Chapter 14: Blood Sins and Sacred Fires

Reymond sat on the edge of an examination table, his dark shirt unbuttoned and drenched in fresh crimson. A syndicate medic was attempting to press a thick pad of gauze into his left shoulder, but Reymond brushed the man’s hand away like a pest. His silver eyes were wild, flicking up the second my sneakers squeaked against the tiled floor.

He didn't wince. He didn't even look down at the deep, jagged tear in his chest where claws had ripped through leather and flesh.

"Where is your mother?" he barked, his voice a low, gravelly rasped growl.

I stopped at the edge of the table, my chest heaving. "She’s gone, Reymond. The room was empty. There was blood on the floor, and a message written on the wall."

"Is she alive?" He pushed off the table, completely ignoring the medic's sharp gasp as blood ran down his ribs, soaking into the waist of his trousers. "Did they take her?"

"Reymond, look at yourself" I yelled, stepping into his space and pressing my palms firmly against his uninjured right collarbone to force him back. The heat coming off his skin was scalding, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped beast. "You're bleeding to death, and the first thing you ask about is the woman who just accused you of ruining her life?"

He locked his hand over my wrist, not to pull me away, but to hold me there, flat against his pulse.

"I don't care what she thinks of me, Natalia," he growled, his eyes narrowing into molten gold slits. "I care if she’s alive to tell you the rest of the truth. Whoever ambushed her left that blood on the wall for a reason. They want me distracted. They want me chasing ghosts while they pull you deeper into the mountain."

"She said I wasn't the target," I whispered, the red words from the chamber wall burning behind my eyelids. "She wrote that you were."

"Then let them try," Reymond snarled softly. He reached down, snatched a clean black shirt from the counter, and pulled it over his broad shoulders without so much as a flinch, hiding the brutal wound. "The trail leads down. Past the archives. Into the roots of the peak."

The air grew impossibly heavy as we descended.

We bypassed the blown-out bronze doors of the lower armoury, following a narrow, damp fissure in the rock face that dropped steeply into the earth. The modern concrete walls of the chateau vanished, replaced by smooth, hand-carved obsidian stone that glistened under the dim beam of Reymond’s tactical flashlight.

The smell of old ozone and ancient pine hit us all at once.

We stepped out into a massive underground cavern. It wasn't a vault or a bunker. It was an ancient royal temple.

Four towering pillars carved in the likeness of snarling wolves held up a domed ceiling covered in glowing, bioluminescent silver moss. In the centre of the chamber stood a low stone altar, surrounding a circular pool of crystal-clear water that hummed with a quiet, physical resonance that vibrated through the soles of my shoes.

The second my feet crossed the threshold into the temple, the glowing moss above us flared with sudden, brilliant intensity.

A sharp gasp ripped from my throat. My collarbone burned as if someone had pressed a warm coin against my skin. Underneath my clothes, the invisible threads of the awakened blood seal pulsed in time with the quiet hum of the room.

"It knows you're here," Reymond murmured, stepping up beside me, his hand resting on the hilt of his tactical blade.

I walked slowly toward the stone altar in the centre. Resting on top of the smooth obsidian slab was a heavy book bound in pale, hardened leather, not written in modern ink, but etched directly into thin sheets of beaten silver.

I reached out and brushed my fingertips across the raised runes on the open page.

The silver metal felt ice-cold, but the moment my blood-stained thumb touched the script, the text flared with a soft, ambient violet light. Translation runes, ancient and forgotten, reshaped themselves in my mind.

"The Blood of the True Luna," I read aloud, my voice echoing off the high stone dome. "She is not merely the crown. She is the anchor. Her blood possesses the absolute authority to amplify an Alpha's power to godhood... or sever his connection to his wolf entirely."

My hand froze over the silver page. The air in my lungs vanished. Suddenly, every single piece of this nightmare snapped into terrifying focus.

"I'm not just a political prize," I whispered, looking back at Reymond over my shoulder. "I'm a weapon. If an Alpha mates with me, my blood supercharges his authority. But if I reject him during the bond ritual... I can strip his wolf away completely."

"That's why Aubert wants you," Reymond said flatly, his jaw clenching. "And that's why your father came back. It isn't about ruling the territory. Whoever holds your leash holds the power to destroy every rival Alpha in Europe."

"And what about you?" I asked, turning around to face him fully, my pulse thudding against my throat. "Is that why you kept me alive for seven years, Reymond? To make sure no one else got their hands on a living kill-switch?"

The ambient violet light from the altar rippled across his face, highlighting the harsh angles of his cheekbones and the lethal, dark intensity in his eyes.

"If I wanted to use you as a weapon, Natalia," he said, taking a slow, deliberate step toward me, "I would have completed that contract the second you bled on my desk."

He took another step, closing the distance until the heat of his body was wrapping around me once again, pushing against the freezing draft of the cavern.

The temple reacted violently to our proximity. The water in the central pool began to swirl in tight, rhythmic ripples, radiating a low, vibrating hum that echoed through my bones. The thread of the bond beneath my skin tugged hard, a sweet, electric burn pooling in my stomach, demanding that I close the remaining inch between us.

I pressed my hands against my waist, holding myself back, trembling with the sheer force of the friction between my mind and my body.

"Stop," I breathed, my eyes darting up to his. "It's pulling us. The temple... the bond..."

"Then tell me to walk away," Reymond whispered. He didn't touch me. He kept his hands at his sides, his chest heaving with heavy, ragged breaths, his eyes burning with pure, unadulterated gold. "Tell me you want me gone, Natalia. Say the word, and I will walk out of this mountain and let you break the seal."

I stared at his mouth. I looked into his eyes, looking for the monster, looking for the captor, looking for the man who had stalked me through seven years of shadow. But all I found was a man who was standing at the edge of a cliff, offering me the blade to push him off.

My throat clicked as I swallowed hard. "I can't."

"Why?"

"Because that's the problem," I choked out, a raw, terrified tear slipping down my cheek. "I don't want you to go."

The last wall between us it shattered. I didn't wait for him to cross the space. I reached out, my fingers tangling tightly into the soft fabric of his black shirt, and pulled him down to me.

Our lips met with a sudden, violent intensity that knocked the air entirely out of my chest.

The kiss wasn't gentle. It wasn't soft. It was seven years of running, seven years of secret protection, seven years of fear and suffocating attraction detonating all at once. Reymond let out a low, guttural growl deep in his chest, his massive arms wrapping around my waist like iron bands, lifting me slightly off my feet as he slammed his mouth against mine.

The taste of him, dark cedar, cold frost, and raw, lethal power, flooded my senses, sweeping away the cold terror of the mountain. The blood seal under my skin roared to life, a blinding wave of warmth surging through my veins, interweaving our scents until the ozone and crushed cinnamon of my blood drowned out the smell of blood and old stone.

He deepened the kiss, his large hand sliding up my neck to cup the back of my head, holding me firm against his mouth as if he were trying to pull my very soul into his chest. I clung to his shoulders, my fingers digging through his shirt, feeling the hard, scarred muscle beneath, surrendering entirely to the choice I had spent weeks fighting.

Deep beneath our feet, the stone floor violently shuddered.

The kiss broke, both of us panting heavily, our foreheads pressed together in the dim violet light. Reymond’s hand stayed firmly on the back of my neck, his thumb tracing my jawline, his eyes completely gold, his wolf practically roaring beneath his skin.

The water in the central pool was splashing over the stone edges, reacting to a massive surge of blood magic radiating from the altar.

"Look," I gasped, pointing a trembling hand toward the silver book.

The silver pages were flipping violently on their own, stopping at the very last etched entry at the bottom of the ledger.

Reymond turned, keeping one arm wrapped securely around my waist as we looked at the silver slab.

Beneath the ancient script describing the royal lineage, two names were carved deeply into the metal, side-by-side, intertwined by an unbroken chain of ancient runes. They were our names.

"That... that was carved centuries ago," I stammered, staring at the fresh, glowing violet light filling the grooves of our names. "That's impossible. The contract... we signed it three days ago."

"The contract didn't create the bond," Reymond breathed, his voice laced with a strange, awe-struck terror. He looked down at me, his fingers tightening against my waist. "It didn't trigger an ancient law, Natalia. It just awakened what was written in our blood before we were even born."

Our families hadn't been enemies forced into an accidental alliance. We were the fulfillment of an ancient, pre-destined royal pairing designed to anchor the northern territories.

Before either of us could say another word, the heavy stone doors at the far end of the temple blown inward with a deafening, metallic crash.

"How touching," a sharp, melodic voice echoed through the cavern.

Reymond spun instantly, shoving me behind his broad back as his claws extended with a vicious snick. Standing at the temple entrance, illuminated by the flickering orange light of raised torches, was my mother.

She wasn't bruised. She wasn't bloodied. The dark blood that had covered the floor of her chamber was nowhere to be seen on her pristine, fur-lined winter coat.

Behind her stood at least thirty elite Walker warriors, their heavy silver blades drawn, their yellow wolf eyes gleaming in the shadows of the temple.

"Mom?" I whispered, stepping out from behind Reymond’s shoulder in absolute shock. "You... you were framed. Aubert used his code, it wasn't Reymond"

"Silence, Natalia," my mother commanded, her voice dropping into a cold, terrifying regal register I had never heard before. She didn't look at me with pity or motherly affection. She looked at me like a commander addressing a soldier.

She reached into her coat and pulled out a long, heavy silver blade, a royal Executioner's sword.

She pointed the tip of the gleaming blade directly at Reymond’s throat.

"Step away from him right now," my mother ordered, her eyes dead and unyielding.

"Mom, stop" I yelled. "He didn't betray us"

My mother ignored me completely. She looked past my shoulder, locking her eyes onto the glowing silver book resting on the altar, then shifted her gaze back to the Alpha standing in front of me.

"Kill the Alpha," my mother commanded smoothly. "And secure the Luna."