The healer told me my voice might return within seven days.
He was not one of Alpha Elyon’s healers.
In three years, he was the first healer I had visited without the Vesper Pack knowing.
The old wolf studied the records spread across his oak table while moonlight spilled through the narrow windows of his den. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling beams, filling the room with the bitter scent of silverleaf and winter root. After a long silence, he finally lifted his eyes to me.
“Your throat was injured,” he said carefully, “but the damage was never permanent. Your healing should have begun years ago.”
My fingers tightened around the piece of chalk in my hand.
For three years, Elyon’s healers had told me the same thing: that the rogue attack had destroyed my voice forever. That the Moon Goddess had spared my life but taken my song in exchange.
Now this old healer was telling me someone had stopped my recovery.
“If proper treatment continues,” he murmured, “you may speak again before the next full moon.”
A week.
In seven days, I might hear my own voice again.
In seven days, I was supposed to stand beside Alpha Elyon Vesper before the Moonstone altar and become his Luna.
Once, the thought would have filled me with happiness.
Elyon was the one who had carried me from the forest after the rogue ambush that killed my father and nearly tore my wolf bond apart. He sheltered my mother within Vesper territory after our pack collapsed, placed his own guards outside her chambers, and vowed before the elders that no harm would ever touch me again.
The entire pack believed he loved me.
I believed it too because I wanted something to survive after losing everything else.
When I left the healer’s den, rain drifted softly through the pine forest. My escort wolves waited beside the trail, but instead of returning to the pack manor, I signed for them to take me to the Moon Chapel.
The pack servants had informed me that morning about the mating ceremony rehearsal. Elyon claimed he would be occupied with border matters, yet I still wanted to see the chapel once before the ceremony.
I wanted to imagine walking toward him beneath the blessing of the Moon Goddess.
That was my first mistake.
Adrielle Vale stood at the center of the chapel in white ceremonial silks, singing my song beneath the glow of the moonstones.
The sacred melody drifted through the hall like smoke, soft enough to make my chest ache.
I knew every word.
I had written them alone during sleepless nights as my private mating vow to Elyon.
Alpha Elyon sat in the front row watching her with quiet warmth in his eyes.
Beside him lounged his twin brother, Lucien Vesper, the pack’s Beta. Though they shared the same face, Lucien carried none of Elyon’s gentleness. Darkness clung to him like shadowfire, dangerous and strangely watchful.
Adrielle finished the final note and smiled.
“Was it worthy of the ceremony?” she asked.
Elyon rose from his seat and crossed the chapel slowly. “Perfect.”
Her cheeks flushed softly beneath the moonlight. “Then I will sing it during the mating rites?”
“At the rites,” Elyon answered. “And during your presentation as Nyxaria.”
My breath caught.
Nyxaria.
That name belonged to me.
Before the rogue attack stole my voice, I had composed ancient lunar songs under that name. My music traveled from pack to pack across the territories, sung during moon festivals and sacred ceremonies, though no one knew the identity of the she-wolf behind them.
After I lost my voice, Elyon convinced me to let Adrielle sing some of my compositions. He promised it would only be temporary. He said Adrielle merely needed guidance.
I agreed because I loved him.
But I had never given her Nyxaria.
Adrielle lowered her gaze to the ceremonial parchment in her hands. “Will the High Alphas accept me standing beside you?”
Elyon took the parchment from her. “The packs will accept whatever I command.”
One of the servants approached carrying the official ceremony scrolls. As she passed, one slipped from the stack and landed near the chapel doors.
I bent to pick it up.
At the top, written in silver ink beneath the Moon Goddess’s crest, were the words:
Sacred Union of the Vesper and Vale Bloodlines
Below them were two names.
Alpha Elyon Vesper.
Adrielle Vale.
My own name appeared farther beneath.
Lyra Corvayne, witness to the territorial transfer.
Not bride.
Not Luna.
Only a witness.
My throat burned beneath the old scar.
Then an elder priest spoke quietly from the altar.
“And the Corvayne heir?” he asked.
Elyon’s voice turned cold enough to freeze the air.
“Once Lyra transfers her birthright and the Moonstone territory passes to the Vesper Pack, she is no longer necessary.”
Adrielle hesitated. “She will be heartbroken.”
“She will survive,” Elyon replied without emotion. “She always does.”
At that exact moment, my pocket vibrated.
A mindstone.
I pulled the small enchanted stone into my palm, and glowing words slowly surfaced across its surface.
Do not return to the healer.
Your mother has been moved under Vesper guard.
Alpha’s orders.
For a moment, the chapel blurred before my eyes.
My mother.
The only family I had left.
Elyon had moved her without telling me.
I looked again at Adrielle standing before my altar, wearing white robes beneath the moonlight while singing my vows with my name already waiting for her.
Seven days.
The healer said my voice would return in seven days.
Alpha Elyon Vesper had seven days left to enjoy my silence.
