Lyra

Chapter 1

Lyra POV

I have completely lost track of the number of times I tried to fix my collar. Because I knew deep down that all I was really trying to do was to prevent myself from trembling at the ceremonial Hall. It was the day I have been dreaming about ever since I turned eighteen, the day when I was going to meet with my mate and fiancé.

"Move out of the way, Omega." An aggressive voice rang through my ears from behind which caused me to take a step back.

Without even giving a complaint, I tried to maneuver through the crowd of students who were already there because I have always been treated like garbage simply because I was wolfless and engaged to an alpha.

"Just look at her, she actually had the guts to show up like she belongs here," a female wolf from the Beta line sneered, laughing loudly with her friends as she purposely collided her shoulder with mine.

I faltered slightly, but continued to stare straight ahead, because I wasn’t about to give them the pleasure of watching me crumble after eighteen years of making it through Blackthorn Academy by not being seen. 

My wolf had been terribly unstable and silent for months now, which only made me the ultimate target in a society where power meant everything, and weak females were nothing more than waste. 

The only reason no one had the guts to bully me was because Kael Ravencrest, the next Alpha King, and the man I was meant to be bound to tonight. I scanned the sparkling room, seeking the dark hair, broad shoulders, and imposing stature of my fiancé, but my heart clenched when my eyes finally landed on him, but he wasn’t even looking at me, for that matter, he was standing at the heart of the magisterial elite circle by Selene Ashford, a fierce Alpha female whose family owned vast territory in the east. 

He continued to laugh ignoring me, Selene went as far as touching him by tucking back his hair, and their hands remained on each other's waist when, even the students surrounding them regarded them already as the golden couple whereas I was just a spectator in this entire situation.

Sighing heavily, I took a deep breath, waved it all off, gritted my teeth, and crossed the whole hallway to reach his friends' circle.

“Kael,” I whispered amidst all the noise, my voice drowned by the blaring sounds coming from the speakers, but I knew that his Alpha hearing would have picked it up.

After finishing his conversation with Selene, he turned to look at me with an indifferent, chilling gaze that made my stomach turn upside down.

“You are late, Lyra.” His tone was emotionless.

 “The hallway was crowdedand I wanted to ensure that I knew what to do in the ceremony.” I said and reached out my hand towards him; but he moved back from me purposely, making me reach for nothing.

Selene laughed while leaning on the wall with her folded arms across her chest while looking down at me as if I were just a bug.

“Honestly, Kael, I wonder how you do it; she doesn’t have the capability to lead an ordinary omega alone, let alone a nation.”

“She won’t keep it for too long,” Kael spoke loudly, making everybody inside the room hear him. Everyone inside the room went quiet.

I froze, staring up at him while the crowd moved in closer towards us, their phones out and ready to record whatever was about to take place.

"'Kael, what are you doing?' I asked as my heart began thumping furiously within and a terrifying wave of fear washed over me.

‘I, Kael Ravencrest, future Alpha King and northern throne heir, renounce you, Lyra Vale, as my mate and Luna.’ His words came from the loudspeaker, his voice boomed through the entire room. 

The words left me paralyzed as an intense pain cut into my chest, where our bond was supposed to meld.

"Kael, please, our betrothal was arranged years ago, between our families—"

"Our families promised a strong Luna, not a broken liability," he interrupted, cutting me off without a hint of compassion in his gaze.

"You’re too weak to stand by me as Luna, because you’ve got a broken wolf, and you’re an embarrassment to my family; therefore, I’m severing ties because you’re bringing down my reputation."

The students began laughing right away, and someone threw a glass of punch right into the front of my dress.

I fell to my knees, the physical torment of a broken mate bond shredding my body from the inside out, all the while the students laughter intensified, each and every person was reveling in the sight of my ultimate shame. 

“Get out of the academy now, Lyra; you don’t belong with the elites anymore,” Selene taunted as she stepped forward, Kael turning his back on me. 

.I was still on my knees on the floor my hands were in front of me and I was trying to breathe through the pain. I felt something in my chest. It was not the flame of my connection with Kael that I was used to it was something completely different. This was a power, a power that had been locked away for a very long time. 

I hadn’t even had the time to recognize the unusual energy when suddenly I smelt three powerful, seducing scents, completely washing away the scent of the top-notch alphas.

The strong scents of cedar wood, wet earth, and smoldering coal intoxicated me to such an extent that my wolf bellowed out in frenzy.

The whole hall fell dumbstruck as the two solid heavy doors flung open and three enormous, appalling figures appeared. 

Caius, Ronan, and Lucien Voss.

The infamous Voss brothers, rival alphas in the academy and Kael’s stepbrothers that his family had been fighting to keep hidden and buried for years. Caius was in front, his hands were clenched so tight that they were white, and his dark eyes were only directed at me with a look of pure. raw wrath.

Behind him, Ronan was wearing a threatening, animalistic grin on his lips and he was watching the students who had just been mockingly laughing at me., Lucien remained slightly behind them, his typically composed look abolutely shattered as he looked at me in disbelief.

Mate.

The word resonated in my mind three separate times, with an unheard violent force snapping the bond into place that nearly took me to the brink of unconsciousness.

Kael turned around in disbelief his eyes on his three stepbrothers, understanding exactly what the sudden change in the room indicated.

“What are you three doing here? You are not allowed to come into the ceremonial hall tonight.”

"Shut up Kael," Caius snapped, the force of his voice rolling through the hall, making a handful of lower wolves collapse on their knees in fear. Ronan came forward, his eyes flashing a bright fierce amber as he stared at the wet spot on my dress. "Who touched her?"

“She's nothing to you,” Kael barked, as he attempted to get between them and myself, though it looked as though his own alpha aura was being challenged by their combined power. 

She is a rejected omega. You are not allowed to touch anything that belongs to the Ravencrest family.

"She does not belong to you anymore " Lucien said in a voice but the threat in his tone was clear as he took another step towards me.

The three of them moved together completely ignoring Kael as they walked towards where I was kneeling on the floor.

My wolf was not happy. It did not back down from them. Instead the old power, inside me started to wake up getting stronger because the three real Alphas were there. The room suddenly got very cold. A lot of pressure built up in the middle of the hall making the walls creak under the weight of it. 

Kael reached out to grab my arm, shouting something I couldn't even hear anymore over the ringing in my ears.

The moment his fingers brushed my skin, the wild, unsealed power inside me snapped, exploding outward in a massive wave of pure energy.

Every single lightbulb in the grand cere

monial hall shattered simultaneously, plunging the entire academy into absolute darkness.