Chapter 3: Blood and Betrayal
Point of View: Elara
The fire still burned, but it felt wrong. It popped and hissed in the center of the clearing, alive and greedy, but the ceremony was already dead. Kael had stormed out only moments ago, his shadow ripped from me like a torn seam, and the murmurs had started to ripple through the pack before the silence returned.
That silence was worse than any noise.
Every head had turned, every face sharpened into a single expression, and every eye locked onto me. I could feel the weight of them pressing into my skin as if their disgust alone could tear me apart.
An omega. A curse.
The words weren’t spoken aloud, but they were carved into their stares. Revulsion. Disbelief. And something else, something darker that made the hairs on my neck rise. Hunger. The kind that doesn’t want to feed, only destroy.
I wanted to curl into myself, vanish into the ground, but before I could take a breath Orion’s voice shattered the air.
“On your knees.” Aloha Orion growls at me.
It wasn’t a command so much as a force. It wasn’t even sound, not really, it was weight, gravity, an unseen hand that pressed down on me until my bones groaned in protest. My body dropped before I realized what was happening, my knees striking dirt so hard pain flared white-hot up my thighs. The air was suddenly too thick to swallow, every breath shallow and ragged. I shook under it, my spine bent, my hands clawing into the soil to stop myself from collapsing face-first.
“Father…” Kael’s voice cracked sharp through the air, brittle with anger.
Orion didn’t so much as flinch. His gaze stayed pinned on me, and the blackness in his eyes was colder than the void. Rage boiled in them, yes, but there was also certainty. Judgment. As if I wasn’t a girl kneeling before him, but filth that needed burning from his ground.
“She has defiled the bond.” His words carried, sharp and merciless. “She dares shame this pack in front of the Moon Goddess herself.”
The words gutted me. I tried to speak, to deny it, to beg, but nothing came. My throat was locked, strangled by the invisible weight of his command. I opened my mouth and air scraped my lungs raw, but no sound escaped.
“She didn’t do anything!”
Jace’s voice rose, high and cracking, desperate, cutting through the crowd like a thrown stone. I twisted my head, searching for him, but Orion’s eyes had already found him.
Jace choked mid-sentence, as Alpha Orion’s power took over his body. His body folded in on itself, his knees slamming down as his hands clawed at his own throat. He gagged, sputtered, his eyes bulging in terror as though unseen fingers were crushing the life from him. The sound of him gasping, raw and broken, ripped through me.
“Father, stop!” Kael’s snarl tore into the air, the edge of his wolf bleeding through his voice.
“ENOUGH!”
The roar that followed shook the earth itself. The ground trembled under my knees. My ears rang with it, and for a moment the fire dimmed under the sound. Jace collapsed into the dirt, his chest heaving, his lips a pale shade of blue. He is alive, barely. But broken, completely.
And Alpha Orion didn’t blink. He turned back to me, his lip curled as though the sight of me was an insult he couldn’t bear. “This omega is a stain,” he said, each word spat with venom. “She will be cleansed.”
I stopped breathing.
He raised his hand. “Execution. Now.”
The words didn’t even finish echoing before the clearing erupted. Gasps, screams, cries of disbelief but none of that stopped the warriors. They moved instantly, without question, as if his words had been burned into their blood long ago.
Clawed hands seized me, yanking my arms so violently behind my back that pain shot through my shoulders. I thrashed, but the grip was iron, cutting off any chance of escape. They dragged me forward, toward the fire, and heat licked at my skin until it felt like I was being pulled into a furnace.
“No!”
Kael’s roar cracked the night open.
The sound was inhuman, a shattering mix of fury and grief. His body convulsed, bones snapping, skin splitting, muscle tearing as his wolf burst out of him. His massive black form landed heavy in the dirt, shaking the ground with his weight. His howl tore upward into the sky, raw and primal, a cry that made my wolf inside me scream in answer.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
The pack stumbled back as one. Fear rolled off them, sharp and sour.
Orion’s eyes narrowed, cold and unyielding. “Stand down, Kael.” His voice lashed through the air, the power in it suffocating, enough to crush mountains. “Or you are no son of mine.”
Kael’s wolf lowered his head, a growl rolling out so deep the earth itself seemed to vibrate beneath it. His hackles rose, teeth bared, golden eyes blazing like molten fire. He did not yield.
The warriors still held me, claws cutting into my arms, but I could feel their hesitation. Their eyes darted between Kael and Orion, fear shaking their grip even as they obeyed.
And then a voice cut through the chaos. It was Lila.
She shoved through the crowd, her eyes burning with triumph as her voice rose, shrill and poisonous. “Kill her, Alpha! She bewitched him! Don’t let her poison your son!”
The words caught fire. Others took them up, and soon the clearing was echoing with the chant. “Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!”
It rolled through the pack like a sickness, feeding itself, drowning the night.
Orion lifted his arm high, the flames casting him in a glow that made him look like a figure carved from fire and shadow. “Strike her down!”
The warriors shoved me to the ground, my face pressed into dirt. Ash and blood filled my mouth as I gasped, choking. My wolf clawed inside me, wild and desperate, begging Kael to save us.
And then Kael broke. His wolf lunged.
The first warrior’s scream barely formed before it was cut short. Blood sprayed across the firelight, hot and sharp, painting the air red. The scent filled my nose, iron and fury, and the clearing erupted into chaos.
Kael tore into them without mercy, his massive form ripping through flesh and bone as though they were nothing. Warriors screamed, some fleeing, others throwing themselves forward in blind loyalty. But none of them could stop him. He was a storm, and all of it was for me.
Orion’s power blasted outward again, thick and suffocating, but Kael didn’t bow. He didn’t falter. He didn’t stop. His golden eyes burned with a wildness that shook me to my core.
“Elara, RUN!”
The bond snapped open between us, his voice blazing in my mind, searing my skull with fire and desperation.
But my legs wouldn’t work. My body refused to move. I shook, gasping, trapped between fear and shock.