Chapter 2

My only Luna.

Lyra couldn’t help but curve her lips into a faint, self-mocking smile.

So all those promises of “later” Cassian had given her were merely sweet lies to coax her patience.

“Sister.”

Serena had spotted her.

She descended from the swing and, still holding Cassian’s hand, approached Lyra.

Cassian’s gaze fell upon Lyra’s blood-soaked state, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.

“Why are you covered in blood?”

“It’s the new moon,” Lyra’s eyes dropped to their intertwined fingers.

Cassian knew perfectly well she endured penance for Serena each new and full moon.

He hesitated, then said, “I’ll escort you back to your room.”

Before the words settled, Serena suddenly inhaled sharply, her face paling.

“Serena? What is it?” Cassian turned to her instantly, concern tightening his voice. “Are you unwell?”

Serena gestured weakly to her ankle. “I twisted it stepping down. It’s nothing. Cassian, please see her home—I can find the healer myself .”

Cassian did not hesitate.

“Don’t say that,” his voice lowered, possessive. “You’re my intended Luna now.”

In the next moment, he swept Serena into his arms and walked away without a backward glance.

Not a single glance, not a single word, for Lyra.

Lyra stood rooted, watching their retreating figures until her fingers slowly curled into tight fists.

The difference between being loved and unloved was truly this stark.

Back in her room, she painstakingly peeled away the fabric stuck to her wounds, each movement tearing fresh pain through her.

Her maid, Hazel, cradled the bloodied clothes, eyes rimmed red.

“My lady… how can he treat you so?”

“Five years ago, you shielded him from a silver sword. He vowed to repay you with his entire life..”

“Now… he treats the young lady like a treasure, and you like a ghost.”

A sour tightness closed Lyra’s throat.

She remembered that night—returning from Ashford territory, past the border scent-line markers , when hunters ambushed them, a silver blade aimed straight for Cassian’s heart.

She had thrown herself in its path.

As she lay dying, she had seen the Black Gate of the Underworld unseal for a heartbeat before her.

She had felt the instinct to follow.

But just as the gate began to close, she heard Cassian’s voice, raw and shattered:

“Lyra—don’t go.”

“I beg you, live. I’ll spend my life making it up to you.”

She had chosen to stay.

She had returned.

But the “lifetime” Cassian promised was no longer hers to claim.

Suppressing the churning pain, Lyra only whispered,

“Maybe for him, a lifetime is just that short.”

Hazel fell silent, applying salve with trembling care.

Yet despite her gentleness, the pain left Lyra pale and breathless.

It felt an age before exhaustion finally pulled her into a troubled sleep.

She dreamt of the day she first met Cassian.

It was during the Spring Moot of the Pack Council. The hall echoed coldly, elders’ cloaks like a dark tide.

Cassian had emerged from the crowd, stopping before her, leaning close to murmur:

“I know you.”

“Lyra Vale—my promised mate.”

With those words, she had been utterly lost.

Growing up overshadowed by the pack’s preference for Serena, she had been near-invisible within the manor.

This was the first time someone, amid countless faces of the night, had called her name.

She woke the next morning.

The dream’s afterheat left her chest hollow and aching, her eyes dry yet burning—like ash trapped under the ribs.

“My lady,” Hazel said, voice careful as she helped her pull on lace gloves to hide the silverthorn welts circling her wrists, “it’s time for Charity Night.”

Charity Night was not a courtly event in Vale territory. It was a pack rule—a debt paid to the Moon so the pack’s borders stayed quiet.

On the second night after every new moon, Lady Vivienne sent Lyra down to Old Town’s underpass, where the stone arches held cold damp like a throat. There, the packless gathered—wolves without an Alpha, widows, runaways, half-starved drifters whose ribs showed even through fur.

They didn’t ask for coins.

They asked for warmth. Salt. Something to keep their wolf-blood from collapsing.

The cauldrons were already steaming when Lyra arrived.

Inside them was bone broth thickened with fat, and beside them a smaller pot of tonic.

Lyra stepped into the shelter, and the first thing that hit her wasn’t smoke—

it was scent.

Cold pine.

Ashford.

Her shoulders went rigid.

Cassian was already there, standing beneath the weather-stained archway like he owned the air..

For one sick heartbeat, he resembled the Cassian she remembered.

The man before he chose Serena.

He strode toward her the moment he saw her.

“Your wounds,” he said, eyes scanning her pallor like he could read her body the way wolves read tracks in snow. “Are they healing?”

He drew a small dark vial from inside his coat. “Ashford wolf-mend salve. It closes silverthorn faster.”

Lyra paused—then pushed his hand away.

“Unnecessary.”

“From now on,” she said, voice steady, “you’re my sister’s intended Alpha. We should keep distance.”

Something flickered in Cassian’s gaze—annoyance, discomfort, a shadow of what used to be guilt.

He swallowed it. Said nothing.

Lyra didn’t look at him again.

She moved to the cauldrons and began to serve.

One ladle of bone broth into rough tin cups.

The packless drank like they were afraid the warmth would be stolen back.

A gray-beaked homeless man held a bowl of soup in his hands, his eyes shining. "You come every month, you're a kind she-wolf. What's your name? We'll always pray for you."

“We’ll speak your name to the Moon,” another murmured.

Lyra opened her mouth to answer—

but behind her, Cassian’s voice came first, calm as a blade laid flat against a throat:

“She is the second daughter of House Vale—Serena Vale.”