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Chapter Forty-one
Last Updated:
2025-10-07 14:34:30Crimson Gift
The candles in Mona’s chamber burned low, their flames flickering wildly as if afraid.
She stood before the cracked mirror, breathing hard. Her reflection no longer shimmered gold. It pulsed — veins of black threaded through her skin, faintly glowing beneath the surface like dark lightning.
Her hands trembled. The blood magic still roared through her veins, singing with power and pain. Every heartbeat felt like fire. But behind the pain was something else — euphoria.
For the first time in her life, she felt limitless.
She tilted her head, studying her reflection. The woman staring back looked both divine and dangerous — eyes glowing crimson, a faint dark sigil etched across her throat like a crown.
She smiled. “Beautiful,” she whispered to herself.
The mirror whispered back, its fractured voice echoing faintly. Beautiful… and doomed.
Mona’s smile only widened. “Doomed are those who stand in my way.”
She turned toward the altar, where the elixir’s shattered vial lay in pieces. The glow had vanished, but she could still feel its echo deep within her soul — a living, breathing hunger.
The door behind her creaked.
She didn’t flinch. “You shouldn’t enter without knocking, Derrick.”
He stepped inside, his expression stormy, his shirt still streaked with dried blood from the battle with Kimberly. His eyes swept over her, sharp and suspicious. “You weren’t at the council this morning.”
“I needed solitude,” Mona said calmly.
He frowned. “Your scent is different.”
Her pulse jumped. “Different?”
He stepped closer, sniffing the air slightly — a wolf’s instinct. His nose wrinkled. “Darker.”
Mona met his gaze steadily. “You reek of failure and humiliation. Perhaps that’s what you smell.”
Derrick’s jaw tightened, but the sting in her words only half-registered. Something about her unnerved him. Her eyes gleamed with a light he couldn’t name, a coldness that hadn’t been there before.
“What have you done?” he asked quietly.
Mona smiled faintly, her crimson eyes glinting in the dim light. “What you couldn’t. I’ve prepared for war.”
He studied her, wary. “War against who? Kimberly? Or Lucien?”
Her lips curved, slow and sharp. “Both.”
She moved past him gracefully, her gown brushing against his arm. The contact sent a faint ripple of power through the air — enough to make Derrick flinch. He turned sharply, watching her with dawning realization.
“That’s not wolf magic,” he said.
“No,” she replied softly. “It’s older. Stronger.”
He took a step back. “What did you do, Mona?”
She turned to face him fully now, her smile widening — too calm, too confident. “I stopped waiting for your approval.”
The torches flared suddenly, the flames turning blood-red. Derrick stumbled back a step, his instincts screaming even as he tried to hide it.
Mona lifted her hand, flexing her fingers. The air shimmered, rippling like heat. Then — with a simple twist of her wrist — one of the glass vials on her table shattered, its fragments suspended in midair.
Derrick’s eyes widened.
Mona’s laughter was soft, chilling. “I was always in your shadow. Always the woman who smiled while you dreamed of another. Tell me, Derrick… do you still dream of her now?”
His jaw clenched. “She’s nothing. Just a mistake I’ll erase.”
“Then you and I want the same thing,” Mona purred. “Except I no longer need you to get it.”
Her power flared again — the shards of glass swirled into the air and formed a ring around her, glowing faintly red. The air thickened, heavy with the scent of iron and storm.
Derrick snarled, stepping forward. “You forget yourself, Luna.”
Mona tilted her head, her tone almost affectionate. “On the contrary, my Alpha. For the first time, I remember who I am.”
The glass shards exploded outward. Derrick raised his arm, instinctively shielding his face. When the shards struck the walls, they melted into streaks of crimson flame that danced up the stone.
He growled, his aura rising. “You dare raise power in my hall?”
She smiled sweetly, crimson light burning in her eyes. “I don’t raise it, love. I am it.”
The torches guttered, the flames bowing toward her like servants.
Derrick’s fury shifted into unease. “What have you become?”
“Free,” Mona whispered.
The word hung in the air like prophecy.
Then, as the last torch dimmed, Mona stepped close enough that he could feel the heat of her power. She traced a nail along his jaw, her touch leaving a faint glowing mark.
“Don’t fear me, Derrick,” she murmured. “Fear what I’ll do to her.”
And with that, she vanished — dissolving into a storm of crimson smoke that faded through the cracks of the stone hall, leaving only silence and the faint smell of blood.
Derrick stood alone, his heart pounding, his reflection flickering in the cracked mirror she left behind.
For the first time since he became Alpha, he realized something chilling.
The monster he had unleashed was no longer his to control.
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