TIME TO MEET THE ENEMY.

CHAPTER TWO.

LYRA’s POV.

Eight years had taught me many things.

How to heal wounds that should have killed a wolf, how to read ancient runes carved into the walls of the Moon Temple, how to speak to spirits that had been dead for hundreds of years.

How to stand before powerful men without lowering my eyes, but there was one thing I had never learned.

How to forget Karl Blackthorne. The man who till today still owns my heart but I would never admit that fact to myself or anybody else.

I closed my eyes as the cold wind moved through the open windows of the healing chamber.

“Hold still.” The young wolf lying before me whimpered as I pressed my palm against his chest. His body was burning with fever, and Wolf had gone silent three days ago, and this was not the first case that we were having. It was becoming too common.

I closed my eyes and reached deeper. The faint silver light beneath my palm grew brighter, for a moment, I heard nothing.

Then—

A howl, not from the world lying before me, but from somewhere far away. It sounded ancient and broken and then I opened my eyes. The young wolf’s body jerked, his eyes flashed with silver. Then his wolf returned. He took a deep breath and stared at me in disbelief.

“I can hear him again.” He whispered.

“Your wolf?” He nodded quickly.

“He’s back.”

A relieved smile touched my lips. “Then rest, your body needs time to recover.” The wolf bowed his head.

“Thank you, Priestess Lyra.” He said and I nodded and watched him leave the chamber. Only after the doors closed did my smile disappear. Another wolf was saved.

Another wolf whose powers had almost vanished, and another question without an answer. Why were the wolves losing themselves?

For the last several months, strange things had been happening across the territories. Wolves who could no longer shift, warriors who could not feel their wolves during the full moon. Sacred trees dying in the middle of winter, streams near ancient wolf shrines turning black. And every Moon Priestess who had studied the signs agreed on one thing, something was wrong.

Very wrong.

I turned toward the window, and the moon was already rising.

Eight years ago, I had looked at the same moon and asked why the Goddess had allowed my mate to reject me. I no longer asked that question, at least I told myself I didn’t. I remember the promise I made to him the last time I saw him. The promise of killing him, and I will.

He hurt me, he didn’t believe me when he should have, and he cast me aside.

He made me l—

“High Priestess Lyra?” I looked up at one of the younger acolytes who interrupted my thoughts, bowing her head. “Elder Isolde is asking for you. She says the news from the southern packs has worsened.”

I wiped my hands on my white robes, I wasn’t the girl in the blood-stained dress anymore. My hair was braided with silver thread, and my eyes, once full of desperation, were now as calm as a mountain lake.

I followed the girl into the Great Hall, where Elder Isolde stood over a map of the continent. The map was covered in black ink—marks where the Great Sickness had taken hold.

“You called for me, Isolde?” I said as soon as she noticed me.

“The wolves of the Crimson Pack have lost their ability to shift,” Isolde said without looking up. Her voice was grave. “The scarred forests are turning to ash. The balance is breaking, Lyra. Nobody seems to know what’s happening.”

“I’ve felt it,” I murmured. Even here, hundreds of miles away, I felt a strange coldness in the hair.

Isolde turned to me, her eyes piercing. “The Alpha Council had called for an Assembly at the neutral border. They are desperate. They need a Moon Priestess to purify the lands and find the source of this rot.”

“I understand. Which one of the Priestesses are you sending? Should we go with Aurelia? Or Celestine? I think both of them would do a good job.” I said and she looked at me weirdly.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked. “Maybe Celestine then? I honestly don’t know why you’re not a fan of Aurelia, but she’s an absolute far—“

“I’m sending you.” She said. I didn’t register it at first, but then I did and I shook my head.

“I’m not going. No, I will not.” I told her, my resolve about this not breaking.

“You are, Lyra. You are the most gifted High Priestess we have in this century. You can communicate with the spirits of the wolves, no other person can do that, Goddess, even I can’t do that. You are no longer the girl they rejected, it’s been eight years and you’re now the High Priestess of the Moon Temple. No person, no matter how powerful, can touch you. A look from you can hurt someone and you’re protected by being a sacred priestess.”

“I don’t want to, he promised to kill me, and I know he will,” I said.

“He can’t touch you.” She assured.

“So, will he be there then?” I asked.

“The Black Alpha? Yes, he will be there.” She confirmed.

My body went still. For eight years, I had refused to hear the name, I had never asked whether Kael had married, I had never asked whether he still ruled the pack, but the whispers got to me. The Black Alpha and his daughter, the one he didn’t play with. Which meant he was married if he had a daughter.

My heart broke because even after eight years, no man, no man came near me. No man made me feel the way he did, but that was my cross. Since I heard about his daughter, whenever travelers came through the Moon Temple and spoke about the Southern territories, I simply left the room.

It was easier that way. I had built a new life, and I had become someone different. I was no longer the eighteen-year-old girl who had walked into the snow with a broken heart. I was Lyra Ashwood, High Moon Priestess of the Moon Temple.

“Send another priestess,” I said again, the feelings I’ve learned to keep in check fluctuating after hearing his name.

Isolde’s expression softened.

“They specifically requested you.” She said and I shook my head.

“Why?” I asked looking at the woman who took me in eight years ago, she was asking me to break my heart again.

“They’ve heard the rumors, Lyra, you’re the best Priestess we have.”

“Tell them I refused.”

“Lyra.”

“I said no,” I said, my voice breaking and she walked towards me and placed her hand on my shoulders.

“You know I would never force you to go back there.” She said.

“Good.”

“But this is bigger than Kael. I know you’ve decided to tune everything about him out, but he’s now the Alpha King. He leads the whole realm of Silver Crest and they need you.” She said calmly. “Three packs have already lost nearly half their warriors, their wolves are becoming weaker by the day.”

I chose to remain silent.

“The sacred forest near the Silver Crest is dying.” My heart sank.

The Sacred Forest. One of the oldest forests in the realm.

“But what does that have to do with me?” I asked.

“I also don’t know. But they requested you.”

“I left that land eight years ago.”

“I know.”

“I was rejected there.”

“I know.”

“I was accused of betraying an entire family.”

“I know.”

“And I was humiliated by the man I loved in front of the whole realm.”

Isolde said nothing, she didn’t have to. She had been the one who found me that night. She had been the one who held me when I could barely breathe, she had been the one who taught me that my life did not end simply because one man had decided I was unworthy of his love.

I swallowed.

“Why now?”

“The council believes the answer lies beneath the sacred forest; ancient runes were discovered three nights ago.” I turned to her.

“What kind of runes?”

“They have Moon Markings.” My heart skipped.

“Moon markings?”

“Yes, and there is something else.” She said and I waited for her to continue. “The wolves guarding the runes have been hearing voices.”

“What voices?”

“They say the wolves hear a woman calling their names.”

She passed the scroll they sent to me, but I didn’t take it, I already knew what was there.

“Does he know I’m coming?” I asked.

“Yes, he knows.” She said and my heart pounded in my chest. “But he doesn’t know it’s you. They don’t know your name, you’re the only High Priestess, so they refer to you as that.”

“Okay, good.”

I sighed, I didn’t have a choice in this matter because it concerned innocent people.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“Are you certain?” She asked me, and I shook my head.

“No, but I’ll go anyway,” I said and gave a small smile.

Time to meet my ex-mate who wants to kill me.