Chapter 5

Seeing the sudden stillness in my eyes, she let out a cruel, mocking laugh.

"Alieus said I was too fragile, too delicate to be exposed to his enemies while he was still struggling to build his army. So he let you play the public Luna while he gave his true loyalty to me."

“He was so possessive of me back then that he went to beat the Lycan Prince for me after he shot just a glance over me. I wonder if he has ever done something as outrageous as this for you.”

A violent tremor shook my entire frame. That night, I had begged everyone sitting in Lycan King’s court just to spare Alieus, for he was drunk.

But it seems that the only person who was not in a state of seeing through right or wrong was not Alieus but me.

My mate was fighting for his mistress while I was actually defending him. How foolish can anyone be as I was before? How could I not see through him before?

Elena’s voice kept piercing through the fog of my shock, pulling me back to the horrific reality.

"And then you became pregnant with his true heir. I threw such a frenzy that I threatened to break our spiritual link forever. Do you know what your doting Alpha did? He secretly conspired with his warlords to leak our patrol routes to the Ironclaw pack, orchestrating the ambush that forced your premature shift and caused your miscarriage. While you were screaming in agony in the shaman’s den, he was on his knees in my chambers, begging me never to leave him."

The revelation hit me like a physical blow. My vision went entirely dark, a suffocating weight crushing my lungs.

I had thought Alieus' heart had changed, but the truth was it never changed. He simply never loved me. He chose me only because I was his fated mate and because my pack had a better connection with the Lycan King that he could use as a ladder to rise as a new Alpha. And when it was done, he no longer needed that ladder.

Elena’s face suddenly distorted with an ugly, deep-seated resentment.

"But even with all that devotion, the pack laws still prevent him from breaking your fated-mate bond to choose our bond officially! You're just riding on the coattails of your past suffering to hoard his title. But it ends today."

She flashed a manic, terrifying grin.

"I wonder... if Alieus believes you tried to murder his future heir out of jealousy, do you think he’ll care about a single shred of your history?"

My eyes widened in shock as she coughed a mouthful of blood, screaming in utter pain.

"Alieus! She's killing the heir!"

The heavy oak doors were blown off their hinges by a burst of Alpha aura. Alieus charged into the room.

“Alieus! She poisoned my drink. My pup… It's gone. She has done the black magic in the drink.”

Alieus’s eyes turned bloodshot. He grabbed me by my throat and lifted me clean off my feet before throwing me violently against the far wall. His Lycan features bled through his skin as he saw Elena collapsed on the floor, blood pooling beneath her silk dress.

"It wasn't me..." I choked out, coughing violently as the metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth.

Alieus bypassed me entirely, dropping to his knees to gather Elena’s pale form. His roar shook the foundations of the sanctuary.

"Lyra! You couldn't even spare an unborn pup! You are a witch just like your mother! You are good at witchcraft! I shouldn't have entrusted Elena to you.”

"You stole my child's life. Do not think your dead ancestors will protect you now."

Fixing me with an expression of pure, unadulterated hatred, he barked a lethal order to his enforcers.

"Go to the sacred valleys. Excavate the Seer burial mounds. Burn her parents' remains to ash and scatter them in the pack's waste-troughs."

"No!" A raw, guttural scream tore from my throat. "Alieus! You've lost your mind! The sanctuary mirrors are enchanted with memory-magic! Look at the reflection! I didn't touch her!"

Elena, feigning a sudden burst of frantic despair, grabbed a silver knife lying nearby.

"My pup is gone... my future is dead! There is no need for me to live either!" She cried out, casting a look of pure triumph at me over her shoulder. "Blame me all you want, Luna!"

With that, she slashed the knife into her stomach, blood seeping off.

Alieus panicked completely. He lunged forward, throwing his massive weight over her to snatch the knife from her hands. His face turned as cold and unyielding as glacial ice as he cast a final look over his shoulder at me.

"You have drained the last drop of my mercy, Lyra. You have crossed the line of no return." He growled to the head enforcer, "Take her to the silver mines of the Dark-Ridge territory. Sentence her to life in the deep trenches."

Alieus ran his wolf at breakneck speed, carrying the bleeding Elena.

“Luna Lyra is High Shaman’s daughter, Alieus. If she wants my pup dead, no healer can save him in this world.” Elena whispered.

“I won't let anything happen to our pup, Elena.” Alieus whispered, “If healers can't treat you, I’ll have the current High Shaman of the kingdom save you.”

"Save her! Save the heir!" he roared, slamming his fists onto the stone altar. "Keep my pup alive, and I will do whatever it takes!"

The elder shaman gasped, freezing as he looked at the frantic Alpha, then down at the pale, calculated expression of the girl in his arms.

A profound, utterly bewildered confusion washed over the shaman’s face. He looked at Alieus, his brow furrowing deeply.

"Your heir, Alpha? Supreme Alpha Alieus... your pre-selection ritual report from a decade ago is locked in our archives. Your spiritual core is genetically sterile. You cannot father a lineage. Where exactly did this child come from?"

Alieus’s entire body went rigid. The ambient temperature in the room plummeted to a freezing low.

He slowly whipped his head toward the old shaman, his voice dropping into a terrifying, demonic register.

"What did you just say?"

"Sterile? High Shaman, do you not know the punishment for spreading false rumours?"

"Alpha, I swear by the Moon Mother, I speak no lie! It was the absolute truth of

your lineage check ten years ago! I handed that report to Luna Lyra with my own hands!”