CHAPTER 5:THE ALPHA AND THE GHOST

They carried me to a room I didn’t recognize.

Stone walls. Moonlight filtering through a skylight. Ancient runes etched into the floor that glowed faintly as my body hit the sheets.

I heard voices—Lucian’s, tight and low. Kade’s, furious and cracking.

> “She needs a healer—”

> “They won’t touch her, not with Blackthorn venom—”

> “Then we do it our way.”

My head spun. The cut along my ribs burned like it was inked in acid.

But beneath that pain—

Something else stirred.

A heat. A whisper. A voice not mine but familiar.

> “Weak,” it said. “You should’ve killed them all.”

> “Get out of my head,” I rasped.

> “I am your head,” it hissed. “You just forgot.”

The world split. Like two mirrors crashing into one another.

I wasn’t in the room anymore.

I was in her place.

Stone steps soaked in blood. A throne in ruins. Fire climbing the walls. And her—

The first Luna.

She looked just like me. Only older. Sharper. Her silver eyes gleamed like polished blades.

> “They fear you,” she said. “So they poisoned you. Again.”

> “You’re not real.”

She stepped forward, barefoot on burning stone. “I’m the part of you that remembers how to win.”

> “I don’t want to be you.”

> “You don’t have a choice.”

Behind her, the fire bloomed into shapes—Lucian kneeling, covered in ash. Kade dragging her through a battlefield. Rowan watching from a distance with blood on his hands.

> “They’ll all betray you,” she whispered. “But one will love you enough to break his vow.”

> “Who?”

> “You already know.”

Back in the real world—

I gasped.

My body convulsed.

Lucian was kneeling beside the bed, hands glowing with cold light, chanting in an ancient tongue.

Kade stood behind him, eyes locked on me like he couldn’t breathe without watching.

“She’s burning up,” Lucian said.

“She’s dying,” Kade growled. “If the bond is the only thing keeping her tethered, then—”

Lucian shook his head. “It won’t hold unless she chooses it.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Lucian looked at me. His voice cracked.

“Then she’ll go. Again.”

Kade stepped forward. “Then I’ll bond her.”

Lucian stood. “You do, and you’ll kill her.”

“Not if she wants it,” Kade snapped. “Not if I’m the one she remembers first.”

The room pulsed with heat. Magic. Rage. Desire. Fear.

And then—

I whispered, voice broken:

> “Lucian.”

He was beside me in an instant. “I’m here.”

I gripped his shirt with shaking fingers. “She said one of you would break your vow.”

His jaw clenched. “I already did.”

The mark on my collarbone pulsed.

And my lips parted—

> “Then finish it.”

Lucian’s hand hovered over my collarbone like he was about to touch sacred ground.

“You don’t know what this means,” he whispered.

“I do,” I said, even as my voice trembled. “I just don’t know what it’ll cost.”

He pressed two fingers against the mark glowing silver on my skin.

The world pulsed.

And the bond snapped into place.

Not gently.

Not softly.

Like lightning hitting a lake.

Flames—blue and silver—flared between us. I felt his heartbeat slam into mine. Saw memories that weren’t mine but felt like home:

> A kiss beneath a blood moon.

A crown of thorns placed on my head by shaking hands.

His voice saying, “I would die for you. But I’ll live if you ask me to.”

Tears slid down my cheeks without permission.

Lucian’s eyes were wide. Raw. Like I’d torn open something inside him that had never healed.

He leaned down.

Pressed his forehead to mine.

> “You came back to me.”

“I don’t know who I came back for,” I whispered. “But I’m still here.”

The flames faded.

The mark settled.

The bond was whole.

But as soon as it sealed—

The pain came.

Sharp. Sudden.

Not from Lucian.

From somewhere else.

The dream hit like a punch.

I was in a clearing of black trees and red sky. Alone.

Until I saw him.

Kade.

On his knees.

Bleeding from the chest. His hands were wrapped in vines of magic—old, angry magic—and etched across his throat was a glowing sigil.

The same one from the charm Rowan gave me.

> “You shouldn’t see this,” he said, voice cracked and hollow.

> “What are you hiding?”

He didn’t answer.

But behind him, I saw it—

A grave.

Mine.

And carved into the stone above it?

“She died because he refused the bond.”

I woke up screaming.

Lucian was gone.

Kade was in the chair beside my bed, eyes bloodshot, fists clenched.

“You were dreaming,” he said.

I stared at him.

“You lied to me.”

He stiffened. “What are you talking about?”

“You knew I died. You knew what the charm meant. But that’s not all, is it?”

He didn’t respond.

“You refused the bond. In the last life.”

Kade looked away.

And then, quietly:

> “Yes.”

“I need you to say it,” I said, voice shaking, barely above a whisper.

Kade didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t breathe.

“You refused the bond,” I repeated. “Why?”

He finally looked at me—and I’ve never seen more guilt shoved behind a single pair of green eyes.

“You don’t remember everything,” he said.

“Then remind me.”

He sat. Not gracefully. Not with the usual swagger.

Like the truth weighed more than his entire body could carry.

> “In the last life… I was the first to find you.”

That stopped my heart for a second.

“You think Lucian was the one,” Kade went on. “The one who stood beside your throne, who swore his oath, who burned with you in the end. But he wasn’t the first.”

He swallowed.

“I was.”

Flashes hit me like lightning:

A forest glade.

My hands tangled in his hair.

A promise whispered in the dark: “I’ll never chain you. Even if it kills me.”

“We were bonded,” Kade said quietly. “Halfway. Not fully. Not yet. But the connection was there. I felt your heart like it beat in my chest. And you felt mine.”

My voice cracked. “Then why—?”

“Because every time your power surged, the bond drained you. The closer we got, the weaker you became.”

He looked up at me, wild with memory.

> “Your body couldn’t hold both the magic and the mate mark. You were dying—and you didn’t even know it.”

Silence.

Heavy. Crushing.

“You thought it was the curse,” I whispered.

“But it was me,” he said. “The bond was killing you.”

I stood.

My legs barely held me.

“You walked away… to save me.”

Kade stood too, close now, his voice cracking like something inside him finally broke.

> “I walked away and they found you alone. Lucian was the second. He finished the bond.”

> “And it wasn’t enough.”

> “No,” he whispered. “Because by then, you were already gone.”

Tears burned at the edges of my vision, but I didn’t let them fall.

“You let me die.”

“I saved your soul.”

“And now?” I asked. “If the bond tries to kill me again?”

He stepped forward, closer than I could breathe.

> “Then I’ll take the mark instead.”

> “That’s not how it works.”

His voice dropped, rough and raw and dangerous.

> “Then I’ll break the rules.”

From the doorway, Lucian stood silent.

He’d heard it all.

But this time?

He didn’t interrupt.

Because this wasn’t a triangle anymore.

It was a war of hearts waiting to happen.

And I?

I wasn’t choosing.

Not yet.

Because fate had made me a weapon.

And now?

I was going to burn down the hands that tried to wield me.