Chapter 4

That night, Elara went into the underground temple alone.

It had been sealed by the Alpha's order for years.

But she was still the Luna.

Even a Luna about to be replaced was not dead yet.

The gatekeeper saw the silver mark on her wrist and did not stop her.

The heavy stone door closed behind her.

She looked back once.

Every sound from outside was shut out.

No Cassian. No Seraphina.

Only her.

She raised her hand and pressed the face of the ring on her middle finger against the tall shelf.

The mechanism opened.

Hundreds of records slid out of the hidden compartments and drifted toward her, covering the whole stone table.

She did not read them one by one.

She went straight to the records of the Lunas.

Every page ended with the same two words in bold.

Duty fulfilled.

Elara's hand stopped.

No death records. No records of anyone stepping down.

They had simply vanished, one after another.

She yanked out the file at the very bottom.

The cover held a single word.

Contract.

Elara opened to the first page.

The next second, her breath stopped.

The Luna is the offering to the Moon Goddess.

The pack calls them an honor.

But their true duty came down to a single word: sacrifice.

Every Luna must bind her soul to the Moon Core and become the power source that holds the whole pack together, until the next one appears.

Elara stared at those lines, and the color drained from her face.

She kept turning pages.

The last page.

She saw her own name.

Elara Voss.

Duty fulfilled on: five days from now.

In the blank space below that line, Seraphina's name had already risen to the surface, complete.

She read on.

Tucked inside were the signatures of every Alpha.

The second page held one cold clause.

Informed of and consenting to the continuation of the Luna offering.

The third page was a promise to keep the secret from the Luna herself.

Elara's breath caught.

They had written the promise out themselves, that they must keep it from their own Luna.

Including one name she knew better than any other.

Cassian.

Date of signature: three years ago, the day before the Luna coronation.

Elara stared blankly at that name.

One truth came clear to her all at once.

Cassian had not made this choice later.

He had made it the day before she became Luna.

Elara stood there and did not move for a long time.

Her fingertip traced slowly across that date.

Three years ago.

That day, she had thought she was about to become this man's most honored partner.

And he had already signed a death contract for her.

He had even promised everyone he would never tell her.

Elara suddenly laughed.

Very softly.

Yet it looked worse than crying.

It wasn't that he had forgotten to tell her during those three years.

Instead, he had decided from the very beginning to keep it from her.

She pulled that sheet out of the contract.

Her fingertip brushed over Cassian's name.

"How much can you possibly love me," she asked under her breath.

The next second her fingers snapped shut, crushing the paper into creases.

"...that you'd decide I don't even deserve to know how I die?"