CHAPTER TWO

No. No, no, no.

I stumbled back, nearly colliding with a servant. My breathing came in sharp, ragged pulls. My wolf, silent for all these years, thrashed violently against the walls of my mind, clawing with a desperation I had never felt before. She was trying to break free.

But she wasn't ready. Neither was I.

"Seraphina!" My mother's voice cut through the chaos. Her grip was on my arm in an instant, steadying me, but her eyes sharp, calculating searched mine for something more than faintness.

Had she seen?

Had they seen?

"Get her out," my father snapped to someone. "Now."

My brothers were by my side in a flash. Ronan's hand hovered at my back, cautious. Ezra stood like a barrier between me and the watchful eyes of the court.

But it was too late.

Lucien Thorne had turned his gaze on me.

From across the summit, from where the Alphas stood on raised platforms draped in royal banners, the Lycan King's golden eyes had found me. He hadn't moved. He hadn't spoken. Yet I felt the claim wrap around my throat like a chain.

He knew.

Somehow, the bastard knew.

And that's when it happened.

The summit's priestess, white-haired and half-mad from the moon's whisperings, dropped to her knees with a shriek that split the air.

"Marked!" she cried, pointing directly at me with a trembling, bony finger. "The moon has marked her! She belongs to the cursed blood!"

Gasps again, this time sharper, cutting. Whispers cascaded like falling stones.

Marked.

Cursed blood.

Eyes turned, glares sharpened. I was no longer a daughter of high-ranking Alphas. I was no longer just a late bloomer, the she-wolf who hadn't awakened.

I was something else entirely.

The court erupted. A cacophony of shocked voices, of disbelief and horror. My father's command boomed through it, but it was drowned. My mother's grip tightened as though she feared I would be taken right then and there.

Lucien hadn't moved.

He didn't have to.

His eyes remained on me, pinning me in place.

And in that moment, I realized something far worse than being exposed.

The King didn't look surprised.

He looked satisfied.

---

We moved swiftly through the back corridors of the summit hall. I didn't speak. My legs were numb, my mind screaming. Ronan led the way, practically dragging Ezra behind him in his fury.

"What the hell was that?" Ronan hissed.

Ezra shot him a look. "Don't lose it here. Not now."

"She almost collapsed in front of the Lycan King"

"I'm fine," I rasped.

They stopped. Both of them turned to face me. Ronan looked like he might explode.

"You are not fine," he snapped. "Your eyes changed. Just for a second. I saw it."

"You didn't," I denied, but even to my ears, my voice was too hollow.

"You're hiding something."

Ezra stepped in. "Enough. We'll talk when we're out of here."

But there was no more time.

Behind us, the double doors slammed open.

Lucien Thorne entered like a storm.

The air changed. Heavy. Alive.

Guards flanked him, but they didn't matter. His presence consumed the hall. My brothers stepped in front of me instinctively, but Lucien's eyes never left mine.

"You," he said, voice like velvet and steel. "Come."

My father appeared from the far end of the corridor. "With all due respect, Your Majesty, she is under my protection."

Lucien's smile was slow and cruel. "And yet she bears the mark."

"She bears no such thing."

"The moon disagrees."

I swallowed hard. My wolf clawed again, but it wasn't panic this time. It was rage.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," I said.

Lucien's gaze narrowed. "You don't get to choose."

Ezra growled low in his throat. "She's not your possession."

Lucien stepped forward. "She is mine. The bond"

"There is no bond!" I shouted. The hall went deathly still.

Lucien tilted his head. "Tell that to your wolf."

I opened my mouth to argue but then it hit.

---

The Vision

I barely made it two steps before the world tilted.

Pain spiked through my skull like a dagger. My knees buckled, and everything went dark, not a blackout, but something else.

The air around me thickened. Shadows coiled like serpents. I was no longer standing in the summit hall.

I was somewhere ancient.

The floor beneath my feet was silver stone, cracked and glowing faintly with veins of moonlight. Mist curled along the edges of a vast chamber that shouldn't exist. Statues lined the perimeter wolves with their heads bowed, as if in mourning. A single throne stood at the far end, carved entirely from black crystal, jagged and bleeding power.

Lucien sat upon it.

But this wasn't the Lucien I had just stood before. This one was crowned in fire and fury. His eyes those burning gold eyes were glowing like twin suns. His chest was bare, torn with claw marks and dripping blood that shimmered like stars. A Lycan, fully shifted, crouched beside him towering, monstrous, and yet… loyal.

The wolf growled low, protective. Possessive.

My heart stuttered.

Then I saw her. A version of myself I didn't recognize.

She stood in front of him, cloaked in a gown of silver flame, chains binding her wrists. Her hair flowed like a night wind, her eyes glowing the same cursed gold as his. Her expression was vacant, dead, almost. As if she had given in.

The vision-me raised her chin, and in a voice laced with power and pain, whispered, "I am the blood of the cursed line… and your undoing."

The Lycan roared.

The crystal throne shattered behind him.

Lucien stood his form splitting between man and beast, shadows dancing across his skin and reached for me.

Not the vision-me.

Me.

I stumbled back but there was no ground beneath me anymore. Just sky. Just stars.

Falling.

Falling

Then I was on the floor of the summit hall, gasping, drenched in sweat, surrounded by silence.

Eyes on me.

Lucien's voice cut through the fog, low and dangerous. "What did you see?"

I didn't answer.

Because I couldn't.

Not without losing what little grip I still had.

Lucien – POV

I watched her fall.

The court stirred like frightened prey, unsure whether to run or pounce. I saw the tremble in her hands, the sweat slicking her brow. But more than that, I felt her wolf surge.

Just for a heartbeat.

Raw. Violent. Ancient.

And then gone.

I stepped forward.

Her brothers bristled, but I wasn't looking at them. I knelt beside her as she blinked through the vision's aftermath.

"Seraphina," I murmured. Her name felt like fire on my tongue.

She didn't look at me.

Of course she didn't. She was afraid.

Good.

She should be.

The moon had marked her. Not by accident. Not by madness. And I had known the moment she stepped into the Summit Hall. Her scent had been a blade to the chest.

Fated.

Cursed.

Mine.

She opened her eyes finally. Glared at me.

I smiled.

"This changes everything," I whispered.

And the war in her gaze told me she knew it too.

Lucien

The second I felt the pulse—a magnetic throb in the marrow of my bones—I knew it was her.

The girl in the ceremonial dress, trembling, eyes wide like a hunted doe. Seraphina.

The bond surged forward like a tidal wave, clawing through my carefully composed shields. My wolf snarled with approval, but I clenched my jaw. Now was not the time.

But the priestess had seen. The entire summit had seen.

And I had felt it.

The claiming. The mark. She was mine.

Not just by fate. Not just by blood.

The moon had chosen.

She belonged to me.

Yet she stood there, frightened, nearly collapsing as her family dragged her from view.

She didn't know who she was. Or maybe she did—and hated it.

The cursed blood.

I should've spoken. Should've declared her. But I waited.

Because the last time the moon chose... it ended in blood.

---

I returned to my chambers that night with a storm raging in my chest. The walls of the Lycan stronghold felt too close, suffocating.

The bond echoed through me like a chant: She is here. She is yours.

I poured myself a drink, the crystal decanter shaking slightly in my grip. My reflection in the mirror across the room bore little resemblance to the controlled, regal facade I showed the world.

Then it came.

A vision.

My knees buckled under the weight of it. My mind was dragged into darkness, then blinding light.

I saw her. Seraphina.

But not as she was today—broken and uncertain.

She was aglow with power, her eyes no longer afraid but burning with silver flame. Her wolf—massive, ancient, and unlike any I'd ever seen—stood beside her. And she looked at me, not with fear… but fury.

"You will break me before you earn me," she said, voice a war cry.

The vision vanished as quickly as it came, leaving me breathless on the floor.

Prophetic. Undeniable.

She was not just my mate. She was something else entirely.

---

Seraphina

The room they locked me in was suffocating, and still too grand. A prison dressed in silk.

My wolf wouldn't stop howling inside me. She wanted out. She wanted him.

But all I could do was tremble.

The moment the priestess screamed, something inside me had clicked. Not snapped—clicked, like a key turning in a lock.

And the name that echoed in my head wasn't mine.

It was his.

Lucien.

A vision took me too, later that night.

A battlefield, soaked in blood.

I stood in the center, but I wasn't alone. My wolf loomed behind me. Beside me, a man—tall, broad, radiating fury—held a broken crown in his hand.

Lucien.

"I will not let the moon take you," he said.

Then a third voice, cold and feminine: "She was never yours to keep."

I screamed and woke, drenched in sweat.

Something was coming. Not just a bond.

A war.

---

Lucien

The next day, I summoned my seer.

"You saw it too," I said. "Don't lie."

She nodded slowly. "The cursed blood. The ancient bond. She is the end… and the beginning."

I dismissed her, rage barely contained.

If the moon wanted a spectacle, it would get one.

But Seraphina was not a pawn.

She would rise. And gods help whoever stood in her way.

Even if it was me.