Chapter 2 – The Bloodied Bait

Sienna’s POV

The silver ointment burned against my palms, but I kept rubbing it in until my skin turned raw and flush with fake inflammation.

Pain was a tool. If you didn't know how to use it, you ended up like Vesper—proud, rigid, and completely oblivious to the fact that strength doesn't mean a damn thing if nobody feels the urge to protect you.

I wiped my hands on a clean linen cloth and stared at my reflection in the arched glass mirror of my quarters. My hair, pale as spun moon-silk, fell in soft, damp waves around my shoulders. My eyes—wide, amber, and permanently framed by dark, delicate lashes—looked as innocent as a newborn pup's.

People looked at Vesper and saw a warrior. They looked at her straight spine, her flawless Frost-Rune lineage, her effortless control over her wolf, and they felt intimidated. They respected her.

Respect. What a useless, heavy word.

Respect didn't make a powerful Alpha tear his own kingdom apart to keep you safe. Respect didn't make Kaelen lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling of his quarters, wondering if he was monster enough to break a sacred vow just to keep another she-wolf from crying.

Love wasn't won through strength. It was won through weakness—carefully crafted, perfectly timed weakness.

"Are you sure about this, Lady Sienna?"

I didn't turn around. In the shadow of the doorframe stood Jax, a third-tier warrior from the outer perimeter patrol. His knuckles were white against the pommel of his short-blade, his scent thick with sweat and nervous alpha-scent. He was young, desperate for rank, and stupidly, pathetically in love with the gentle image I had built for him over the last six months.

"You don't have to call me 'Lady', Jax," I said softly, letting my voice catch just enough to sound fragile. I stood up from the vanity desk, taking a slow step toward him. "In a few hours, Vesper will be crowned Luna. She will take her place beside Kaelen, and wolves like you and me... we will just be background noise."

Jax's jaw tightened. "Alpha Kaelen should be looking at you. Everyone knows how he looks at you when she isn't watching."

"It doesn't matter how he looks at me," I whispered, reaching out to gently lay two fingers against his leather chest-guard. I felt his pulse spike under my touch. "The Elders want her bloodline. The Pack wants her power. Kaelen is doing his duty as Alpha. He has to choose her... even if it breaks his heart."

"It's not fair," Jax growled, his golden eyes flashing with low-ranking defiance. "She treats him like a general. You treat him like a man."

I smiled inwardly, though I kept my lips trembling as if holding back tears. Good boy. Keep drinking the milk.

"That is why I need you to do this for me, Jax," I murmured, leaning in close enough for him to catch the sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine I'd dabbed behind my ears—the exact same scent Kaelen had praised three winters ago when he dragged me out of the snow after my parents died. "If this fails... Vesper will execute us both for treason. You know how cold she is."

"She won't touch you," Jax vowed, his voice rising in fierce, reckless bravado. "I've set up the scent trail near the old stone ruins at the eastern border. Three iron-claw rogues from the neutral territory are waiting in the ditch. I paid them with five silver bars from the treasury chest you gave me."

"And they know the rules?" I pressed, my fingers tightening slightly on his armor. "They are not to kill me. They are to make it look brutal. A torn tunic, deep claw scratches along my shoulder—shallow enough to avoid the main artery, but deep enough to pour blood over my dress. They must leave before Kaelen arrives."

"They know," Jax nodded quickly. "They are starved for coin. They'll do whatever we paid them for. But Sienna... if Kaelen doesn't come... if he stays at the altar—"

"He will come," I cut him off, my voice dropping its soft edge for a fraction of a second, sharp as a concealed dagger, before softening again. "He always comes."

I turned back to my desk and picked up the small, polished silver communication slate. The surface was cool against my skin. With a few quick taps of my nail, I pulled up the private link tied directly to Vesper's personal slate—the one she kept hidden in the inner lining of her ceremonial gown.

I typed eight words:

"He'll always run to me, sister. Enjoy your empty throne."

I didn't send it yet. Timing was everything. A strike sent too early gave a clever wolf time to think, to reason, to calculate. A strike sent ten seconds before the fatal blow created panic, blind rage, and total collapse.

"Go to the eastern gate now," I instructed Jax, keeping my back to him. "Wait until the ceremony drums reach their third beat—that is when the High Elder asks Kaelen for his final pledge. The second you hear the third drumbeat, run into the outer courtyard and tell Knox. Make sure Knox is the one who bursts through the doors. Knox is loud. Knox is stupid. He will panic the entire hall before Kaelen can even think."

"Understood," Jax rasped. He hesitated for a second, staring at my bare shoulders. "Sienna... after tonight... when Kaelen leaves her... will you really be Luna?"

I turned my head slightly, letting the candlelight catch the side of my face, casting a shadow that made me look breathtakingly vulnerable. "I don't care about the crown, Jax. I only care about surviving."

He swallowed hard, bowed his head, and slipped silently out of the room, his heavy boots fading down the stone corridor.

The second the door clicked shut, the softness vanished from my face.

I walked over to the full-length mirror and picked up a small bone-handled blade from my side drawer. I didn't wait for the rogues to mark me. Rogues were wild, unpredictable beasts; if I trusted a filthy mercenary to cut my skin at the right depth, I deserved to bleed to death in the dirt.

I unbuttoned the top three pearls of my pale silk dress, exposing the left curve of my neck and collarbone—the exact spot where Kaelen's mark was supposed to go if he had chosen me three years ago.

I gripped the hilt of the blade, took a deep, steady breath, and dragged the cold steel across my collarbone.

Slash.

A sharp, hot burst of pain shot down my chest as dark red blood welled up instantly, spilling down the white silk in thick, uneven rivulets. I didn't flinch. I didn't scream. I had bled worse than this when I was twelve, practicing how to throw myself down the stone stairs just so my adopted father would scold Vesper for 'pushing' me.

I sliced a second line down my upper arm, letting the blood coat my skin, making it look as though I had been dragged through thorn bushes.

The copper smell of my own blood filled the small room, thick and metallic. My wolf whined inside my chest, confused, frantic, asking why I was hurting our own flesh.

Shut up, I commanded my wolf coldly. We are buying a kingdom.

I wiped the bloody blade on the edge of the curtains, threw it into the dying coals of the fireplace, and pulled a dark travelling cloak over my ruined dress.

It was time.

The forest path leading to the eastern border was dark, wet with evening mist, and suffocatingly quiet.

I moved fast, my boots making barely a sound against the carpet of pine needles. The wind was blowing from the south, carrying the heavy, metallic resonance of the ceremony drums beating from the Sacred Den high up on the mountain peak.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sound vibrated through the trees, steady and rhythmic.

I reached the old stone ruins—a collapsed watchtower covered in creeping moss and jagged granite boulders. The air here was foul, reeking of unwashed hide, stale blood, and rogue-scent.

Three figures emerged from the shadows of the broken archway. They were massive, hunch-backed wolves in mid-shift forms, their eyes milky red from dark-magic corruption, their long yellow fangs dripping with stringy saliva.

"Lady Vale," the largest one rasp-growled, stepping forward, his claws scraping against the wet stone. "You're late. The silver..."

"In the iron box behind the fallen pillar," I said, my voice completely devoid of the sweet, trembling tone I used at the pack house. I reached beneath my cloak, pulled out the blood-stained linen, and pressed it against my collarbone to keep the fresh cut bleeding heavily. "When the warriors arrive, you run north toward the Lycan border. You do not stop, you do not fight, and if any of you opens your mouth about who hired you, I will make sure the enforcers find your kin in the lower slums."

The rogue alpha sneered, exposing his black gums. "You she-wolves of the main packs are all the same. Rotten inside, pretty on the outside. Your Alpha is a fool."

"My Alpha is about to hand me his entire territory," I replied, a cold, sharp smile playing at the corners of my blood-spotted lips. "Now, tear my cloak. Make it look like a struggle."

The rogue lunged forward, his filthy claws ripping through the shoulder of my cloak, leaving ragged black fringes and shallow, red scratches across my forearm. I let out a sharp, genuine gasp of pain as his blunt nails tore skin, but I held my ground, not stepping back an inch.

Thump.

High above on the cliffside, the third drumbeat thundered across the valley.

The moment is now.

I pulled out my communication slate with my shaking, bloody fingers. My thumb hovered over the send button for Vesper's message.

"He'll always run to me, sister. Enjoy your empty throne."

I pressed send.

A tiny green tick flashed on the screen. Delivered.

I tossed the slate into the mud behind a rock, dropped to my knees in the cold, wet dirt, and let my body go limp against the base of the broken stone pillar.

I loosened my hair, letting it fall wildly across my face, partially soaking in the bloody puddle beside my knee. I squeezed my eyes shut, forced my breathing into fast, shallow gasps, and let the cold night air chill my skin until my lips turned a pale, delicate blue.

Now, we wait.

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes.

The distant drums of the ceremony suddenly stopped.

The silence that followed was instant, total, and deafening. High up on the mountain, the sacred moonfire light flickered once, twice, and then went completely dark.

I closed my eyes and let out a long, quiet breath into the dirt.

He broke the circle.

A few seconds later, the ground beneath my body began to tremble.

It wasn't a slow tremor. It was the thunderous, earth-shattering pounding of dozens of heavy paws tearing through the underbrush at full speed. The air snapped with raw, uncontrollable Alpha Command—an aura so thick, so suffocating with rage and panic, that the three rogues in the ruins let out frightened yelps and scrambled into the northern brush like terrified rats.

He was coming.

Not as a composed Alpha. Not as a strategic leader. He was coming as a frantic, mindless beast, driven entirely by the instinct to protect the one thing he thought was dying.

I pulled my cloak slightly lower, ensuring the deep, fresh slash on my collarbone was fully exposed, glistening under the pale moonlight. I let two soft tears slip down my blood-streaked cheeks, framing my face in pure, poetic tragedy.

The bushes at the edge of the clearing exploded outward.

A massive, midnight-black wolf with blazing silver eyes burst into the ruins, his paws skidding across the wet stone, throwing dirt into the air. He didn't even check the perimeter. He didn't check for enemy scents. His silver eyes locked onto my shivering, bloodied form lying in the mud, and a low, agonized whine tore from his chest.

Mid-stride, his body cracked and reshaped, shifting back into his human form.

Kaelen dropped to his knees beside me so hard the sharp stones cut through his ceremony trousers. His broad hands—the hands that were supposed to be holding Vesper's fingers at the altar right now—were shaking violently as he reached for me.

"Sienna! Sienna!" he roared, his voice hoarse, cracking with an agonizing mixture of terror and relief.

He didn't touch me at first, his fingers hovering over my bloody dress as if he was afraid that touching me would break me further.

"K... Kaelen?" I gasped out, letting my eyes flutter open slowly, clouded with fake disorientation. I reached up with one weak, trembling, mud-covered hand and touched his cheek. "You... you came?"

"I'm here! I'm here, sweet girl, I've got you," he sobbed—an Alpha, crying in the dirt like a wounded pup. He pulled my trembling body into his chest, wrapping his arms around me so tight I could barely breathe, burying his face into the side of my bloody neck. "Goddess above... there's so much blood... who did this to you?!"

"They... they came out of the dark," I whimpered, burying my face into his shoulder, sniffing his dark pine scent while hiding the triumphant, cold smile that touched my lips against his skin. "I was so scared, Kaelen... I thought... I thought I'd never see you again..."

"I'm here. Nobody will ever hurt you again," he swore fiercely, his Alpha voice vibrating against my ribcage. He lifted me into his arms, pulling me against his chest as he stood up.

Behind him, Knox and five outer-guard warriors burst into the clearing, their swords drawn, breathing heavily.

Knox took one look at Kaelen holding me, at the blood dripping from my dress onto Kaelen's ceremonial boots, and his face went white. "Alpha... the ceremony... the High Elder said if you didn't return before the moon passed the apex—"

"To hell with the ceremony!" Kaelen barked, turning a wild, venomous glare toward his second-in-command. His silver eyes were completely blown out with possessive rage. "Look at her, Knox! She was almost slaughtered! You think I give a damn about a ritual while she's bleeding in the dirt?!"

Knox flinched, lowering his eyes. "Yes, Alpha. But Lady Vesper... she was still at the altar when we left. She—"

"Vesper is strong!" Kaelen snapped, his voice ringing through the quiet woods, cold and unyielding. "Vesper is a warrior! She can handle an empty hall for one night! Sienna couldn't handle another five minutes out here alone!"

I hid my face deeper into his neck to stifle the burst of laughter threatening to bubble up in my throat.

Vesper is strong.

Those three words were the death sentence of their relationship. I had spent three long years dropping that little seed into his mind—reminding him every single day how self-sufficient Vesper was, how she never needed his help, how she never cried, how she never looked at him with needy, helpless eyes.

An Alpha's ego is a fragile, hungry thing. It demands to be needed. Vesper gave him respect; I gave him the illusion of being a god.

"Take us back to the healers' ward!" Kaelen ordered, clutching me tighter against his chest as he began marching back toward the pack house. "Tell the head healer if Sienna isn't stabilized in ten minutes, I'll have his head!"

"Yes, Alpha!" the warriors shouted, falling into formation around us.

As Kaelen carried me up the winding stone path toward the main courtyard, I rested my head against his pounding heart. I could feel the ragged, uneven rhythm of his pulse—broken, frantic, entirely chained to me.

He thought he was saving his innocent little sister.

He had no idea he was carrying his executioner right into the heart of his own pack.

When we reached the inner courtyard, the doors to the Moonlight Hall were wide open.

Inside, the grand chamber was completely silent, completely dark. The ceremonial candles had been snuffed out. The crushed jasmine petals lay scattered across the marble floor, ruined and stepped on by departing courtiers.

The elders were gone. The priests were gone.

And at the center of the empty, dark altar, lying abandoned in the dirt where Vesper had been standing just twenty minutes ago, was the sacred Luna crown—spun silver, cold, and entirely discarded.

Kaelen paused for a fraction of a second at the entrance of the hall, his eyes catching the glint of the crown on the stone floor. A flicker of something dark—guilt, realization, panic—flashed across his features. His chest hitched.

"Kaelen..." I whimpered softly, tightening my weak grip on his collar, letting out a small, breathless groan of pain. "It hurts..."

The guilt in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by immediate, mindless focus. He didn't even walk over to pick up the crown. He turned his back on the ruined hall and carried me straight toward the healers' wing.

"I'm here, Sienna," he whispered, pressing a fast, desperate kiss against my bloody forehead. "I've got you. Nothing else matters."

Nothing else matters.

I closed my eyes in the dark of his embrace, tasting the faint salt of my own blood on my lips.

He had thrown away his Luna. He had broken a centuries-old treaty. He had humiliated the strongest female warrior in the eastern territories in front of every noble family in the realm.

All for a few scratches and a torn dress.

Vesper was probably halfway across the border by now, her pride shattered, her heart broken. She would go into hiding, cry her eyes out, and live the rest of her pathetic life as a rejected, disgraced she-wolf.

And tomorrow, when the pack realized they had no choice left, when the elders realized the Frost-Rune line was gone and the pack needed a unifying figurehead to keep Kaelen from going mad...

They would have to put that silver crown on my head instead.

I nestled deeper into Kaelen's warmth, letting out a quiet, satisfied sigh as the doors of the healers' ward swung open for us.

The throne is mine, sister. And you didn't even get to fight for it.