The Crimson Mark

The world didn’t go completely black. It turned into a hazy, blurred red.

The stone floor was freezing against my skin, but the pain in my side was a white-hot iron that made it hard to draw a single breath. Every gasp felt like swallowing broken glass. I could hear the chaos of the Great Hall,

the snarls of wolves and the clatter of steel,but it all sounded like it was happening underwater.

Then, the world shook.

A shadow darker than the night fell over me. The air grew heavy, thick with the scent of cedar and old forest. I felt massive, trembling hands slide beneath my back and knees.

"Rayna! No, no, no... look at me!"

Claude’s voice wasn't the voice of an Alpha anymore. It was the sound of a man being torn apart. He pulled me against his chest, his heart thudding so hard against my ear that it felt like a drum. I looked up, my vision swimming, and saw his face. His golden eyes were wide, leaking a raw, terrifying grief.

"I’m... I’m sorry," I wheezed, my blood staining his white shirt.

"Don't you dare," he growled, his voice breaking. "Don't you dare apologize to me. Stay awake, Rayna! That is an Alpha’s command!"

He didn't look at the battle. He didn't look at Zayne, who was standing frozen with horror, or at Mia, who was being dragged away by Garen. Claude buried his face in the crook of my neck, his breath ragged and hot against my cold skin.

"I spent ten years being a monster to you," he whispered, his tears hitting my cheek. "Ten years trying to hate the only thing that made this house feel like a home. Please... don't leave me in the dark again."

The golden thread,the strange pull I had felt in the archives,suddenly flared. It wasn't a mark yet, but it was a tether. It roared through my veins, fighting the cold of the silver blade. I felt a surge of his strength pouring into me, a desperate, silent plea for me to stay.

Claude pulled back just enough to look into my eyes. His expression shifted from grief to a fierce, burning resolve. He knew the silver was killing me. He knew there was only one way to tether a soul that was slipping away, even if the Fates hadn't officially written it in the stars yet.

"They say a fated mate is a gift from the Goddess," Claude whispered, his voice trembling as he brushed a blood-stained hair from my face. "But I don't want a gift from the heavens. I want you. Even if we weren't born for each other, I would choose you in every life, Rayna."

"Claude..." I gasped, the heat of his skin against mine acting as the only thing keeping me conscious. "The twins... they were supposed to be..."

"The twins were a mistake of the blood," he snarled softly, his eyes flashing a lethal gold. "You and I... we are a choice of the soul. Can you feel it? The way my heart only beats because yours does?"

I reached up, my fingers weakly tangling in his dark hair. The cold was receding slightly, replaced by a hum of energy that belonged entirely to him.

"I feel it," I whispered.

Claude leaned down, his forehead resting against mine. "If you survive this, Rayna... I will give you everything. Not as a servant. Not as a trophy. But as my equal. We will find your mother. We will fix this broken pack."

He turned his head toward the hall. The Ironclaw Alpha and the warriors had stopped fighting, watching the transition in stunned silence.

"Zayne," Claude said, his voice a low, vibrating warning.

Zayne stepped forward, his sword trembling. He looked at the way his father held me,with more devotion than he had ever shown any Luna.

"I... I didn't know," Zayne whispered. "I thought she was just a distraction."

"She is the only thing that matters," Claude snapped. He stood up slowly, lifting me effortlessly into his arms.

He turned and began to carry me up the grand staircase. Every step he took was steady, but I could feel the tension in his muscles.

"The nursery," I managed to say. "The moon's shadow..."

"We're going," he promised. "We'll find the secret your mother left. We'll find the truth that Thomas tried to kill you for."

But as we reached the landing of the third floor, a cold, unnatural wind swept through the corridor. The torches flickered and died, plunging us into silver moonlight.

Claude stopped abruptly. His body went rigid.

Standing at the end of the hallway, right in front of the nursery door, was a figure draped in tattered white. Her hair was long and matted, and her skin was the color of winter bone. She wasn't a wolf. She looked like a ghost, but the scent she carried made my heart stop.

It was the scent of crushed lavender and dried blood. My mother's scent.

But she wasn't smiling. She held a long, curved blade in her hand, and her eyes weren't blue like mine anymore. They were solid, hollow black.

"Elena?" Claude whispered, his voice full of disbelief.

The woman tilted her head, a sickening crack echoing in the silent hall. She raised the blade, pointing it directly at my heart.

"The daughter must pay for the father's sin," she rasped in a voice that sounded like dead leaves. "Step aside, Alpha. Or the girl dies twice.”