Chapter 5

Lyric

My father’s parlour has always felt like the only place in Three Towers that belongs to me, even though nothing here ever truly has. The chairs are old and scarred from decades of claws and boots, the leather softened by bodies that have sat in them to argue, to grieve, to celebrate. 

The hearth burns low tonight, not roaring - just steady, the kind of fire warms a space without suffocating you. The table in the middle of the room is laid the way it always is: bread, dried meat, a bottle of dark spirits, two cups. 

I pace around the room. My abdomen still aches in that deep, bruised way that reminds me I gave birth recently. My empty arms ache in ways I can’t explain. 

The door swings open hard enough to thud against the stone, and my father strides in like he’s walking into a war room instead of his private parlour. He looks the same as he always does - big, broad shoulders, heavy hands, greying at the temples that he’ll deny if anyone says it aloud. Forty-five, and still strong enough to command legions.

He isn’t alone.

The high priestess follows him, silver-threaded robes whispering, moon-incense clinging to her like a second skin. Behind her comes a man I’ve never seen in my life, dressed informally in a t-shirt and jeans, but he walks like a warrior or a servant with high status.

“This is Elijah,” my father says without wasting breath. “He’s mine. He will take you out tonight.”

The words land in my chest like a stone.

I stare at him. I didn’t think he was serious. How could he be? “No.”

My father doesn’t blink. “Yes.”

“I invoked the law,” I say, my voice is too tight. “I did what the priestess said. Bryce is the one who betrayed our bond. Bryce is the one who should be dragged out and thrown beyond the borders like rot. Why am I the one being shunned?”

My father crosses the room in three steps and catches my upper arms. His grip is warm and firm.

My throat burns with new, unknown tears.

“I am not banishing you,” he says, and for a heartbeat his voice softens. “I am getting you away before Bryce remembers what he is.”

“What he is?” I repeat.

“A man who has built his whole future on owning you,” the priestess says, cutting in before my father can soften it into something easier to swallow. Her gaze doesn’t waver from my face. “You took that future from him in front of witnesses.”

“I dissolved the bond,” I say, because I need to hear it aloud again. I need it to be real. “That’s what the Law of Severance does.”

The priestess’s expression tightens almost imperceptibly.

My stomach twists.

I look down, not at my hands, not at the floor, at the invisible place in my chest where the bond used to feel like a shackle.

It’s gone now.

The constant drag. The ugly pull. The sense of being tethered to a man who could touch me whenever he wanted and call it holy.

But still… a sliver remains.

Not enough to bind me, but enough to remind me that Bryce is still out there, still alive, still furious.

Enough to be dangerous later.

My father sees the shift in my face. “You feel it.”

I swallow. My throat hurts, and I hate that my voice wobbles when I speak. “It broke. Mostly.”

“That is not normal,” the priestess says quietly. “A clean severance leaves nothing behind.”

My father’s jaw tightens. “Which means Bryce is going to feel it too.”

Elijah stays silent, eyes down, but I notice the way his hands flex at his sides as if he’s ready to move the second my father gives the order. He isn’t an Omega in the way the attendants are Omegas. He carries himself like a warrior.

“Tell me why you’re doing this,” I say to my father, and the pressure behind my ribs becomes something sharp. “Tell me why you’re acting like I’ve started a war.”

My father releases my arms, but he doesn’t step away. He looks tired in a way I’ve never seen before. Not weak. Just… worn out by decisions he’s been making alone for too long.

And I’m not helping.

“Because you did start something,” he says. “Not a war with the elders. Not with the pack. With Bryce and his allies. Surely you know that.”

“He can’t challenge the law,” I snap. “The priestess said it was incontestable. Bryce can’t come in here and make demands.”

“The law is divine,” my father agrees. “But Bryce can declare a war.”

The priestess folds her hands in front of her. “I told you - it is not a mercy.”

I stare at them both. “You’re still not answering me. Why do I have to go? I can fight with you. Bryce won’t win”

My father exhales through his nose, and when he finally speaks, his voice is low enough that I have to strain to hear him.

“I am trying to avoid a war altogether," he confesses. “I have a mate. We married in secret. She’s carrying my true heir.

The room tilts.

Not because the words are unbelievable. Because they make too much sense, too fast, in too many directions.

A mate means legitimacy. A mate means a bond blessed openly, not whispered about, not hidden behind politics and “divine will.” A mate means an heir that belongs to him by every law the elders can recite in their sleep.

I make myself breathe. “You… took another wife?”

“I did not take a wife,” he says sharply, and then softens again, just a fraction. “I found my second-chance mate. The Goddess gave her to me after your mother died.”

My hands go cold.

The priestess watches me with an expression that isn’t pity, exactly. More like grim acknowledgement. Like she’s been waiting for me to catch up to what everyone else already knows.

“How long?” I ask, and I hate that my voice comes out small.

“Long enough,” my father says.

“And you hid her,” I whisper.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

His eyes hold mine, and there’s no cruelty there, no impatience. Just truth, bare and ugly.

To keep her safe,” he says. “To keep the child she carries safe. Because you are my only living child in the eyes of the pack. Because Bryce would have demanded to smell her, and if he learned there was another Greyheart bond in this house… he would have ripped this pack apart to murder her.”

My mouth goes dry. “So you killed my children instead.”

“No,” my father says quickly. “I would never. That… it was the Goddess’s doing.

The priestess speaks, her tone steady. “You were not mated to Bryce because the Goddess willed it, Lyric. You were mated because your father needed time.”

The words should hurt more than they do.

Maybe they would have, once, when I still believed in divinity like it was kindness.

But all I can think is: So that’s what I was.

A shield.

A distraction.

A door Bryce kept knocking on while the real heir was hidden behind a wall he couldn’t see.

“And now?” I ask.

My father’s gaze flicks to the priestess.

“She is with child,” the priestess says simply. “It is a boy. A true heir.”

Everything inside me stills.

A male heir.

A true Greyheart son.

The thing Bryce has been circling like a starving wolf.

That makes me expendable.

My father steps closer again, careful this time, as if he expects me to strike him. “That child is legitimate,” he says. “That bond is legitimate. And if Bryce learns about her now, after you have publicly shattered the only thing he thought he could control… he will stop pretending. He will call in his pack, he will destroy what is divine.”

My stomach cramps, not from my body this time, but from fear.

“He’ll come after me,” I say.

“He’ll use you,” my father corrects. “He’ll use you as leverage. As proof. As bait. He will do whatever he has to do to get what he wants, because you just took his future away in front of the entire pack.”

My throat tightens. “So you’re sending me away to protect your mate.”

“She is protected.” My father’s eyes flash. “I’m sending you away to protect you.”

The priestess steps forward, and the air shifts with her. “We do not have time for grief,” she says, not unkindly, but without softness. “Not tonight.”

I can’t stop the bitterness. “Grief is all I have left.”

“Then perhaps we can turn that to joy,” she replies. She takes something from the stand where the other fire pokers rests and places one in the fire. “Turn around.”

I stare at her. “What? Why?”

Her gaze flicks to Elijah. “Hold her.”

It happens in seconds. Elijah, an Omega I should easily overpower, kicks my legs out from under me and I land hard on my stomach. Another hand, a familiar one - my father - pulls my hair out of the way, exposing the skin beneath. The cool air kisses the back of my neck.

My pulse spikes with fear and I start to fight them, but I am still so weak. “What are you doing?” I ask through gritted teeth

The priestess’s fingers press lightly against the spot beneath my hairline. “A rune,” she says. “Small enough to hide what you are to other wolves. It will put your wolf to sleep, and you will be able to pass as human."

My breath catches. And at last I understand the tears. It’s the tears of betrayal. “I don’t want to be a human. You can’t do this!”

“I can,” the priestess  says, and for the first time I hear something almost like an apology in her voice. “And I must.”

My father’s hands are on my shoulders, still holding my hair out of the way. “It will hurt,” he says, his voice cracking a little

I almost laugh at him. “I’m familiar with pain.”

The priestess doesn’t respond. She only murmurs words I don’t understand. Sounds that make the air feel heavier, sounds my wolf reacts to even in her exhaustion. Star curls tighter inside me, trembling, terrified of what will happen next.

My skin sizzles and the air fills with the scent of my burning flesh. A sharp, concentrated burn blooms at the base of my skull, where she pressed the brand to my skin. I can’t help it. I let out a scream and my feet drum against the floor.

Then it’s over, the pain is fading already, but it leaves me shaking, breathless, wet-eyed.

The priestess steps back. “Leave now while they are busy,” she warns. 

My father finally lets me go and helps me to my feet. His eyes are bright in a way he will never allow anyone else to see. “When he is born, I will send for you. You will be safe then.”

I’m filled with hatred. Hurt. Enraged. He used me to keep his mate safe. He could have told me. I would have done something to help… something that would have spared me the pain as well. “Don’t bother,” I say through gritted teeth.

He reaches into the inside of his coat and pulls out a thick leather pouch. He places it in my hands like it weighs nothing, but it drops heavy against my palms.

“Enough for a new life,” he says.

I stare at the pouch. “I don’t want a new life.”

“I know,” he says quietly. “But this is how it will be from now on.”

He nods once at Elijah. “No one sees you go.”

The Omega nods. “Yes Alpha. I will see her safely to her new home?”

My voice comes out thin. “And you?”

My father’s mouth tightens. “I will return to the chamber and act like nothing has changed, because if Bryce senses even the slightest change…” he shrugs, then goes on, ”In a week, we will sanctify his union with Leila.” He cocks his head. “It will be fake, but by the time he figures it out, it’ll be too late.”

I flinch, because I hear it now. The shape of it. All the anger and fear in my father’s voice.

This isn’t just my exile.

It's a strategy.

It’s his survival.

It’s my father choosing the pack, the Towers, a child not yet born - and still trying, somehow, to protect me too.

Elijah dips his head. “Luna.”

“Don’t call me that,” I whisper, and then hate myself for it because he isn’t the enemy. “Just… Lyric.”

His eyes lift briefly, and they are filled with pity I hate to see. “Yes.”

My father reaches for me, and for a moment I let him pull me in. His arms close around me, solid and familiar, and I feel the strangest thing - grief. As if I’ve lost him already.

When he releases me, his voice drops low, urgent. “Do not trust anyone. Not even the elders. Not even wolves who swear they’re loyal to me. Bryce has been planting seeds for years.”

I swallow. “How far does it go?”

“Far and deep enough,” he says.

Then, more softly, as if he can’t stop himself: “I’m sorry.”

The words are a knife slicing through my heart, because I know he means them.

I nod once because if I speak, I might break out in tears.

Elijah guides me to the hidden door behind the tapestry, the one I only know about because I was a child who liked to explore and my father never stopped me. The passage yawns open, cold and dark, the air damp with earth.

Before I step into it, I look back.

My father stands beside the priestess, already putting his Alpha face back on, already becoming the man the pack expects.

And I have the strangest feeling that I will never see him again.