CHAPTER 5. SUNLIGHT AND STONE.

Alina.

The footsteps were soft, hesitant. They paused outside my door just as I was about to drift into an uneasy sleep. My hand froze under the blanket, fingers tightening around the edge as though bracing for another fight.

But there was only silence.

A long breath. The kind someone takes when they're about to speak but doesn't. And then, retreating steps.

I heard murmuring, then again I couldn't be sure it wasn't the wind.

I didn’t move. Not until the sound had faded, swallowed up by stone and distance.

It knew it was Lucan. I could feel him, I couldn't tell if it was because of the mating ritual or something else.

My heart still beat fast, a quiet drum in my chest. I pressed a palm to the spot and whispered into the dark.

“Why do I feel like I know you?”

The sun rose slowly the next morning, stretching fingers of gold across the silk curtains. The light painted my walls in honey and fire, touched the stone floors with warmth they hadn’t earned.

I lay there, watching it change the shape of my world. One quiet second at a time.

The bed was too big. The frame is carved from some kind of dark redwood, polished to a near mirror-shine. The headboard was etched with runes I couldn’t read, wrapped in symbols that prickled against my skin when I leaned too close.

A canopy of gossamer curtains hung above, caught slightly in the breeze from the open window, and they swayed like ghosts in a dream.

The silence was too full, then suddenly, there was a soft knock on the door.

“My lady?”

The door opened before I could answer. A young woman entered carrying a tray laden with things too beautiful to eat, warm bread in a woven basket, rose-petal jam, honeycomb still dripping golden, spiced sausage links, and a glass pitcher of what looked like freshly squeezed citrus nectar. The scent of lemon and wild thyme floated through the room like a spell.

She was petite, blonde, with a high, nervous voice and a bustle of skirts too big for her frame. Her name, she told me after a deep curtsy, was Elena.

“I’ve been assigned as your personal maid,” she said, smiling with just enough warmth to seem genuine. “Though the Alpha said ‘lady-in-waiting’ would sound better.”

“Lady-in-waiting?” I repeated, raising an eyebrow.

She winced. “Honestly, I think it’s all a bit dramatic too. But titles matter around here.”

The furniture in the room around us looked too fine to be real, an armoire of bone-white wood inlaid with silver vines, a sitting area by the hearth with chairs that looked straight out of a royal portrait, and a long carved vanity topped with polished quartz.

I bit into a piece of the warm bread, surprised by how it melted against my tongue. Elena beamed like she’d baked it herself.

Later, she dressed me in a soft brown gown with forest green embroidery that looked hand-stitched. I protested gods, I hated being fussed over, but she said the Alpha had arranged a tour of the grounds.

“To help you feel more at home.”

Right. I did an internal eye roll.

The palace was a fortress carved into ancient stone, alive with whispers of old magic. The halls were wide and echoing, lit by tall windows and sconces that flickered with cold blue fire.

We exited through a stone archway and came to a long balcony that overlooked the entire packland.

Terraces dipped into training fields. Further out: the village, modest homes, smoke curling from chimneys, children darting like shadows. Beyond that, a forest so dense it looked like spilled ink across the horizon.

I didn’t realize someone else had joined us until Elena curtsied.

“My lady,” said a deep voice behind me. “A pleasure.”

I turned.

The Beta.

He was tall, tanned, built like a warrior and smiling like he didn’t want to scare me. A faint scar sliced across his eyebrow, giving him a roguish sort of charm.

“Theol,” he introduced, offering his arm with the ease of someone used to diplomacy. “Lucan’s second. I was told you might want a proper look at your new home.”

His wife joined us moments later. She was a graceful woman named Marielle, whose eyes held years of laughter and storm. Her arm slid easily through Theol's, her presence grounding.

We walked the perimeter of the palace first, gardens that needed tending, sparring pits where warriors trained, a still lake fed by mountain streams. Marielle pointed out wild herbs. Theol cracked jokes about the pack warriors trying too hard to impress the new Luna.

I laughed more than I meant to.

For the first time since taking the blood covenant and everything that's been happening, I didn’t feel like a prisoner.

They left me at the edge of the inner garden.

“I figured you’d want space, I apologise for our first encounter,” Theol said, with a wink.

The garden was… forgotten. Not dead, but untamed, vines spilled over stone benches. Wildflowers choked the borders. But the air was sweet. Still sacred.

A gnarled tree rose in the center, twisted and strange, its bark black with age. I sat beneath it, exhaling a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

Stone planters cracked with time and sat along the edges, and a rusted wrought-iron trellis arched overhead, now more moss than metal. Something about it reminded me of childhood dream ruins kissed by magic.

I took the edge of my skirt and tore a piece off. Reached into my pocket for the stub of charcoal I’d hidden the night before.

And drew.

A rune. Strange and jagged. One I’d seen in the observatory earlier. It came to me easily, like I’d drawn it a thousand times.

I didn’t know what it meant. But it felt like it knew me.

The wind shifted, brushing my cheek.

Somewhere above, a window shut.

Night fell like a slow hush. I stood on my balcony, arms resting on the cold stone. Across the way, light flickered in Lucan’s chamber.

I didn’t look long. Just enough.

That familiar ache stirred in my chest again. The one I couldn’t name.

I whispered to the dark:

“Why do I feel like I’ve lost something I never had?”

The wind didn’t answer.

But it didn’t feel quite so cold anymore.