CHAPTER 2:BLOODLINES AWAKEN

There should be a manual for waking up as a magical death beacon.

I sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket that smelled like old cedar and something faintly wolfish, staring at my glowing fingers like they belonged to someone else.

They’d stopped burning hours ago, but I could still feel the heat.

It wasn’t gone. Just... sleeping.

Across the room, Lucian paced in crisp, silent lines like he was fighting a war in his own skull.

Kade stood by the window, shirtless and annoyed, a rag pressed to the claw mark on his ribs. “She doesn’t even know what she is. And you want to start talking trials?”

“She needs to be prepared,” Lucian snapped.

“She needs to not combust the next time someone knocks on the damn door.”

“Guys?” I croaked. “Still in the room.”

They both turned to me—like I was some fragile artifact that might explode if stared at too hard.

Lucian moved first, kneeling beside me, eyes soft but stormy.

“You’ve inherited more than blood, Raven. You’re the last of the Blackthorn line.”

“I heard that part,” I said. “Right after I set a man on fire with my soul.”

Lucian didn’t flinch. “Your bloodline is tied to elemental magic—fire, wind, earth. But your specific gift—hellfire—it’s... rare. Dangerous.”

“Uncontrollable,” Kade added, still not looking at me. “That’s why they sealed it when you were born. Why your name disappeared.”

I blinked. “They sealed me?”

Lucian nodded. “Magic wards. Memory suppression. Location cloaking. You were hidden after the prophecy dropped.”

“What prophecy?”

Kade sighed. “The one that says you’ll either unite the packs… or destroy them.”

“Okay,” I said. “But like, no pressure.”

Lucian’s hand hovered near mine, never quite touching. “You were born on the night of the Red Eclipse. That alone marked you. But when the seers looked into your future, they saw too many outcomes.”

“Too much power,” Kade muttered. “So the royals decided it was better if you didn’t exist.”

I swallowed hard. “So they erased me. Like I was a glitch.”

Lucian’s jaw tightened. “They thought they were protecting you.”

“And now?”

“Now,” he said, “you’re awake. Which means the other packs felt it. Which means... the claiming trials are inevitable.”

“The what now?” I asked, heart dropping straight into my toes.

Kade’s expression twisted. “Every unmated alpha in the region will have the right to fight for you. It’s ancient law.”

“Like some supernatural Bachelor death match?”

Lucian flinched. “It’s tradition.”

“It’s barbaric,” Kade growled. “And you know it.”

I stood, throwing the blanket off. “Nope. Absolutely not. I am not some wolf bride prize to be won by the last man standing. I will burn this entire forest down first.”

Lucian rose too. “It’s not about ownership.”

“Then what is it about?”

He hesitated. Just for a second.

Kade filled the silence.

“It’s about power.”

Power.

The word clung to the room like smoke.

I crossed my arms, pacing because standing still made me feel like a pawn on someone else's gameboard.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re both here because I lit up like a torch. Every alpha in the region’s going to come knocking with rings and claws. And unless I suddenly become a magical ninja princess, I’m screwed.”

Lucian opened his mouth. Closed it again.

Kade, surprisingly, was the one who softened. “You’re not screwed, Raven.”

I glanced at him. “Oh no?”

“No,” he said, walking over and lowering his voice. “Because you’re not alone.”

I snorted. “You mean I have two bodyguards who barely tolerate each other?”

Lucian stepped forward. “We’re not here to babysit you.”

“Then what are you here for?”

Kade leaned against the fireplace. “I’m here because I owe your bloodline a debt.”

Lucian? Lucian looked like he was swallowing words he didn’t have permission to say.

I sighed, turning toward the mirror in the hall. The one that cracked earlier. The fracture still ran down the glass like a scar.

But it was the reflection that made my lungs freeze.

In the mirror—I saw her.

Not me.

A girl in the same spot. Same hair. Same silver eyes. But the dress was old. Regal. Her lips were painted blood-red. Her expression was the kind of sad you only earn by dying too young with too much unsaid.

I blinked.

She blinked back.

My breath caught. “Did you see—?”

Lucian was behind me instantly. “What did you see?”

I turned to him. “I think I remembered someone who isn’t me.”

Kade came closer. “That’s how it starts.”

“How what starts?”

Lucian's voice was low. “Your bloodline carries memory. Not just magic. Ancestral imprinting. Every Blackthorn heir is born with fragments of the ones who came before.”

I stared at the mirror. The ghost—no, the echo—was gone.

“I felt... grief,” I whispered. “And fire. And someone calling my name. But not as a warning. Like a promise.”

Kade's eyes locked with Lucian’s. Something unspoken passed between them.

"She remembers," Lucian murmured. "Even without the full awakening."

“She’ll dream of the past before she understands the future,” Kade added. “It’s always like that with cursed bloodlines.”

My brain screamed for a nap and a snack. “You’re telling me I’m carrying other people’s trauma in my DNA?”

Lucian didn’t smile. But his eyes flicked with something gentle. “You’re carrying legacy.”

Kade shrugged. “Same thing.”

My stomach twisted, not from hunger, but from something... pulling.

Somewhere deep in my chest, something was shifting.

“I don’t want any of this,” I whispered. “I just wanted answers. Not a war. Not a prophecy. Not... them.”

Lucian moved toward me, slowly, like I was glass—and fire.

“You didn’t choose it,” he said. “But you can still claim it.”

“Why do you care so much?” I asked.

His gaze met mine, and I swear the temperature dropped.

“Because I saw you die,” he said. “Once. A long time ago. And I swore I wouldn’t let it happen again.”

My breath hitched. “What?”

Kade swore softly. “He remembered.”

Lucian stepped back. “You won’t be alone this time.”

And just like that—something inside me cracked.

Not broke. Unlocked.

A sound echoed through the forest outside.

This time, it wasn’t a howl.

It was a bell.

A deep, ceremonial clang that sent shivers across my skin.

Kade’s face darkened. “The royal summons.”

Lucian’s expression hardened. “The trials are being called.”

My legs nearly gave out. “Already?”

“They’re afraid of what you’ll become,” Lucian said. “So they’re forcing the game early.”

I turned to them, voice tight. “Then they’re about to find out how stupid that is.”

It started with the scent of roses burning.

Not real roses. Not fresh. Ash. Wilted petals. Something once beautiful turning to smoke.

I opened my eyes into a world that didn’t feel like mine.

The walls were made of stone, soft with torchlight and shadows. The floor beneath me was marble veined with crimson. I stood in a gown I’d never worn, silk that clung like memory. The air was heavy with incense and magic that tasted like blood and gold.

And I wasn’t alone.

A man knelt before me.

Dark hair. Familiar shoulders. A posture so devout it made my heart ache.

He wore royal armor—the same color as Lucian’s eyes. His voice was rough, low, shattered.

> “Forgive me, my Luna.”

My breath hitched.

Not Raven. Luna.

He looked up, and I gasped.

It was Lucian. But younger. Or older. Or different.

His eyes were the same. But his face bore a scar across his cheek that didn’t exist in the waking world.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, though no sound left my lips.

He didn’t hear me. Didn’t look at me now.

Because I wasn’t really there.

I was reliving it.

A memory.

A warning.

> “They’ve turned on you,” Dream-Lucian whispered, pain dripping from every word. “They fear your power. The fire in your blood. The child you carry.”

Wait. What?

> “I would burn kingdoms for you,” he said. “But I cannot stop what’s coming.”

His hands shook. “They made me swear. If you awaken fully… I have to kill you.”

The memory splintered.

I screamed—but no sound came.

Suddenly I was falling—through flame, through time, through my own death.

And then—I saw her.

Me.

The original me.

Standing in a battlefield of ash, silver fire burning from her skin, her eyes wide with betrayal as Lucian raised a blade to her throat.

> “Forgive me,” he said again.

> “You already did,” she whispered. “That’s why I’m cursed.”

She didn’t cry.

She just closed her eyes—

And let the fire take them both.

I woke gasping, drenched in sweat and power and something older than nightmares.

The couch was gone. The house was gone.

I was outside.

Standing in the middle of the woods.

Barefoot. Glowing.

Lucian stood across from me, shirtless and stunned.

“What happened?” I choked.

Kade appeared behind him, eyes wide. “You disappeared in your sleep. We couldn’t find you.”

I looked down at my arms.

Symbols glowed across my skin—spiraling ancient marks of silver fire.

Lucian whispered, “She’s been marked.”

I stumbled forward. “I saw it. I saw her. She died. You—”

“I know,” he said, voice raw. “I remember.”

My hands trembled. “You killed her.”

He didn’t deny it.

“I swore I never would again,” he said.

And that’s when a new mark flared across my collarbone—a crescent, wrapped in flame.

The symbol of the Luna.

The forest around us fell silent.

And somewhere in the dark—

A chorus of wolves began to howl.