CHAPTER FOUR

The iron door creaked open.

I didn’t move better still I  couldn’t. My wrists ached from being shackled all night and my back ached from sleeping on the cold stone floor.

“Get up.”

The gruff voice of the guard echoed into the damp dungeon. I didn’t recognize him not that it mattered. Alot of things didn't matter to me any more 

“What now?” I muttered, forcing myself up on shaky legs. 

“Another round of beatings?”

I said already preparing myself for the worst.

He didn’t answer. Just unlocked the chains with a loud clink and yanked me to my feet.

“They want to see you.”

“They?” My voice cracked.

“The Council.

I flinched at the word. The council of Elders. The men who sentenced me to rot in this pit.

The walk through the corridors was filled with silence, save for the occasional jeer from guards.

“Still alive, wolf-less freak?”

“I wish I was allowed to torture her, she'd have been begging for death by now “

“Why would she curse him, he was such a lovely person ”

That’s why she didn’t shift..she’s a demon.”

I didn’t respond. I’d learned that reacting gave them what they wanted. 

But beneath my nonchalance, I was trembling.

The Council Hall was filled when I was shoved inside. Dozens of eyes turned to me some cold, some curious, most disgusted. My father stood at the center, flanked by the Elders and Cassandra in the healer's dress, the healer and the Alpha’s sister.

Dorian lay motionless on a raised cot behind them, pale as death.

“Bring her forward,” Alpha Thorne ordered.

I was dragged until I stood in front of them, still in my blood-stained shift, my face bruised and swollen.

“She claims she did nothing to the Alpha,” Cassandra sneered. “Yet he collapsed the moment he tried to mark her. Coincidence? Or sabotage?”

“I did nothing!” I snapped, finally finding my voice. “I loved him!”

“Love?” one of the Elders scoffed. “You have no wolf. You are nothing. The Moon Goddess didn’t even deem you worthy.”

“Then why would I want to harm the only person who ever saw me?” My voice cracked, tears threatening, but I didn’t let them fall.

The healer stepped forward then, an older woman with wise, tired eyes.

“We’ve tried everything,” she said. “No herb, no magic, no blood ritual has worked. His condition is... unnatural.”

Murmurs filled the room.

“There is only one left who might undo such a curse,” she said finally, looking directly at me. “The Lycan King.”

“Sending her to the Lycan King is suicide!”

Someone interjected 

I raised my head slowly, ignoring their voices. My hand drifted to the chain around my neck, hidden under my tunic. I held it tight. The blood-stained pendant still hung there, cold and heavy. I’d kept it for seven years since the night I saved him and he vanished into the shadows.

I have never had any use for the pendant,  maybe fate had seen the future and was preparing me ahead.

I had not said a word about it to anyone all this years.

“If he’s the only one who can save Dorian...” I began, then met Cassandra’s eyes, “...then I’ll go.”

“You? You can’t even shift! You’ll die before you reach the borders.”

Grumbling ensured all over the room.

“I’m not asking anyone for permission,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m telling you.”

The Council went still. My father stared at me, rage and something else…fear? burning behind his eyes.

‘Maybe he still thought of me as his daughter after all.’

“If she fails,” someone said, “we lose nothing.”

“Let the wolf-less girl die trying.”

That decided it.

I was released.

“You go alone,” Cassandra hissed in my ear before slamming the gate behind me. “And when you return empty-handed, I’ll make sure you never see him again. If he even survives.”

Behind me, the pack gates slammed shut. They weren’t releasing me. They were throwing me away.

Let her die. Let the cursed girl vanish into the dark.

Their laughter still rang in my ears.

"She’ll not last a day."

“Maybe the beasts will do what we should’ve done years ago.”

I kept walking.

 I couldn't tell how many hours had passed but the sun was beginning to set and the silence was deafening. My stomach twisted with hunger, my throat burned with thirst. I only had a bottle of water with me, I had to be frugal if I wanted to survive.

But no matter what happens, I wouldn't stop.

Not when Dorian’s life hung in the balance.

Not when the only hope we had was a monster everyone feared.

The Lycan King.

I didn’t know where he lived. No one did.

But I remembered the woods where I found him seven years ago. Half-dead. Bleeding. Hunted. And I remembered the look in his eyes when I saved him.

I had gone into the woods crying that night after a fight with Cassandra and my parent had tagged me the wicked one, when I found him, almost lifeless.

He had begged me to say a particular sentence which I didn't understand,  it sounded more like an incantation…I had said it over and over and suddenly a light shone on him and his wounds closed.

You are the chosen one of the moon goddess,  you may not know it now but soon.

He said before he suddenly vanished. 

I could still hear his voice.

I gripped the blood-stained pendant around my neck. My only proof he was real. 

“Just a rabbit,” I muttered trying to reassure myself.

Snap.

Nope. Not a rabbit.

The brush shifted. Something bigger.

My pulse rose.

Another growl….close!

“No. Please…no…”

I turned and ran.

Branches tore my skin and Thorns ripped through my feet but I continued running as fast as my legs could carry me

The growl turned into a roar.

I didn’t look back.

A shape crashed through the trees. 

It was tall. 

Bones stuck out beneath patchy fur. And its eyes…

“What the hell….” I tripped.

Pain exploded in my ankle. I slammed into the ground with a scream.

The thing stepped into the clearing.

It sniffed the air.

Then it snarled—and lunged.

“NO!”

I rolled. Its claws slashed air.

The scent of rot hit me. I gagged.

“Get up, get up—!”

I scrambled to my feet, ran again. The pain in my ankle burned white-hot, but I didn’t stop.

 through the trees.

“No. No, no…”

Another growl. Closer this time.

My knees threatened to buckle.

I ran.

Thorns ripped at my legs. My bare feet slammed against jagged roots. But I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

The growl turned into a snarl.

Then I saw it.

Glowing eyes. Too tall for a wolf. My mind couldn't conceive a name for this being. 

“What the hell…”

I stumbled and hit the ground hard, pain shooting up my arm.

“Get up, get up, GET UP—”

I scrambled to my feet and ran again, vision blurry, lungs burning.

But it was faster.

Another roar.

I tripped over a fallen log and collapsed, gasping, as its shadow loomed over me.

I reached for anything anything my hand closed around a sharp stone.

As it lunged again, I slashed blindly.

The stone dug into its flesh.

It howled.

Blood splattered my face.

I ran.

I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t care. I just needed to live.

“I don’t know what you are,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “But please do not hurt me. Please.”

The creature growled again.

I gripped the pendant and shouted the only words I remembered from that night seven years ago.

The same strange syllables he made me repeat. I didn’t know what they meant. I didn’t care. I said them.

“Luxira no’thel... Aen sol’vahr…”

Over.

And over.

And suddenly…

Light.

Not gentle.

Blinding. White-hot. Bursting from the pendant like a flashfire.

The creature yelped and fled, tails between their legs, as the light seared the ground around me.

I gasped for air, my whole body shaking. My arm throbbed, blood still pouring from the gash. But I was alive.

The light faded.

Smoke rose from the scorched ground where the wolves had stood.

The pendant went cold in my hand, lifeless once more.

I collapsed to my knees, heart still hammering like a drum.

"What the hell was that?" I whispered.

But no answer came. Only the wind. And the silence of something ancient watching.

Somewhere behind the trees, something growled again.

Louder.

Bigger.

This wasn’t over…..