Chapter 3: The Ultimatum

"Don't touch me!" I yanked myself backward, the rough fabric tearing slightly at the shoulder with a sharp rip.

The sudden movement exposed a sliver of my bare collarbone. Lucas froze instantly. His sharp silver eyes locked onto the glowing crimson crescent pulsing beneath my skin like a living flame. The air in the cramped stable turned toxic with his sheer shock, the heavy scent of ozone spiking so hard it burned the back of my throat.

"That's impossible," Lucas whispered, his voice losing its cold, controlled edge for the first time all night. "The Crescent Clan was completely wiped out eighteen years ago. The Royal Line..."

"Is standing right in front of you," I hissed, standing up straight despite the dull ache throbbing in my limbs.

Now that the truth was out, the dormant royal blood in my veins surged with wild, unbridled fury. I didn't bow my head. I didn't lower my eyes like a submissive servant. For the first time in eighteen long years, I let my true aura flair outward—a brilliant, crackling violet light that clashed violently against his crushing silver pressure, forcing the newly crowned Alpha King to take a stunned half-step back in surprise.

Lucas stared at me, his heavy chest heaving under his leather tunic. A rejected, wolf-less omega was pitiful and easily forgotten. But a surviving Crescent Heir? That was an existential threat to the entire Northern Coalition—and to his family's bloody legacy.

"My father told the elders your family perished in a border fire," Lucas said, his jaw clenching tight as he fought to regain control of his slipping composure.

"Your father started the fire," I spat back, the crimson mark on my neck flaring brighter, matching the heat in my chest. "He stole our ancestral lands, murdered my parents in cold blood, and kept me locked in your scullery like a broken trophy just to make sure the royal bloodline died out in shame. He thought if I grew up believing I was a useless omega, I would never challenge his crown."

A suffocating silence stretched between us, thick enough to cut with a silver blade. Outside the high stone walls of the stable, the pack drums continued to beat in rhythmic celebration, blissfully unaware of the silent war brewing in the dark subterranean shadow of the packhouse.

Lucas stared at the glowing mark on my neck, his silver eyes darkening as he wrestled with the reality standing in front of him. The thin, broken stub of our mate bond hummed faintly between us, sending unwanted heat straight to my core despite the deep rage twisting my stomach. He felt it too—his wolf was restless, clawing at his chest, torn between his duty as Alpha and the primordial pull of his true mate.

"If the elders see that mark," Lucas said slowly, his voice dropping into a dangerous register, "they won't just lock you away, Elora. They will burn you at the stake to prevent a royal rebellion."

"Let them try," I countered, taking a sharp step forward, bringing my chest inches from his broad frame. "I spent my whole life sweeping your ash and scrubbing your floors, Lucas. I am no longer afraid of your pack."

Lucas lowered his hand slowly. The brief flickers of shock in his eyes hardened back into cold, ruthless Alpha calculation.

"You have two choices, Elora," he said, stepping closer until his broad chest almost brushed against mine, completely ignoring the burning static of the severed rejection bond snapping between our bodies like live wires.

"I don't take orders from you anymore, Alpha," I rasped, holding my ground even as my heart hammered violently against my ribs.

"You will take this one," he countered coldly, his silver eyes flashing with warning. "Option one: I drag you before the Grand Pack Council tonight as a traitor’s child, and Chloe’s father executes you publicly before sunrise to secure our alliance."

I clenched my fists so tightly my fingernails bit into my palms, drawing tiny beads of hot blood that dripped onto the dusty straw floor. "And option two?"

Lucas leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, sending an unwanted, intoxicating spark of electricity straight down my spine despite my utter hatred for him.

"Option two: You pack your meager things and flee Bloodmoon territory before dawn. You cross the northern border into the Blackwood Forest, you never return, and you never attempt to claim your birthright." He pulled back slowly, looking down at me with eyes as unyielding as solid ice. "Because if I catch sight of you on my land after sunrise, mate bond or not... I will hunt you down myself."

He didn't wait for a response. Turning on his heel, his dark Alpha cloak swept behind him as he pushed open the rusted stable door, stepping out into the cold moonlight and leaving me alone in the dark with my burning crown.