CHAPTER 2

The morning breaks in bruised shades of red, the color of endings.

Chains bite into my wrists as they drag me from the dungeon. The air outside tastes of ash and dew, sweet and cruel in the same breath. Every step grinds dirt into my bare feet. I hear the whispers before I see the crowd — wolves in human skin, faces gleaming with judgment.

“Cursed.”

“Monster.”

“She killed her mother.”

Each word lands heavier than the chains.

The square is already prepared. I see it through the fog — the pyre, stacked and ready, its heart waiting to devour me. The scent of resin and pine fills the air. They even chose wood that burns slow, so the lesson will last.

I should tremble. I should beg. But something inside me has gone still — a quiet so absolute it feels like power.

They force me onto the stake. Rough hands bind my wrists behind me. The hemp scrapes my skin raw. I don’t flinch. I stare ahead, at the faces I once loved.

Lucia stands at the front, draped in white lace that flutters like a flag of mockery. Her lips curl, and for a heartbeat, I can still see the girl who used to braid flowers into my hair. Then she smirks, eyes glinting with satisfaction.

“Fitting,” she says softly, just loud enough for me to hear. “You always loved fire. Now you get to dance in it.”

Her laughter drips like honey and venom both.

Behind her, Damien stands — my fated mate, my betrayer. He looks like a statue carved in guilt, jaw locked tight, eyes shadowed. His hand grips Lucia’s shoulder, but there’s no warmth in it.

“Damien,” I whisper, the sound torn from somewhere between my heart and the smoke.

His gaze flickers to mine — and for that one heartbeat, I see him remember.

The nights beneath the moon. The vow whispered against my skin. The promise of forever.

And then it’s gone.

Father’s voice booms from the dais — the Alpha King himself, my blood, my executioner.

“By decree of the Moon Court and the authority of this pack,” he announces, “Serena, Omega of Bluemoon, stands guilty of treason, murder, and consorting with forbidden power. The sentence is death by cleansing flames.”

The pack cheers.

He raises the torch himself.

It’s strange — how quiet my heartbeat feels beneath the noise. Like the world has already begun to fade.

I meet his eyes — my father’s — and see only relief. As though burning me will erase every shame I've ever brought him.

He tosses the torch into the pile.

Fire licks upward, slow, curious, hungry.

The first heat brushes my skin, and my body remembers fear. I taste it — bitter, human, weak. My chest tightens. Smoke fills my lungs, stealing my breath.

Then.....

A whisper, curling through the flames.

It’s the same voice that haunted the dungeon, older than words, soft as silk, strong as thunder.

Do you yield? Or do you rise?

The fire climbs higher. My vision blurs. The world narrows to heat and pain and color.

I think of my mother’s face — her eyes when she shielded me, her scream when the blade found her. I think of Damien’s silence when they condemned me. I think of Lucia’s smile as she stood by his side.

The pain sharpens, then shifts.

It doesn’t burn. It breathes.

Fire curls around me like a lover, tracing the lines of my body, filling the hollows of my heart. The ropes crumble to ash, the flames part and swirl. My skin glows from within — veins of molten gold.

The crowd gasps.

I can’t hear them clearly now — only the thunder of my pulse, the roaring voice that fills the sky and my soul.

You are not theirs to destroy, Serena of Bluemoon. You are mine.

Light bursts behind my eyelids — white, blinding, endless.

I fall. Or rise. Or both.

When the flames fade, they find nothing but ash and shattered bindings. The pyre still smolders, but the body is gone.

Lucia’s triumphant expression shatters. Damien stumbles forward, eyes wide, searching the ashes as if his mind refuses to accept what he’s seen. My father’s face drains of color.

“She’s been burnt to ashes,” someone breathes.

But they were wrong.

Far beyond the forest’s edge, where the river bends towards the mountains, a pulse of light flickers in the mist. It hums with heat, with power, with rebirth.

I gasp — first breath of a new life. My skin glows faintly beneath the soot. The air is cool, clean, alive with energy. My hair, once tangled and dull, flows like black silk streaked with ember. My tears dry instantly.

The whisper returns — softer now.

The fire remembers its own. Rise, phoenix.

I rise.

The forest bends towards me, every leaf trembling. My body hums with power, wild and unbound. I can feel the pack’s distant heartbeat — the shock, the fear — and something inside me smiles.

They think the fire killed me.

They will learn it only woke me.

Silence.

Not the gentle kind that comes with peace, but the suffocating kind that presses against your ears until you can’t tell if you’re still alive. The world smells of smoke. My throat tastes like metal and burned air.

Then, pain.

Sharp, searing, dragging me back.

I gasp. Ash pours into my mouth. I roll, choking, every nerve screaming as if my body remembers the flames even when the fire’s gone. The ground beneath me is cold. Wet. I reach for something—anything—and my hand sinks into a bed of soot.

They burned me.

They really burned me.

I remember the pyre. The heat crawling up my legs. My father’s voice echoing like a verdict carved into stone. Lucia’s smirk. Damien’s eyes turned away.

The scream that never left my throat.

I’m supposed to be dead.

But the fire didn’t take me. It changed me.

When I pushed myself up, my skin peels from the dirt. My body aches, but not the way it should. It’s… alive. My heart isn’t beating normally—it’s pounding like it’s syncing with something deeper. A pulse beneath the ground.

I glance down. There’s a faint glow under my ribs—like embers moving beneath my skin. Faint veins of light trail up my arms, pulsing once, twice, before fading.

I freeze.

No breath.

No thought.

Then, the whisper returns. That same voice from the dungeon—low, female, ancient.

You were born of fire, child. Let the flame remember you.

“Who—who are you?” My voice cracks, raw and human.

The forest doesn’t answer. Only the wind moves, carrying the smell of char and rain.

I staggered to my feet. The pyre’s remains are behind me—blackened wood, scorched stone. There’s a hole in the earth where the fire was hottest, like the ground itself couldn’t hold me.

Around me, everything’s dead. Burned trees, smoke curling up like ghosts. But above, the moon glows blood-red through the haze. It feels like it’s watching me.

Something inside me stirs at that light.

The same fury that screamed when my father gave the order.

The same pain that bled when Damien chose her.

It’s still there. But sharper now.

I stumbled forward until I’m clear of the pyre. My body trembles, but the exhaustion feels different—like I’m fighting against something new moving under my skin. My pulse hums. My fingers twitch. When I close them into fists, the air crackles.

A flicker.

Orange, then gold.

I opened my hand and a small flame breathes to life in my palm. It doesn’t burn. It feels like… part of me.

The moment I realized that, the whisper comes again—closer this time.

The curse they gave you was never yours. The flame remembers its child.

My knees give out. I fall to the dirt, clutching my chest. I can hear the echo of my mother’s last words—“Run, Serena.” I hadn’t understood what she meant until now.

Maybe she knew.

Maybe the fire was never meant to destroy me.

The moon slides out from behind the clouds. For a second, the ashes around me glow faintly, stirred by a soft gust. They spiral upward, forming the faint outline of wings. Phoenix wings.

I blink, and they’re gone.

The world feels too still. Too empty. No guards. No scent of wolves. They must have thought there was nothing left to find. No one survives a fire like that.

I crawled towards the river. The reflection that greets me isn’t mine.

My hair is blackened at the ends, streaked with red that wasn’t there before. My eyes—moonlight and flame mixed—burn faintly even in the dark. My skin is unscarred, smooth, but there’s a faint mark over my heart: a thin, glowing sigil, like a brand made of firelight.

I reached for it, but the moment I touched, pain flares down my arm. Visions flash behind my eyelids—shadows, wolves bowing, a figure cloaked in night and silver eyes that see everything.

I jerk back, gasping. The mark fades to a dull shimmer.

Somewhere deep inside me, I know what this means.

I was supposed to die. But something—or someone—chose otherwise.

A laugh slips out. Harsh. Shaky. Half madness, half triumph.

“They’ll pay,” I whispered. “Every single one of them.”

The words tasted like iron and fire.

I pulled myself up. My legs were weak, but I kept walking, away from the ruins, away from the girl who was burnt. The forest swallowed me whole.

Each step steadied me. Each breath felt less like survival and more like purpose. The whisper fades, but I can still feel it, like a heartbeat echoing in my bones.

I smiled.

Not the soft kind. The kind that carried promise.

Because now, I understand what I am.

---

Somewhere far from Bluemoon Pack…

The night is still. The kind of still that makes the forest hold its breath.

A black horse stands at the edge of the ridge, its rider cloaked in shadow. The moon catches on the edges of his armor—obsidian and silver. His eyes, cold and predatory, flickered open.

Kael lifts his head slightly, scenting the air.

Smoke.

Not normal smoke. Something older. Wilder.

The kind that carried magic.

His wolf stirs, restless beneath his skin. For the first time in centuries, the Lycan prince feels the pull of something unknown.

“Fire,” he murmurs, his voice rough like gravel. “But not human.”

He turns towards the distant hills—towards Bluemoon Pack.

And smiles, slow and dangerous.

 “So… the world burns again.”