LOGINLyra's POV
I stood by the door, his phone in my hands and I became lost in thoughts of the vile things I could do to him.
"You cannot allow him go free" My wolf, Nyssa 's voice was strong and dominant in my head. Her goriness and fierceness could not be ignored.
I thought Kaelen was real, I thought he was different but I was just being naive. My eyes became red, the weight of my decision bearing heavily down on me.
I turned around to leave but in that swift moment, Nyssa took over and I lost all
sense of mortality.
Since Kaelen wanted to play dirty, well game on.
I barged into the room and found out it was not a casual meeting of friends but the alpha and the important people in the pack were all present there.
I scuffed at them and it was the perfect time to say what was on my mind and get back at Kaelen for being a jerk.
"Everyone" I said to make sure all attention was on me, even though my sudden appearance had tilted them up already.
"I am Kaelen's mate" I said and their jaws dropped, more like they were not expecting me to say it out loud but little did they know, I was not yet done.
"I, Lyra Moonfall reject you Kaelen Darkmoor as my fated mate and I cut all ties to you, now and forever"
The look of surprise, hate and anger plastered on each person's face and it gave some kind of weird satisfaction.
Even though I knew what I had done was hurtful and reckless to Kaelen, it was
nothing compared to how he made me feel and in my head, my actions were justifiable or at least Nyssa feels that way.
I turned around, filled with a tingling sensation of accomplishments, I made my way home. I had shut my head to any voice of reasoning and just allowed Nyssa to take the lead.
I arrived at my house, I rushed up the stairs and I close the door behind me. I longed to be by myself, I wished everything would just be over and there was nothing more of that, but that was not the case.
The shame thus the rejection I now know Kaelen is feeling, still doesn't fill me with the happiness or peace that I so desperately need now.
It made me sad and I was heartbroken. I was heartbroken, and it made me sad.
A few minutes after that, I heard a rapping at the door. I sprang from my bed, where I had soaked myself in tears, and went to answer the door. Who is it? That wanted to bring the roof of the house down? I opened up only to find Kaelen's parents by the door.
"How dare you?" Kaelen's mum landed a dirty slap on my face before I could even comprehend what was going on.
"You weak, good for nothing wolf. You have the gods to reject my son? A worthless piece of shit like you" she added again and I opened my mouth to make her understand I was not a toy or plaything for her son but before I could speak up, she had landed another slap on
the face.
I was sure her hand left a scar on my face.
Kaelen's father snatched my hands bare and hauled me outside, drawing a whip from his belt. In less than ten seconds, I had been lashed five times. I felt the pain, but that was nothing compared to what their son had done to me and I don’t regret what I did.
"Take this creep away, she needs to be taught a good lesson." . One she will not forget in a hurry" two huge men came from behind them and each of them held my hands about to drag me away but what broke my heart even more was when I saw my parents watching helplessly as I was beaten and berated.
Not even a word, or a plea to save me from the Beta's, they just turned blind eyes and deaf eyes to my plight and I shook my head in disgust. Why was I unfortunate to have such delinquent and irresponsible parents? They are the reason my life turned out this way and yet they don't see this as the right time to step up and salvage the situation.
They stepped aside and allowed the Beta's to carry out their evil desires on me. My broken heart was shattered by my parents' negligence.
I was hauled away, not that I couldn't fight back but I knew better than to stand against the Beta of our pack. Nyssa was ready to take over and storm out of the hold of the men that held me but the way things were going, anything could be expected from Kaelen’s parents and I couldn't risk losing Nyssa. If I lose her, I automatically lose myself.
They would not hesitate to use wolfsbane on Nyssa.
They brought me down to a dungeon, crumbling and long empty hallways away. It smelled of dead rats and roaches everywhere. I was not transferred, I had been in worse places. They bound my hands and feet to a stake in the center of the dungeon.
They said I should apologize to Kaelen for the humiliation I caused him or they would deal with me.
I scuffed at them.
" Kaelen got precisely what he deserved" I said and I felt a hard blow to my side.
"Is this all you have got?" I asked with a creepy smile on my face.
"You would apologise this instant or this is nothing compared to what you would feel" Kaelen's mum said and I asked her if Kaelen deserved my apology after taking me for a fool? Nothing would make me change my mind, I did exactly what was necessary of me.
"Guys, beat her up" his dad ordered and they hit every part of my body, causing pain and untold suffering to me but I refused to take back my words.
I stood on my ground and told them I would do it over and over again to Kaelen because he deserved it.
My words fueled their anger and they hit me even more until I couldn't take it more.
The metallic taste of blood had filled my mouth and my eyes had swollen that I could barely see.
I tried to hold on but my strength failed me but I was never going to apologise. The dungeon suddenly became dark and it lights out.
The dim light that flashed in the dungeon pierced my eyes and I opened it up, each part of my body was in severe pain. My hands felt weak and my legs froze in pain.
But I felt a warm, soft touch. Different from the sizzling pain in my body.
I managed to open my eyes and see what had become of me only to see a man standing before me.
Lyra's POVCole's note said: They are council funded.Not Vane's faction. Not Aldric's remnants. The council itself. Or a portion of it deep enough and old enough to have survived everything that had happened in the past year and continued operating beneath the surface with the patience of something that had been doing this for a very long time.I sat with that for twenty minutes alone in the garden before I brought it to anyone.Not because I was afraid. Because I needed to think clearly about it before I spoke and I had learned that the garden gave me that.The Hybrid Alliance had been built with council recognition. Margret's votes. Dorian's cooperation. The legal framework that Soren had constructed within the council's own structures. And underneath all of that, apparently, was a faction old enough and powerful enough to fund a hunter organization and patient enough to let the alliance build and grow until it was large enough to represent the outcome they most wanted to prevent.
Vaelin's POVZara had been working since four in the morning.I found her in the alliance building with maps spread across the central table and her security assessment in three columns on a notebook beside them, her handwriting precise and small and covering every line, and she was marking patrol routes with a red pen with the focused efficiency that meant she had been in this mode for hours and had not noticed.I set coffee beside her without saying anything.She reached for it without looking up."The eastern perimeter is the weakest point," she said. "The tree line comes within forty metres of the building on that side and there are three natural approach corridors that someone who knew what they were doing could use to get within striking distance without triggering the current patrol rotation.""How would you fix it?" I said."Extend the patrol radius to seventy metres on the eastern side and add a secondary sweep team running on a different rotation so there is no predictable g
Lyra's POV Corvin arrived at Moonveil the next morning. Not because we had invited him. Because he had driven through the night from Crestfall and appeared at the border at seven with a bag over his shoulder and the expression of someone who had decided that whatever was coming next was coming faster than he had planned for and being alone and careful was no longer the right strategy. He was younger than he looked from a distance. Late twenties, maybe thirty, with the sharp eyes that I had noticed in Crestfall and underneath them something that I recognized now that I was looking for it. Grief. Old and specific. The kind that had been living behind the professional composure for long enough that it was part of the architecture of his face. I met him at the gate. "You read the reports," he said. Not a question. "Yes," I said. "Dorian," he said. "Yes," I said again. He looked at me steadily. "How much time do we have?" "Tell me what you know," I said. "And then we will work ou
Thorian's POVDorian called at eleven that night.I was in the office when it came through and Lyra was across the desk from me with her feet tucked under her on the chair and a cup of cold tea she had forgotten about on the armrest, and we were both working through the information Soren had compiled when the phone rang and the name on the screen made us both go still.I answered and put it on speaker."Corvin's reports," Dorian said, without preamble. "I have read them. All fourteen of them spanning four months." A pause. "They are not what I expected.""Tell us," Lyra said."He is not building a case against the alliance," Dorian said. "He is building a case against a specific threat to the alliance that he believes the council leadership is ignoring."I looked at Lyra.She was very still."What threat?" she said."An organization," Dorian said. "He calls them the Severance in his reports. They have been active for approximately eighteen months. They are not council affiliated and t
Lyra's POVHis name was Corvin.Soren found that out within an hour of Thorian's call and what he found alongside the name was considerably more unsettling than the name itself. Corvin had been on the council's investigative division for three years. He had been placed there by Aldric before Aldric's removal. He had survived Aldric's fall by being careful enough and peripheral enough to escape the formal censure. And for the past four months he had been filing quiet internal reports about the Hybrid Alliance that were technically within his council mandate and practically speaking were building a case for something.Soren relayed all of this to me in the courtyard while Emre was inside with Vaelin who had apparently decided the boy needed to learn how to play cards and was teaching him with the focused dedication he brought to all things he considered important."What kind of case?" I said."That is what I cannot determine yet," Soren said through the phone. "The reports are internal.
Thorian's POVThe council representatives arrived at Crestfall forty minutes after us.Four of them. Two I recognized from the previous investigation and two I did not, which was concerning because unfamiliar council representatives in a situation like this generally meant Vane had been more active than Margret had been able to track.I met them at the border while Lyra stayed with Emre, which was a deliberate choice by both of us without needing to discuss it. She was where she needed to be. I was where I needed to be. The mate bond between us was warm and certain across the distance.The lead representative was a woman named Casteel, mid-fifties, with the efficient precision of someone who had spent her career processing situations rather than understanding them."Alpha Blackthorn," she said. "We received reports of a hybrid attack in this territory.""You received reports of a child in crisis," I said. "The distinction matters."She looked at me with that processing quality."Three
Lyra's POVI had barely made it back to my room and closed the door behind me before I leaned against it and let out a long slow breath.Soren's words were still moving through me, warm and quiet and certain, settling into every corner of my chest like they intended to stay there permanently. I pre
Lyra's POVI was still in the garden when I heard footsteps approaching along the path.I already knew it was Soren before I even looked up. There was something about the way he moved, quiet and unhurried, that I had learned to recognize without thinking about it. Like his presence had its own part
Lyra's POVMy eyes widened with fierce determination as I seized Thorian’s arm, my voice sharp and urgent. “Let me come with you! I can help!”Thorian’s face hardened, his jaw locking tight. “No, Lyra. This isn’t the place for you. You’re not trained for combat.”“But I can…”“No, Lyra!” Thorian’s
Lyra's POV"Goddess, how long have I been asleep?" I muttered, looking at the room that had brightened up under the sun rays. I looked up at the ceilings and I sighed tiredly just trying to focus my mind and slowly my mind drifted back to my dream last night. I could still remember everything viv







