Mine

Chapter Five

The dungeon cell felt like a hot, suffocating furnace as the night hours slowly dragged by. Rourke had pushed a cracked clay pot through the iron slot at midnight, his movements incredibly stiff and frantic. 

His right hand was a gruesome mess of thick white bandages, oozing a dark fluid where two fingers had been freshly cut off. He wouldn’t even meet my eyes. He kept his head lowered, the proud, terrifying posture of the Nightbane enforcer completely shattered.

"Alpha's order for your wrists," he muttered, his voice trembling before he quickly retreated back into the dark hallway.

I pried off the heavy lid of the pot gently with my teeth, my hands still shaking too much to get a proper grip. 

The paste inside was a pale, sickening green. It smelled heavily of crushed mountain herbs and something sharp, like copper. The bastards know medicine, I thought bitterly, scooping the cold muck onto my raw, cut skin.

I bit down on my lower lip until the metallic taste of my own blood filled my mouth. I waited for the searing, white-hot pain of the ointment to dull down to a distant, freezing throb. My eyes watered from the intense sting. No one was watching me in the dark, I let the hot tears fall silently down my cheeks. 

Three hours later, the heavy iron door groaned open again.

Four female warriors stepped into the cell. Sharp knives caught the flickering torchlight at their hips, and heavy crossbows were slung across their backs.

They did not touch me roughly. The warrior in front was broad-shouldered with a jagged scar cutting straight through her left eyebrow. She stepped forward and jammed a heavy iron key into the collar around my neck. Her fingers shook noticeably against my bare skin.

The lock clicked open.

"Alpha ordered it," she said, her voice incredibly tight. "You walk free. But if you try to run, we will put chains straight through your knees."

The sudden weight gone from my throat made me instantly dizzy. I stumbled, catching myself against the damp stone wall.

"Where is he?" I asked, my voice still a low, rough rasp.

"Waiting," one of them answered, gesturing toward the exit.

The Great Hall had been thoroughly scrubbed. Everywhere I looked was spotless and perfectly clean. 

No dark, spreading bloodstains clung to the corners of the stone floor. No soot or ash remained on the heavy pillars. Not a single trace remained to prove that this magnificent place had been a horrific slaughterhouse just two days ago. They had wiped away the evidence of my pack's demise.

Kieran stood directly at the high dais.

He wore no armor today. He was dressed simply in a tight black shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, exposing thick forearms corded with muscle and crossed, pale scars that caught the brilliant torchlight. He did not look at me when the guards brought me in. He kept his golden eyes fixed firmly on the grand entrance.

I kept my face entirely empty. I had vowed to say nothing, to be the perfect, obedient puppet he needed if it meant keeping my little brother Caleb alive.

The high priest’s voice echoed powerfully through the high wooden rafters. "Lyra of Blood Moon, Luna of Nightbane."

I walked up the stone steps with measured, deliberate strides. I forced my weight evenly onto both feet to hide the heavy limp from my cell confinement. Keeping my tightly bandaged wrists pressed flat against the velvet of my blue dress, I looked straight ahead. I refused to look down at the staring crowd. I took my place exactly one step behind Kieran's broad shoulder.

The Luna's place. The elegant lie we were both selling to the world.

The massive oak doors groaned, and the council finally entered the hall.

They were five leaders in total—four men and one woman. Their faces were deeply lined and weathered, looking old in the unique way mountains are old. An immense, suffocating power radiated off them like the heavy air right before a catastrophic lightning strike. Their sharp eyes sliced instantly from me to Kieran, then back to me. They were tracking the precise distance between us, calculating our every breath.

Thorne of Redfang moved first.

He was an absolutely massive man, a wall of muscle with coarse grey hair frosting his temples. He stopped ten feet away from the dais and inhaled deeply through his nose. His nostrils flared as his eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

"Alpha Kieran," he said, his voice sounding like grinding gravel. "Explain what this is."

Kieran didn't blink. He didn't even shift his stance. "Explain what?"

"The girl." Thorne pointed two thick fingers directly at me, treating me like a confiscated piece of weaponry sitting on a war table. "You burned down the Blood Moon territory. You executed Haakon. Now you parade his sole heir in your hall and call her Luna? Is there something this council needs to know?"

Kieran stood up slowly. He towered over the council, the fire pits throwing long, dancing shadows across the jagged scars on his jaw. When he stepped off the dais, every single warrior in the room instinctively shifted their weight. Hands drifted toward silver sword hilts. Eyes tracked his every movement, glued to him not because of his noble title, but because the air always grew thin around an apex predator.

"I killed Haakon because he broke the sacred law," Kieran said, his voice low, steady, and vibrating with absolute authority. "He harbored human rebels for years. He lived when he should have paid."

"And what about her?" Thorne pressed, his gaze boring into my face, searching for a crack in my mask.

"I'm keeping her."

The words fell through the hall like heavy blocks of lead. Even the logs in the roaring fire pits seemed to stop cracking.

"You felt like making the daughter of a traitor your Luna?" Thorne sneered, stepping a step closer. "We all know how much you hated Haakon. You swore to destroy his entire household, and now you are standing with his daughter? Just open up to us and tell us why—"

"A Luna is not just a passing thought in Nightbane," Elder Kellan's voice cut through the mounting tension as the rest of the pack elders filed into the hall. They were Kieran's extended family—old, bitter wolves with silver-streaked hair and cold, unyielding dispositions.

Kellan walked straight up to the dais and bowed his head slightly to Kieran, though his mouth pinched into a hard line of disgust. "A Luna is law. It is tradition, requiring a lifetime of training. This girl knows absolutely nothing of our pack's ways."

"Then she will learn," Kieran said. He did not raise his voice, but the quiet tone carried a lethal, razor-sharp edge. "All she needs is a guide."

Elder Dorran exhaled sharply through his nose, his jaw clenching tightly. "This is reckless, Kieran. The other packs will talk. It looks like a lawless coup."

"Then let them talk," Kieran replied coldly, dismissively. "Blood Moon got exactly what it deserved. I think that is the only thing that matters."

Elder Kellan turned his back on Kieran, facing the council directly. "The Alpha has made his decision, but we elders will not accept her. She knows nothing about us, and she does not belong on this throne."

Alpha Thorne stepped forward slowly, a slow, ugly smile stretching his mouth wide. He revealed his sharp, elongated canine teeth. "Since the Alpha wants to disobey his own elders and the council... how about we bring back the old law? The ancient law stating that any Alpha who kills another Alpha must mark his heir to secure the territory permanently."

The entire hall went completely corpse quiet. Even the torches seemed to hold their breath against the stone walls. Around the perimeter, the council members exchanged low murmurs and slow, grim nods of sinister agreement.

Vira Stormclaw, the only woman on the council, looked at me like I was cattle up for auction. Her piercing eyes stripped me bare, assessing my worth in raw meat and bone. "According to the old law, an unmarked female is entirely unprotected. Any rogue wolf could challenge her. Any Alpha can claim her. An unmarked Luna is a red flag, Nightbane."

"Anyone who touches her dies," Kieran said perfectly calmly, his voice completely flat.

Thorne’s smile only grew, his eyes gleaming with a sick, predatory hunger. "Law is law, boy. If you won't mark her right here to claim her, perhaps one of us should do it instead... for the stability of the territories." He took a sudden half-step toward me, his eyes locked onto my exposed neck. "I promise I will be gentle, Princess..."

Kieran went entirely, terrifyingly still.

So still that the air in the room grew heavy, pressing down on everyone's chests like a physical weight. His head tilted slowly, a sickening crack echoing through the silence. A terrifying, ancient gold bled out from the center of his irises until his eyes turned completely black, his pupils blown wide and ringed in a bloody, violent red.

A sound rolled through the hall—not a shout from his throat, but a low, vibrating, monstrous growl deep from his chest that made the stone floor vibrate beneath my boots.

The wolves lining the walls instantly dropped their gazes to the stone floor, whimpering. Even the council members took a sudden, panicked step backward, their hands flying to their weapons.

Kieran stepped in front of me, his massive frame completely blocking me from view.

"MINE."