A Crown of Ashes

n blood, a resonant hum that grew from a whisper to a roar as I matured. It's the call of my Lycan lineage, still sleeping in its full power but stirring restlessly within me. It draws me from the suffocating v

spers. The silence was a crushing weight, a shroud I tho

in doll, one breath away from shattering. He sat beside me at my parents' burial pyre, the heat scorching our faces. Our small hands brushed, a fleeting spark of contact, before he reached out and took

caled the palace walls, leaving protocol and propriety in the dust below, to chase wind spirits-glimmering figures of playful chaos-through the lower woods. Wi

o tense battlegrounds of words and alliances. My presence, though I rarely spoke, was a tactical piece on the board-a promise to some, a thre

began. Not of succe

ge. Of me

ecurity for the kingdom. The elders' eyes would crinkle in approval when he stood beside me at state dinners. His mother would make artfully veiled comments about the beauty

waking dreams, who made the wolf ins

as D

orm that had orbited my life

with the scent of ozone and command. His eyes, the silver of a winter storm, seemed to see past the princess and straight into the wild creature benea

e in the courtyard, a physical weight on my skin. I saw the tightening of his jaw when we shared a whispered joke during a tedious banquet. Once, after a sparring session, Lucas caught me by the wrist

arius was near, I felt stripped bare, seen in a way that both terrified and thrilled me. And when he looked at

-

ari

th him, it is a new tur

of a Duke. Polishe

s, always

r her to the world of the living. But that lie wore thin with every shared laugh that echoed across the training grounds, every conspiratorial whisper over dinner, every ti

the whispers followed, circling like predators. *A royal match. A perfec

ere convenience. It was easy. Natural. It was the kind of bond that, if left to flourish, would be sealed by the

eds a Luna, they'd say, a queen to anchor his power and secure the future. Offers flooded the court: daughters of ambitious lords, si

e one person in all of Virelia I was forbidden to claim. My ward. The sacred trust my dying Alpha had placed

if she is on the verge of unraveling the man from the monarch. The thought of her seeing the feral, possessive thing I k

and she smiles back at him with an ung

bu

man watching the only light in his world being offered to another. And I am an Alpha L

gerous clarity emerges. A choice is coming. A

er forgets what