Chapter 7: The Truth Under Moonlight

The night felt wrong before anything even happened.

No celebration in the air. No pride. Just this thick, suffocating weight pressing down on the pack grounds like the sky itself was holding its breath.

Torches lined the clearing instead of the usual lanterns, flames twisting and snapping in the wind like they knew something we didn't. Smoke mixed with damp earth and that metallic tang of anticipation you can taste on your tongue. People tried to laugh, tried to act normal, but it died fast every time. Because they were all watching me.

I stood at the edge wearing this deep red dress Rowan had delivered to my door that morning. No note. No explanation. Just the dress in a box, perfectly tailored, like he'd known my measurements down to the inch. It hugged my waist and fell soft around my legs, nothing showy, but God, it made a statement. I hated how good it felt to wear it.

"You look like trouble," Kai said beside me, arms locked tight across his chest, eyes sweeping the crowd like he was cataloging threats.

"Thought that was your thing."

His jaw clenched. Three months ago, I would've shrunk under all those stares. Three months ago, I was still piecing together who I'd been before the woods swallowed me whole. Tonight? I felt different. Dangerous. Like something inside me had finally woken up.

Across the clearing, Rowan stood with the elders. All in black. Absolutely still. His eyes found mine immediately, they always did. It should've pissed me off. Instead, my pulse kicked up, traitor that it was.

A horn blast cut through the noise. The contest was starting.

Let's be honest—this wasn't some cute pack tradition. This was theater. A carefully staged power grab dressed up as ceremony. Each brother got to present his "claim" to stand beside me as future Alpha. Like I was a throne to be won instead of a person.

Infuriating? Yes. Ridiculous? Absolutely.

But no one had put a stop to it. Not the elders. Not the pack.

Not even me.

The first trial: combat. Controlled, non-lethal, all very civilized on paper.

Kai went first because of course he did. He fought the way he did everything, full throttle, emotional, like he was trying to burn through his own skin. He won in under two minutes. The crowd went wild, but he didn't care about them. His eyes locked on mine, and for just a second, I saw past the bravado. He wasn't showing off.

He was terrified.

Rowan's turn came next, and the shift was immediate. Where Kai exploded, Rowan calculated. He didn't overpower his opponent, he surgically dismantled him. Every movement economical, every breath measured. When it ended, he didn't even glance at the guy on the ground. Just looked at me like he was waiting for an answer to a question he hadn't asked out loud.

Second trial: strategy. A simulated border threat scenario. Rowan crushed it. Kai got impatient, made a call that was almost wrong. The crowd started picking sides. Tension climbed.

But it was the third trial that broke everything wide open.

Trust.

Each brother would take me into the forest. Alone. We'd retrieve some marked token hidden past the safe boundary and get back before moonpeak. Dangerous. Completely unnecessary.

Perfect.

Kai pulled me in first. The forest swallowed us whole in seconds, and the darkness out here felt different, rawer, more honest. Like it was watching.

"Stay close," Kai ordered.

"I know how to walk."

He grabbed my wrist anyway. Not hard, but desperate. Halfway down the path, we both heard it, a low, wet growl that didn't belong to any pack wolf.

Rogue.

Kai went rigid. "If I tell you to run,"

"No."

His eyes flashed gold. "Ava,"

"I'm done running."

The rogue came from nowhere, all muscle and teeth and rage. Kai shifted mid-leap, massive and violent, slamming into it before it could reach me. The fight was brutal, claws tearing, blood spraying across roots and moss.

And for the first time in my life, I didn't freeze.

There was a blade on the ground from Kai's earlier trial. When the rogue broke past him and lunged for my throat, I grabbed it and swung.

Not clean. Not pretty.

But it was enough.

The rogue dropped. Silence crashed down like a wave. Kai shifted back, chest heaving, staring at me like he didn't know who I was anymore.

"You could've died," he said, voice scraped raw.

"So could you."

Something passed between us then. Something that had nothing to do with siblings or protection and everything to do with the way his eyes traced the blood on my hands like it was a revelation.

We came back with the token. Both of us covered in blood. The pack went dead silent, then exploded into whispers. Rowan's expression didn't change, but his eyes went dark as a storm rolling in.

When it was Rowan's turn, he didn't say a word. Just gestured for me to walk ahead.

The forest felt different with him. Quieter. Like even the trees were holding their breath. Halfway to the marker, I heard voices, low, careful. Hidden.

Elders.

I should've kept walking. I didn't.

"…if she remembers everything, the bloodline will challenge the council directly."

"She was never supposed to come back."

"She's not just their sister."

My stomach dropped through the ground.

Rowan heard it too. His hand closed around mine, tight, grounding.

We stepped into the clearing. The elders froze like kids caught stealing.

"Finish the sentence," Rowan said. Calm. Lethal.

Silence.

"She deserves to know," he added.

The eldest sighed like he'd been carrying a boulder for years. "She was taken because of what she carries. The Alpha bloodline didn't end with your father, boy. It runs strongest in her."

The world tilted sideways.

"What?" My voice barely worked.

Kai crashed through the trees behind us, having followed some instinct or scent.

"She was never weak," the elder continued. "She was hidden. The council feared a female Alpha."

The air felt like it cracked open. Kai looked at me, then Rowan, then back at me like he was trying to solve an equation that kept changing.

"You knew?" I asked Rowan.

His jaw tightened. "I suspected."

"And you let them," My voice broke. "You let them parade me around like a prize?"

"No." Quiet. Firm. "I was buying time."

"For what?"

"For you to remember who you are."

It hit me then. All of it. The contest, the secrecy, the protection that felt like surveillance. This was never about choosing a brother.

It was about controlling me.

Rage burned up from somewhere deep. The kind that tastes like iron and feels like lightning.

"I am not something to be claimed," I said, and my voice didn't shake.

The forest responded. Wind tore through the trees so hard branches groaned. Leaves spiraled up in violent currents. My pulse thundered in my ears, and for half a second, I felt heat behind my eyes, gold flickering at the edges of my vision.

The elders stepped back.

Kai stared at me like I'd burst into flame.

Rowan… smiled. Not smug. Proud.

"End the contest," I said.

No one moved.

"End it." Louder this time. A command that vibrated in my chest, in the ground, in the air.

It wasn't a request.

It was an Alpha's order.

And every wolf within earshot bowed. Not to Rowan. Not to Kai.

To me.

Silence fell like a gavel.

The contest was over. The power had shifted. Permanently.

When we walked back into the clearing, the crowd felt it instantly, the fracture in hierarchy, the tectonic shift. I stepped forward alone.

"No one chooses for me," I said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Not the council. Not tradition. Not blood." I looked at both brothers. "And not you."

But my eyes caught on Rowan just a beat too long.

Kai saw it. His expression darkened, betrayal and hunger and something raw I couldn't name.

Chapter 7 didn't end in romance or resolution.

It ended in chaos.

The truth was out. I wasn't the lost sister.

I was the heir.

And now? The real war could finally begin.