Elmielos

"Hi, yes you aren't dreaming, it's the chubby Kelly," I say inwardly as I see the unhappy face expression of Jason who is disheartened. 

The guests laugh at us. They call our couple all sort of names. "The prince charming and the pancakes' eater Kelly" is one I can sadly remember."

"I, Jason Bentley of the South pack, reject you Kelly Thompson as my mate and the Luna Queen," he declared fiercely.

***
Kelly Thompson, an eighteen-year-old curvaceous and wolfless she-wolf, has been quietly admiring Jason Bentley, the heir apparent to the throne of the dominant South pack, for a number of years.

Unfortunately for Kelly, she doesn't get the same attention in return from Alpha heir Jason, as the handsome daughter of his old father's Gammas, Betty Nord, is already the love of the pack's future Alpha. But, the plump Kelly has an advantage over the skinny Betty because of a strong vow made by Jason's father, the Alpha King Don Bentley, that his son will marry the daughter of his Betas who gave their lives two years ago in a fight against the North pack's fiercest adversaries in order to preserve the life of the Alpha heir.

But clearly, nothing goes as smoothly as Kelly imagines.

The Rejected Curvy Luna Queen

The Sanguine Spire does not rise—it *breathes*. 


Crimson tendrils coil around its base, throbbing like exposed muscle. The air reeks of copper and rot, the ground spongy underfoot, yielding to each step as though the earth itself is alive. Lumi trails her fingers across the pulsating veins that web the soil, her frostbite scars glowing faintly. Jara marches ahead, her cultist spear replaced by a shard of black glass, its edge honed on the bones of the last mountain. The vial at my neck thrums, Veyd’s golden dust swirling like a trapped storm. 


**“It’s watching us,”** Lumi whispers. Her voice, once silent, now carries the weight of the Veil’s static. 


The Spire’s surface ripples, flesh-like membranes peeling back to reveal a labyrinth of wet, ribbed tunnels. Jara grimaces. **“Hell’s a fucking butcher shop now?”** 


**“Worse,”** I say. The shadow within me stirs, its hunger sharpened by the Spire’s metallic tang. *Feast*, it hisses. *This one is ripe.* 


The sanguine spire