130. The Elders Are Here

PRESIDENT RYDERI went to my office. The walk felt longer than it was. Each step echoed in the stone halls. Students moved out of my way without being told. They saw my face. They knew better than to speak. I closed the door behind me. Locked it. For the first time in years. Ruby. Her name was a blade in my throat. I’d held her when she was born. Small, red-faced, screaming. She’d wrapped her whole hand around my finger and refused to let go. She was the one good thing I’d made in this life that had nothing to do with politics. Nothing to do with the elders. Darius had her. I sat at my desk. My hands were steady. That was training. That was decades of swallowing fear and serving it back as orders. I pulled out parchment. Academy seal. Black wax. *To the Esteemed Circle,* *The omega has surfaced. It is bonded to Lucian, Alpha of the Northern Pack. It is in the possession of Darius. Location unknown, but we have a lead. We move in five days, on the eve of the red blood moon. I wi

131. The Elders Are Here

PRESIDENT RYDERThe sky was wrong. Red, blue, yellow, black, orange, green. Not the regular colors. The elders never came in person. They sent letters. They sent judgments. They sent death. But they never came. Not unless the world was about to end. Or unless they didn’t trust you to end it yourself. I left the yard. The wind was up now, pulling at my cloak, making the flags snap like gunshots. The troops watched me go. I felt their eyes. I felt Lucian’s most of all. He knew what that light meant too. I went to the gates. They were already open. Six figures stood just beyond the threshold. No horses. No carriage. They’d walked. Or appeared. With them, that was the same thing. Five in gray robes. Faces hidden. Hands hidden. Silent. One in red. He was taller than the others. Not by much. But it was enough. His robe moved like it was alive, like it was drinking the light around it. The cowl was deep. I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t need to. I’d see it in my nightmares anyway.

132. Tomorrow Would Be Mine

DARIUSThe stone was cold under my back. It always was. This deep. This far from the sun. The cave didn’t care that tomorrow was the day. It didn’t care that in less than twenty-four hours the moon would go red and I would carve the power out of the omega’s veins and pour it into mine. It was just stone. Old. Hungry. But I cared. god, I could feel it. In my bones. In my blood. In the place where Elara used to sit before I killed her and took her name out of my mouth. The anticipation was a fever. It made my teeth ache. It made my hands shake. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I stop being Darius Vale, the broken brother, the shadow, the second son. Tomorrow I become what I was always meant to be. A god. The sound of footsteps pulled me out of it. Not Isla’s. She was on the island, chained at the ankle to the bed. Not with iron. Iron was for men. She was chained with warded silver and bone, etched with words that burned if she shifted. She hadn’t spoken in hours. She just lay there, staring

All Chapters of Marked By The Moon: Tied To The Four Alphas: Chapter 131 - Chapter 133

130. The Elders Are Here

131. The Elders Are Here

132. Tomorrow Would Be Mine