Chapter 5: summoned

Lyra – POV

My name.

Not Lira’s.

Mine.

It was there in bold, undeniable ink—Lyra—printed across the top of a marriage certificate that bound me to the three Alphas. I blinked, hard, willing my eyes to be wrong. But they weren’t. The spelling was perfect. Too perfect.

Confusion warred with dread in my chest.

Why me? Who were they really after?

If they thought I was Lira… why was my name on everything?

I flipped through the rest of the stack with trembling fingers. Deeds. Property transfers. Legal documents stamped and sealed. Every signature, every line of fine print whispered the same truth: everything our mother had once owned—every inch of land, every hidden inheritance we had hoped to reclaim—was now in their hands.

And all of it had been transferred without our consent. Without our knowledge.

Without even a chance to fight.

My fingers slipped. The papers scattered like brittle autumn leaves across the stone floor. One by one they fell—silent and damning.

I stood still for a long moment. Then the tears came.

Hot. Silent. Burning trails down my cheeks. They tasted like grief, but heavier.

This wasn’t just about property.

It was our legacy. Our future. Our mother’s memory. All stolen with a few forged signatures and the weight of their power.

Lira is all I have left.

All we ever had were each other… and the promise that one day, we’d find our mother’s people, reclaim what had been hidden, stolen, denied. The dream had kept us warm through cold nights, hopeful through years of surviving alone.

But now?

Now that dream was dust.

Our mother—Luna Lycan, once powerful and revered—had paid the price for loving a human. And we, her daughters, were left to carry that sin. Her bloodline ran through our veins: moon magic, prophecy, healing—rarer than any Alpha’s might. And now it ran alone.

Because Lira and I… we’re the last.

And even worse, we were unclaimed. Rejected. Vulnerable. Prey in a kingdom ruled by predators.

I sank to the floor, my back against the bed. My limbs trembled, hollow from shock. I wasn’t a prisoner.

I was a pawn.

A tool to sign away an empire I didn’t know we had.

They hadn’t just taken our birthright. They’d erased it. Used me to finish what our mother’s enemies started long ago—silencing her bloodline for good.

They’d taken our past.

They’d taken our future.

They’d even taken our names and twisted them into weapons.

I didn’t even know why.

Numb, I curled into myself on the bed, cold seeping into my bones. The tears kept coming, but the grief was too big to hold. It poured out of me in silence, until there was nothing left but emptiness and exhaustion.

If this was the end of the road… if this was what fate had scripted for me…

Then escape wasn’t an option.

Only survival.

My eyes fluttered closed, heavy with despair. The ache in my chest pulsed, quiet but constant, like a bruise beneath the skin. I was drowning in silence when I heard it—a sound so soft it barely stirred the air.

A footstep.

I sat up sharply.

In the doorway stood a boy—no older than thirteen. He was small, slight, with warm brown skin and soft woolly curls that framed eyes far too piercing for someone so young. I froze, startled. He didn’t belong here. Not in this cruel, cold world.

Yet he stood with quiet grace, hands clasped, calm in the storm of my unraveling.

“You’ve been summoned,” he said.

That word.

Summoned.

It landed in my stomach like stone. My heart thudded once, painfully hard.

I wasn’t ready to face them. Not after what I’d just seen. Not after what I’d lost. But I followed him anyway. My body moved, even as my spirit lagged behind.

We walked in silence through the Packhouse’s winding halls, until we entered a different wing. This place was grander, higher. The floors gleamed like ice, and the walls were lined with gold-veined stone. The parlor opened into a massive living area, opulent and cold. Three doors stood along the far wall—private quarters, no doubt. A shared home. One for the three of them.

My footsteps slowed.

Why had they brought me here?

Was this about the marriage?

Did they expect me to…

No.

The bile rose fast and sharp at the thought. I would die before I let them touch me. I would rip out my own throat first.

The boy turned to me with an almost apologetic smile. Something in his eyes—ancient and knowing—unsettled me. He said nothing more before slipping away, leaving me alone in that cold, beautiful room.

I barely had time to brace myself before the door opened behind me.

Then he entered.