CHAPTER ELEVEN

Daughter of the Lycan King

Emery’s POV

I stand in the center of the haven’s open air  courtyard, the wind whipping my long, pale hair around my shoulder. The air in the canyon is freezing, carrying the sharp scent of damp earth and crushed stone, but I don't feel the cold. I couldn’t.

Not anymore. 

The Silver Flame pulses under my skin like a second heartbeat, a steady, hot furnace that keeps my blood warm and my senses sharp.

I'm twenty-seven years old now, the frightened girl who used to curl into a ball in the corner of a basement is completely gone. 

It’s been five years since I took the step off the edge of the Black Ridge as the broken girl who thought death was her only escape.

I hold up my right hand, palm facing the sky. With a simple thought, the air around my knuckles ripples with cold heat. Blinding white light erupts from my palm coalescing into a solid razor sharp blade of silver flame. I spin the flame around my fingers, slicing through the air with a faint hum before willing the energy to flatten into a dense glowing shield over my arm.

Control is no longer something I fight for. It is second nature, my white wolf and I move as one, her power weaving through my human veins. 

“You're showing off, child.” a deep gravely voice says from behind me.

I close my fist, extinguishing the silver shield instantly and turn to face Valerius.

He walks toward me from the stone archway of the main cavern. He looks different than he had when he pulled me from the rocks half a decade ago. His broad shoulders are those of an ancient warrior but the gray at his temples has broken through his thick, dark hair and his stride carries a heavy but slightly labored weight.

“Show off?” I raise an eyebrow, a confident smirk touching my lips.

“I call it keeping my edge sharp. You're the one who told me speed means nothing if the blade isn't ready.”

“I also told you that pride goes before a fall,” Valerius replies, though his golden eyes soften with a warmth that had become my only true anchor. He stops a few feet from me  gesturing toward the ancient stone altar in the center of the courtyard.

“Come. The time has arrived.”

The humor fades from my chest. I look up at the altar, a massive slab of black granite carved with ancient runes that hasn't glowed in fifty years.  

“Valerius, what is this?” I ask, stepping up to the stone platform. 

“My time in hiding is over, Emery.” Valerius says quietly, stepping into the opposite side of the altar. He reaches into his leather belt, pulling out a ceremonial dagger with a hand carved from something that looks like bone.  

“My strength is fading, my body is aging and I must fulfill my final duty to you before my strength gives out entirely.”

My pulse spikes. “Aging? You didn't tell me. Why is it happening this quickly?” 

“I've lived a very long life, little wolf. A life with hard fought battles  and I didn't tell you because you need it to focus on your training not an old man's declining life force.” Valerius  says firmly, his voice cutting off my protest.

“Before we leave this canyon, the lineage must be secured. The Moon Goddess gave me a second chance when she brought you to my door, but I must make it official in the eyes of the blood laws.”

He holds the white dagger over the center of the altar.

“This is the rite of blood and spirit,” Valerius explains, looking directly into my eyes.

“An ancient adoption bond, it binds us, our souls as father and daughter. It will leave my royal lineage in your veins, declaring you as my child and in line of succession for the lycan throne.”

I freeze.

“You…you want to adopt me?” My voice is thick with emotion as my heart seems to expand in my chest and my eyes start to sting.

“I found you all those years ago, battered and bruised. I had already started mentally calculating all the things I would need to give you a good burial, even though I didn’t know you. I thought, ‘Goddess, not another one,’ but I got closer and there you were, beaten, yes but never broken.” He steps closer to me and places a warm hand on my cheeks, wet from crying and blubbering like an idiot.

“I’ve spent the last five years training you, teaching you and loving you. You opened your eyes at the base of those rocks and I saw a fighter. I am proud of the woman you have grown into and it is only right that I make you my daughter, if you would have me.” 

He looks at me with so much emotion behind his eyes and I don’t trust myself to speak so I nod and close the space between us.

I wrap my hands tightly around him, he is startled at first, but his arms circle me and I am surrounded by a warmth and feeling of complete safety.

“You already have an heir, Valerius,” I say when we break apart.

“Cassius is a tyrant,” He says, his tone turning hard. His eyes flare with bitter disappointment.

“While I have been away, my son has turned the Sovereign Crescent Pack into a realm of terror. He corrupted the Vanguard, turning elite warriors into personal  bullies. He has outlawed mates bonds forcing pack members into submission and banning Warriors from seeking their true mates. He rules through fear, murder and some kind of dark magic.” 

He slices the edge of the dagger across his own palm letting thick blood pull in the center of the altar's main rune.

“Cassius is unfit to wear the crown,” Valerius rasps, handing the hills of the blade to me.

“He would burn the continent just to prove his own strength. The Sovereign stronghold needs a ruler who knows what it means to bleed, to suffer and to rise. It needs you, Emery.”

My hand trembles slightly as I take the dagger. I look at the dark granite, then up at the man who has pulled me out of the abyss, fed me when I was starving and taught me how to fight. He had given me life when everyone else wanted me dead.

I press the silver edge into my palm, splitting the skin and bring my hand down over his.

 Our blood mixes over the ancient room.

“By blood, by spirit, by the light of the moon.” He chants, his deep voice vibrating through the stone platform.

The altar erupts  into a blinding wave of gold and silver lights. A surge of suffocating energy, ancient and powerful, rushes up my arm flooding through my heart and settling deep inside my chest. It feels like a warm thread wrapping securely around my soul, binding me to him in a way no spell or magic could ever break.

The runes along the altar flare bright silver pulsing in rhythm to my own heartbeat. Valerius squeezes my bloody hand, a proud and tight smile breaking across his weather face.

 “It is done, you are my daughter now. Princess of the Sovereign Crescent.”

“What happens now? I ask.

“Now, we leave the Black Ridge,” Valerius says, looking up toward the high Canyon walls.

“It is time to travel to the Sovereign Crescent stronghold. I will enter the grand citadel  one last time to officially step down from the throne and crown you as the Lycan Queen.”

My heart hammers against my ribs. 

Lycan Queen. 

Five years ago I couldn't even stand up to a low ranking omega and now I am expected to lead an entire kind of people, command warriors and tear down a tyrant from his throne. The weight of the crown presses down on my shoulders before it has even been placed on my head.

A cold knot tightens in my stomach. 

Inside my chest, my wolf’s stirs, letting out a low steady growl that pushes against my fear, filling my limbs with a steady resolve.

“Go gather your things,” Valerius says softly, noticing the hesitation in my eyes. “We move before sunset.”

I walk back to the inner sanctum, strapping my twin silver blades to my waist and pulling on a thick  fur cloak over my shoulders. I look around the stone chamber that had been my sanctuary for five years. 

Every corner of this place holds a memory. This place saved my life, leaving it feels like peeling off a layer of skin, exposing myself to the brutal wind of a world that had only ever brought me pain.

I meet Valerius at the archway leading out of the Canyon. With a wave of his hand, he dismantles the protective barrier that has hidden the Haven for all these years. The golden magic dissolves its light, leaving the hidden pass exposed to the wilderness.

I stop at the threshold, turning to take one final look at the quiet mist-shrouded sanctuary behind us.

“You don't have to leave the past behind completely, Emery,” Valerius says, standing beside me. “You just have to carry it with you.”

I draw in a long deep breath letting the intense scent of the place settle deep within my bones. The fear is still there, flickering beneath my ribs but beneath that, sits a cold and breakable truth.

I am not going back into the world as a victim. I am not going to the Sovereign Crescent as a broken girl looking for a place to hide.

I am going back as the rightful heir to claim what is mine.

And Goddess help those who try to stand in my way.