Share

CHAPTER TWO

Author: Luca Fei
last update Last Updated: 2025-06-24 07:13:17

Weeks before the chimney climb

Wolfsbane oil burns like liquid fire under my sleeves.

It clings to my skin in invisible streaks, stinging every shallow cut I’ve earned from the thorns on the forest path. A price worth paying. It masks my scent—for now. Later, it will be a beacon when the sweat thins it out.

I adjust the scratchy wool scarf around my neck—too heavy for early autumn, but necessary to hide the scars. The fabric rubs against my throat like judgment. The gates loom ahead, black marble threaded with veins of silver that catch the moonlight just right to make the snarling wolf carvings seem alive.

They aren’t just warning signs. They’re promises.

“Remember,” Nana Fiona’s voice whispers in my memory as I take the first step forward. Her calloused fingers had gripped my chin that final morning, her breath smelling of bitter tea and fear. “You are Mira now. Close enough to answer to without hesitation. Different enough to keep breathing.”

I can still feel the ghost of her touch, but it’s not enough to keep my hands from curling into fists as the first guard steps into my path.

His teeth are yellowed and cracked, fingers clicking lazily against the hilt of his sword as he circles me like I’m already halfway to dead.

“Halt.”

He doesn’t ask for papers. Doesn’t ask who I am. He just sniffs. Long and slow.

“You stink of wolfsbane, girl.”

I tilt my head down further, eyes hooded, expression schooled into wide-eyed obedience.

“Rat infestation in my village,” I say smoothly. The lie rolls off my tongue like poisoned honey. “My grandmother—”

“Spare me the peasant excuses.”

His hand snaps out and grabs my chin, tilting my face up so fast I taste blood where my teeth catch the inside of my cheek. His claws prick skin, sharp enough to hurt, shallow enough to leave a message: I could take more if I wanted.

His breath reeks of rotting meat and stale wine. His eyes flick over mine and narrow.

“These eyes…” he mutters. “You’re either very brave or very stupid to walk into the Alpha’s den looking like that.”

I want to kill him. I should kill him.

The thought is sharp and sudden, bright as steel under moonlight. It unfurls in my mind with startling clarity—my hand on his hilt, driving the blade up through his ribs into his lung. Watching his mouth work around the last breath he’ll never take. Kicking his twitching body aside and stepping over the mess like the predator I was raised to be.

I could. Easily.

He’s slow. Drunk. Overconfident.

But it’s broad daylight. The gates are open. The courtyard is full of guards. And nothing screams “I am not a threat” like slitting a Captain’s throat where everyone can see.

So I don’t move. Don’t flinch. Let the rage curl in my stomach like a coiled serpent and smile with my eyes instead of my mouth.

Not yet.

“Captain Dain!”

The voice slices through the moment like a thrown blade. Female. Firm. Young.

His grip tightens for a heartbeat—calculating. I see the war flicker behind his eyes. Then he releases me with a shove, sending me staggering back.

The girl who steps between us is all sharp edges and coiled tension, her red braid swinging like a pendulum. She’s barely older than me, but she walks like she’s already survived ten lifetimes. The leather of her boots is scuffed, not from wear but from fights.

“Head Cook Marga’s new scullery maid,” she says, thrusting a scroll at the captain. Her green eyes glint like broken glass. “Transferred from the border villages. Unless you’d like to explain to the Alpha why his dinner service is short-staffed again?”

Captain Dain’s lip curls, but he stamps the parchment with unnecessary force. The paper nearly tears beneath the seal.

“Get her out of my sight.”

As we walk, I study her from beneath my lashes. The way she moves—light but deliberate. The twitch of her fingers toward her hip, like she’s reaching for a knife that isn’t there.

She catches me looking. “Lesson one,” she murmurs, steering me past a group of black-clad guards. “Eyes down, mouth shut. The wolves here don’t just bite—they play with their food first.”

The Outer Ward swallows us whole.

The air is thick with roasting meat and something darker underneath—iron, sweat, and the sickly-sweet reek of desperation. Statues of twisted, half-human figures leer from alcoves. A fountain bubbles with wine dark as blood.

Julise stops before a moonstone altar. “Palm here.”

The stone is icy against my skin. The oath she feeds me is razor-edged:

“I am less than shadow. I speak only when spoken to. My life belongs to Narcolantis.”

White-hot pain lances through my hand like lightning through bone. I bite my tongue until copper floods my mouth, but I don’t make a sound. Not for them. Not ever again.

When I look down, the mark glows faintly—a crescent moon split by three claw marks. A brand. A warning. A leash.

Julise watches me with something almost like respect. “Break the rules, and it burns. Try to run, and it sears straight to the bone.” She leans in. “They say the last girl who tried screamed for three days before the Beta slit her throat.”

My new quarters are a coffin beneath the kitchen stairs. The pallet is thin. The bucket is rancid. The candle stub flickers like it’s ashamed to still be alive.

Julise lingers in the doorway. “Marga works servants until they drop. Keep up or get out.” A beat.

“Well... you can’t actually leave. So I guess just… don’t die before breakfast.”

When she’s gone, I press my burning palm to my chest and exhale for the first time in hours. The ache in my bones is deep, but it’s the fury that keeps me warm.

That Captain had no idea how close he came.

Killing him would’ve been easy.

Keeping this face on—this mask of fear, obedience, smallness—that’s what’s hard.

That’s the real war.

As I lie back, I see them—words carved into the wooden slats above my pallet, jagged and desperate:

Gold-eyed girls don’t last the winter.

Outside, the castle groans like a living thing. Somewhere deep in its belly, a man screams. The sound cuts off abruptly.

I blow out the candle and let the dark swallow me whole.

Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App

Latest chapter

  • Dragon Born Luna    TWENTY FIVE

    Ryden The hinges screamed like a dying animal as I forced open Lady Dain's warped study door. The scent hit me in waves. First the coppery tang of fresh blood, so thick I could taste it on my tongue, then beneath it, the musty perfume of old paper and cracked leather bindings. Commander Jaret lifted a shattered oil lamp from the wreckage, his face grim in the flickering light. "No signs of struggle elsewhere in the house, Your Majesty. But this room..." His boot nudged an overturned inkpot, the viscous black stain spreading across the priceless Qalathi rug like a fresh bruise. I stepped deeper into the chaos, my fingers trailing along the splintered remains of what had been Dain's prized bookshelves. The female scholar had been our foremost expert on every obscure text from here to the southern isles. Her study was a temple to knowledge, floor-to-ceiling shelves carved from black walnut, each compartment precisely measured to house volumes of varying ages and sizes. Scroll cases

  • Dragon Born Luna    TWENTY FOUR

    Kiara The rain had come the night before, after Ryden had left me, not the gentle, whispering kind, but the relentless, pounding sort that drowned out all other sounds. It hammered against the slate rooftops of the palace, cascaded down its pale limestone walls in shimmering sheets, and pooled in the ornamental gardens below, turning the crushed quartz pathways into glistening silver veins. By dawn, the skies had emptied themselves, leaving behind a world washed clean, the air crisp with the scent of rain-soaked lavender and wet stone. I stood at the edge of the field, my boots sinking slightly into the mud. The cold was insistent, gnawing at my fingers, my cheeks, the back of my neck. It wasn’t the kind of chill that could be shaken off with movement; it clung, persistent, like a second skin. The manor behind us rose in elegant tiers of arched windows and delicate spires, its façade adorned with intricate carvings of vines and mythical beasts. The morning light caught on the gi

  • Dragon Born Luna    TWENTY THREE

    Ryden The grandfather clock in the west wing chimed three times as I slipped through the shadowed corridors. My boots made no sound against the marble floors,a skill honed from years of navigating palace politics in silence. The guards at my door didn’t even blink as I passed, merely stepping aside with practiced deference. They’d learned long ago not to question where the Alpha King went after dark. The brass knob turned easily in my hand. Unlocked. Of course it was. The woman survived poisoned tea and assassination attempts daily, yet still couldn’t be bothered with basic security. Moonlight streamed through the sheer curtains, painting silver stripes across the rumpled bedsheets. Mira lay curled on her side, one bandaged hand tucked beneath her cheek, Julise nowhere in sight. The blanket had slipped to her waist, revealing the thin linen shift she slept in. In sleep, without her usual armor of sarcasm and steel, she looked younger. More vulnerable. The dark circles under her

  • Dragon Born Luna    TWENTY TWO

    Kiara The palace buzzed like a kicked hornet's nest the morning after the poisoning. I sat hunched over my writing desk, squinting at The Crowns of Narcolantia: A Visual Compendium, trying, and failing, to understand why anyone needed twelve names for essentially the same jeweled headpiece. The book's musty pages smelled like generations of disinterested noble girls had cried over them. Julise paced behind me, her boots wearing grooves into the plush rug. "They're saying it was Ruby," she announced, tossing a folded note onto the desk. I looked up from a particularly hideous coronet sketch. "What?" "Ruby Walren." Julise leaned against the windowsill, arms crossed. "The council's decided she poisoned Thessalia's tea." I unfolded the note, scanning the smudged ink. The handwriting was rushed, one of Julise's network of servants, no doubt. Ruby Walren detained. House arrest. North wing. Council vote unanimous. "This makes no sense," I said, pushing back from the desk

  • Dragon Born Luna    CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

    Kiara The sky was still pitch black when I felt someone kick me off the bed hard enough to send me tumbling onto the floor of my new chambers. I sent a silent thanks to Ryden for the ridiculously large (and aggressively purple) but soft rug that broke my fall. I sat up groggily to find Julise humming a tune and looking like she'd just had a full night's rest and a double shot of something strong. “Wakey wakey, baby dragon,” she sang, dropping a bundle of dark fabric onto my head. “We’ve got exactly forty-three minutes before the kitchen staff starts their rounds, and I’d rather not explain why the Alpha’s favorite stray is sneaking around with me at this ungodly hour.” I peeled the silk from my face, blinking at her. The single candle she held threw sharp shadows across her annoyingly chipper expression. “Do you wake everyone by assaulting their furniture, or am I special?” “Special,” she confirmed, already strapping knives to her thighs with the casual efficiency of

  • Dragon Born Luna    CHAPTER TWENTY

    Kiara The dressing room reeked of roses, overpowering, cloying, like someone had drowned the air in perfume to mask the stench of desperation beneath it. Fourteen girls stood in clusters, their jewel-toned gowns shimmering under the flickering chandeliers. Some whispered behind feathered fans, their eyes darting toward me like knives looking for a back to sink into. Others didn’t bother hiding their disdain, their lips curling as they took in my presence. Some couldn't even be bothered to look at me. I was the last to arrive. The outsider. The scandal. The servant who’d somehow earned the Alpha’s attention. Julise played the role of my assigned attendant, her fingers deft as she adjusted the silver embroidery along my bodice. The midnight blue gown clung to my frame, the fabric heavy with beading that caught the light like scattered stars. "You look like nobility," she muttered under her breath as she secured a loose pin in my braid. "Now act like you belong here." I met m

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status