LOGINFour: Forgive Me
EIRA
Cassian rises as I walk in. And everyone does too.
Eyes stare at me, the Beta and the royal Omegas who will serve as witnesses to our joining. The elders stand at the back of Cassian who is flanked by Alpha Eric and Lysandra.
Their eyes follow me, and I shrink into myself but keep my head high. My shoes click against the tiled floors.
Maybe if I portray confidence, Cassian would see that I can be Luna. That I can serve at his side like a Queen.
“Her hair is white?” Someone murmurs. And my heart falls. I hope the color of my hair won’t be a problem.
My breathing shallows as I walk down the long aisle toward Cassian. His familiar scent hits me, my wolf whines. And my lungs expand to greedily inhale him.
“Your majesty.” I bow, baring my neck in submission.
Cassian’s eyes darken, and his fists clench. His body is tense, coiled tight. And his eyes, they flash.
“Eira!” He acknowledges, and steps back. My eyes scan the elders, Alpha Eric and they stop at Lysandra.
Lysandra Orion. I’ve never seen her, but the rumors are false. She isn’t ugly. In fact, she’s the opposite. A blonde bombshell, stunning.
She gives me a blank stare when she catches my eyes, and I look away, embarrassed at being caught.
“You may all sit!” Cassian states, and everyone sits. Being the only one —asides Cassian—standing, I feel exposed, self-conscious. Nervous.
“As you all heard, I found my mate.” Hums of agreement follow. “You may or may not know who she is, so today I present to you…”
Cassian signifies with his eyes that I should face the pack. And I obey.
“Eira Quinn!” He announces. “An Omega by birth, and by right!”
“An Omega?” Someone scoffs. And then, an uproar ensues. The disapproval is evident in their faces, in the words they speak. They don’t accept me. They don’t even give me a chance.
But when Cassian accepts me, and declares me his Luna, they will have to live with it. And so I let their words roll off my back.
My smile is tight, and my heart races as I wait for the announcement. The declaration.
“Silence!” Cassian’s voice booms and the room becomes quiet. Quickly.
“Today, I call you here to witness the rejection of Eira Quinn as my mate. In the presence of the elders, and the representatives of the moon goddess.”
Loud gasps fill the silence. My smile fades and I turn quickly. My heart picks up in my chest, and nausea twists my intestines.
What? What is happening?
“I don’t understand, Your Majesty.” My voice is barely a whisper but he catches it. His jaw ticks and he glares.
I recoil from the intensity of his glare. And my heart breaks as I realize what is about to happen. The humiliation I’m about to face. My wolf whimpers.
“Please,” I beg in a whisper. “Don’t do this. Please.”
A flash of something zips through his eyes. Almost like reluctance. Anguish. But it passes before I can name it. His fists clench at his sides.
“An Omega cannot rule beside an Alpha King. Therefore, I, Alpha Cassian Vael…” Tears spring to my eyes and I brace myself for the rejection.
“..reject you, Eira Quinn, as my mate.”
The impact shoves me backwards and I stagger. Pain spreads across my chest, my stomach. Heat licks at my skin.
I scream. A blood-curdling scream. High-pitched. Piercing. Tears roll down my cheeks and I crumple to the ground, clawing at my heart.
My wolf howls. It’s gut-wrenching. It’s broken. Just like me.
I look up to find Cassian sitting on his throne. A hand rubs against his chest. He looks tired, worn out… almost older than he was a few seconds ago.
His eyes flash when they meet mine, and the pain I see is raw. But it doesn’t last long.
“Forgive me,” he mouths and looks away.
And I wonder why.
Why do this to us?
I wore a black dress today. Maybe something in me had a feeling this would happen.
And so I mourn.
I mourn a love I never got to experience, and a loss of something I had for only a moment.
“Jafeth,” Cassian calls. His Beta appears at his side. “Take her to the pack house.”
Jafeth nods, and he’s at my side in a minute. His hands are cold when they touch my heated skin, and I whimper, shivering.
He holds me up, and drags me away.
“I can’t imagine the pain she’s in.”
“Did she really think she could rule with His Majesty?”
“I wish that never happens to me.”
The words sear into my brain. Humiliation, shame, mortification… they cling to me like a second skin.
Sweat breaks out on my skin and my stomach rolls. It tumbles, twisting and turning. Bile quickly rises to my throat, and I swallow it down.
Wrong decision to make. Before I can think, it rushes up my throat again, and I hunch over.
Right there, in the middle of the aisle, I empty my guts. I puke. A whitish transparent liquid. My throat feels raw, hot.
“Gross,” someone grimaces.
Jafeth looks away, jaw clenched. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
Black dots dance in my vision, my head swims. I feel light-headed. Just before I succumb to the darkness that pulls me, I hear it…
“White hair. A gene of the moonblood line. Cursed. Prophecies surround them.”
It’s a whisper in a foreign language. But somehow, I understand it.
“The rest of them were killed. She’s the last of their kind, she must be killed.”
And I succumb to the blackness. I don’t struggle, no, I go willingly. But just before my mind blanks, I make up my mind.
When I wake up, I will leave Ashbane pack. I will run, and I will hide.
I will survive.
THE LAST THING SHE WAS HOLDINGEIRA'S POVI came in from the south.That is where Cassian placed me when we split the approach, with the south unit, twelve wolves who let me run beside them because Reece told them to and because not one of them was willing to be the person who tried to stop me. I had no weapon. I had no plan that extended beyond getting to my son. These are not the conditions under which a careful person enters a clearing full of hostile wolves.I stopped being careful approximately three seconds after Reece said the cells are empty.The war cry hits the air before I clear the tree line.It doesn't start as sound. It starts as pressure in the sternum, in the oldest part of the chest, in the place that existed before language and reason and the careful management of things too large to look at directly. It moves through the cold air like weather, like something the night itself has been holding and finally releases.I know that voice.I have spent five years trying to
CASSIAN'S WAR CRYCASSIAN'S POVI smell the camp at two hundred yards.Wood smoke and cold earth and the layered scent signatures of too many wolves gathered in one place for too long. Underneath all of that, fainter but unmistakable, the specific combination of pine resin and old stone and something warm and alive that I have been tracking since the moment Reece said the cells are empty.Kael.He's there.He's alive.I signal the unit to slow without looking back. A closed fist, dropped to hip height. Thirty wolves behind me go from moving pace to absolute stillness in the space of two steps. No sound. No shuffling. The particular disciplined silence of people who have drilled this enough times that their bodies obey before their minds have finished processing the command.Good.They're going to need that discipline in the next five minutes.I move to the tree line alone.The clearing opens ahead of me through the last row of trees. Wide. Round. Moonlit in a way that makes everything
The Stone TabletKAEL'S POVThe thing under my skin gets louder.I push.It pushes back.I breathe. In, out. Find the edges. Hold the shape of it.But I'm tired.I've been tired since the corridor. Since the bare cold feet on the forest floor. Since the moment I understood the adventure was a lie and started trying to figure out the lesser danger while my arms shook with the weight of keeping myself contained.I'm very tired.And the words keep coming.And the watching keeps pressing in from every side.And Japheth's voice gets more certain as the declaration progresses, more settled into its own rhythm, like a river that has found its channel and will now go where it was always going to go.Something shifts in the clearing.I feel it before I understand it.The ground.I look down at the ground under my feet.The dirt around the log is trembling.Very slightly. A vibration, barely visible, the kind that makes loose pebbles shift and soil compress and small things roll toward each oth
KAEL FIGHTS BACKKAEL'S POVThe kind-voiced man's name is Japheth.I know this now because Voss said it. Japheth, enough. He said it when Japheth got one step away from me and I still hadn't moved, still hadn't shown them anything, still hadn't given them what they came for. Voss said it like you say heel to a dog you trust to obey but want to remind who is in charge.Japheth stopped.He looked at Voss.Then he looked at me.And the kindness that was never really kindness was completely gone now. What was underneath it was something harder and colder and much more honest. He looked at me the way people look at problems they've run out of patience for."The boy is stalling," he said."The boy is five years old," Voss said. "Give him a moment.""We don't have moments to give.""We have exactly as many moments as I decide we have." Voss's voice didn't change volume or temperature but Japheth went quiet immediately. "Step back."Japheth stepped back.He kept his hand around the vial.A mo
KAEL'S POVI've been on this log for a long time when Voss finally walks toward me.I hear him coming before I see him. The clearing goes slightly quieter as he moves, the way spaces go quieter when the most important thing in them shifts position. The other wolves track him without looking directly at him. The kind-voiced man stops talking mid-sentence and watches.I put my hands flat on my knees.I sit straight.Voss stops in front of me.He's even bigger up close. He fills the air around him differently than other people. Like the air knows he's important and rearranges itself accordingly.He looks at me for a long moment without speaking.I look back.*Don't look away first,* I tell myself. *Mama never looks away first.*Something shifts in his expression. Not quite respect. Something like it."You're not afraid," he says.His voice is deep and slow. Like he decided long ago that words were worth taking time with."I didn't say that," I say.He tilts his head slightly. "Most child
THE SHADOW PACK'S CAMP KAEL'S POVThe man with the kind voice told me it was an adventure.That's what he said when he came to my room. He crouched down to my level the way grown-ups do when they want you to feel like they're not bigger than you, and he smiled and he said “come on, little one, your mother sent me, she wants you to see something, it'll be quick.”I knew him. He had a Beta smell. I didn't know exactly what Beta meant but I knew what the smell meant, important, someone my mama had to be polite to even when she didn't want to be. He came with the official smell. The pack smell. The kind that meant he belonged.He said mama sent him.So I went.I forgot my boots.I realized it three steps into the corridor and turned back for them but he said “it's all right, it won't take long” and he was already moving and I thought about the castle I was building and how I wanted to finish the tower before morning and I thought it won't take long so I went without them.That was a ver
Fifty-five: The ProposalEIRAThe moment I burst out of the arena, I can finally breathe.My lungs expand, taking in much needed air. Tears prick the back of my eyes but I blink them away.Goddess, it hurts.The mark on my neck, the severed bond in my chest, even my new found wolf whines at the bac
Fifty-Four: The King And His QueenCASSIANI haven’t seen Eira since yesterday afternoon.It shouldn't surprise me, actually. Since our return, she’s been avoiding me in every way. All I needed was to warn her about the coronation that is about to happen.To tell her that it doesn’t mean anything.
EIRAI follow the Omega, my heart in my throat.“What happened to him?” I ask, frantic.“I can’t explain it, you need to see for yourself.”Oh goddess, that response only churns my stomach further. A thick lump settles in my throat.When we round the last corner of the palace, I’m suddenly shoved t
Forty-nine: The Final VerdictEIRAThat sentence in that loud, alpha voice causes a deafening hush in the palace. In less than few seconds, a crowd forms in the arena.“What is going on?” Someone whispers.“Did the Luna do something?”“The king looks pissed.”“Is it the coronation?”There’s a murmu







