Chapter 7: The Rival's Glow

The execution square was drenched in moonlight, the same silver that had bathed my skin the night I was cast out. But something was different. The air didn't smell of pine and ash—it smelled of rain and wild jasmine. Foreign. Wrong.

I spun, my bare feet pressing into cold stone. Kael stood on the gallows platform, but he wasn't looking at me. His eyes were fixed on the gates, where a procession of golden torchlight snaked through the treeline.

"Kael," I breathed, stepping toward him. "What is this? Why am I—"

"You're not supposed to be here." His voice was tight, threaded with something I'd never heard from him before. Fear. "The Heartstone sent you to the wrong moment."

The crowd parted. A figure strode through the gates, tall and broad-shouldered, with hair the color of burnished copper and eyes that glowed like molten amber. He wore a cloak of midnight velvet, and at his collar—a pin carved from obsidian and gold. The emblem of the Shadowclaw pack.

My breath caught. I knew that emblem. I'd seen it in forbidden texts, in the ancient histories. The Shadowclaws had been rivals to the Nightfang pack for centuries. But their alpha hadn't set foot on our lands in over a decade.

"Alpha Kael." The stranger's voice was a low, melodic rumble that seemed to resonate in my chest. "I've come to claim what your pack has so recklessly discarded."

Kael's jaw tightened. "Damon. You're not welcome here."

Damon's amber eyes found me then, and I felt the weight of his gaze like a physical touch. He smiled—slow, knowing, devastating. "Ah. You must be the Luna. The rejected one." He descended the steps, each movement fluid, predatory. "I've heard stories about you, little wolf. How you survived the Forbidden Lands. How the Heartstone itself chose you." He stopped a breath away, close enough that I caught the scent of sandalwood and lightning. "How he let you go."

"The Heartstone didn't choose her," Kael snarled, leaping down from the platform. "It punished her."

Damon laughed, and the sound was honey and venom. "Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night? That your rejection was justice?" He reached out, and before I could flinch, his fingers brushed my cheek. "She bears the mark of the moon itself. You were too blind to see it."

I looked down. On my chest, where the rejection scar had once burned, a faint silver imprint glowed through my torn gown. The crescent symbol of the Moon Goddess. I hadn't noticed it before. I hadn't dared to look.

"What do you want, Damon?" I whispered.

His smile widened. "To offer you a home. A throne beside me. Shadowclaw has resources, power, armies. I can give you everything Kael threw away." He extended his hand. "Come with me, little wolf. Let me show you what a true alpha does with a Luna worth keeping."

The crowd gasped. Kael's hands balled into fists, and I could feel his fury radiating off him in waves. But what struck me more was the flicker in his eyes—something raw, possessive, almost wounded.

"She's mine," Kael growled. "Bound by the Moon Goddess. Rejected or not, her soul carries my mark."

Damon tilted his head, amused. "Then perhaps you should have fought for her when you had the chance." He turned back to me, his amber eyes softening. "I don't make promises I can't keep. I won't chain you, I won't cage you. I'll give you power, yes, but I'll give you freedom too. What do you say, Mia?"

I opened my mouth, but the words wouldn't come. The Heartstone was warm against my chest, pulsing like a second heartbeat. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled.

And then I saw it—the vision. The Heartstone's crimson glow painting a future I couldn't unsee.

Damon, standing in shadow, his amber eyes turning gold. A blade in his hand. Kael, on his knees, bleeding.

And me, caught between them, screaming.

"No." I stepped back, my voice barely audible. "This isn't real. You're not real."

Damon's smirk faltered. "Mia—"

"The Heartstone didn't send me to the past." I looked at Kael, at the gallows, at the crowd that had once howled for my death. "It sent me to a warning. You're not here to court me. You're here to destroy him."

The vision dissolved. The courtyard shimmered, reality bending at the edges. Damon's form flickered, and for a moment, I saw him differently—not as a savior, but as a wolf with hunger in his eyes and blood on his hands.

Kael stepped in front of me, shielding me with his body. "Whatever game you're playing, Damon, it ends now."

Damon laughed, but it was hollow. "Game? Oh, little alpha, you have no idea what's coming." He looked past Kael, straight at me. "I'll give you until the next full moon to change your mind. But trust me, Mia—when you see what he truly is, you'll come running to me."

The golden torches flickered out. Damon vanished into the crowd like smoke, and the courtyard dissolved around me, pulling me back through time and space.

When I gasped awake, I was lying on cold stone, the Heartstone cold and dark in my palm. The Forbidden Lands stretched around me, endless and silent.

But I wasn't alone.

A figure stood at the edge of the treeline, copper hair gleaming in the moonlight. Damon.

"Surprised to see me, little wolf?" He smiled, and this time, it reached his eyes. "I told you. I always find what I want."

I scrambled backward, my heart pounding. "Stay away from me."

"Oh, Mia." He crouched down, his voice a velvet whisper. "You think the Heartstone was warning you about me? No." He tilted his head, and his amber eyes flickered crimson. "It was warning you about him."

Behind him, I saw it—a figure stepping out of the shadows, broad-shouldered, silver-eyed. Kael. But this Kael wore a crown of thorns, and his eyes burned with something darker, something ancient.

"Now," Damon said, extending his hand again. "Shall we begin?"