glance. "It was my own fault... a small scratch like this doesn't require her attention."

Her words only fueled Damien's protectiveness. At that moment, Pack Elder Kael entered, his expression grim.

"Alpha Damien," he began, but then his voice hardened as he made the announcement. "By order of the Alpha, from this day forward, Lyra will assume the newly created position of Chief Field Medic, with full authority over the herb storehouses and all medical affairs!"

The declaration dropped into the room like a boulder into a still pond. The entire room erupted in chaos. My mind link was flooded with the panicked cries of my pack.

"What? A warrior in charge of the herbs?"

"What about the Alpha's curse on the full moon?"

"What can Lyra do? Wrap a bandage around his head?"

Amid the turmoil, one voice, old but strong, rose above the rest.

It was Borin, an old warrior whose shattered spirit I had once mended. He pointed his one remaining arm at Lyra and roared at Damien.

"A warrior who can't tell the difference between wolfsbane and moonpetal has no right to set foot in the Luna's sacred domain, let alone control it!"

His gaze swung to Lyra, filled with contempt.

"Can you mend a torn soul? Can you quell the flames of a curse?"

Finally, he stared directly at Damien, his voice trembling with rage.

"Alpha, you're not just gambling with the pack's safety—you're gambling with your own life!"