Chapter 5
Alina
There are Four Lycan Kingdoms on this continent. Norden, Hartwell, Kashgar, and Agares hold territories for the Lycans and maintain friendship agreements with the human leaders.
In Agares, I was taught that to keep the lupine beast appeased, a Lycan can never be involved with another of the same species because the offspring of such a forbidden union will become a child as cursed and uncontrollable as Ralous himself. That's why the Moon Goddess takes it upon herself to find a human mate for each of her Lycans â someone who can safely perpetuate the species.
And that's why everyone hates me so much.
My parents had committed the ultimate sin, according to our lawsâallowing their forbidden union to bear fruit. In a desperate attempt to protect me, they fled, seeking refuge in the shadows and trying to hide my existence at all costs. But fate was cruel; they were eventually discovered, and it cost them their lives.
I remained alive, carrying the weight of their sins and suffering the consequences of going against the goddess's absolute law. But now this male claims to be the Lycan King of Norden and that a she-wolf like me should be his Luna.
I have never heard of the Moon Goddess creating such a strange decree, predicting that a cursed creature would be a Kingâs Luna. It doesn't even make sense. His words contradict everything I know, everything I'm familiar with â everything that has been told to me for as long as I can remember.
There's a stark difference between a human mate and a Luna.
The human mate is merely the most suitable person to give you children. But the Luna⊠She would be a female not chosen by the goddess but by destiny itself, the force that is above all others, above any deity. However, that's nothing more than poetry, a beautiful legend described in books. It's pure romantic fiction.
"You're lying..." I dare to say, even though Darius's irritation cuts through the pleasant feeling of inhaling his scent, which is becoming heavier and more intimidating. "Lunas don't exist, and a true Lycan can't be destined to someone who was born with a curse as agonizing as mine. It would be more than forbidden⊠It would be absurd and cruel!"
Darius starts pacing in circles, growling and running his blood-stained fingers through his dishevelled black hair, pushing it back. "Ulric has been hiding my Luna all this time... What was that old dog thinking? Does he want to start a war with me? With me?"
"What...?" A terrible anxiety grips my spine, causing the wound on my collarbone to throb as much as my brain. "Darius... Hey, Darius! Are you listening to me?"
"Of course, I am!" He shouts, fury painted across his face as he bares his teeth at me. His yellow eyes gleam, and I could swear black fur sprouts on his shoulders.
I shrink back like a pup. I'm too scared.
He's definitely going to hit me now, isn't he?
But contrary to my deductions, something changes in his expression. Darius softens his gaze, then he sighs and covers his face with his hands.
"Iâm⊠Iâm sorry... I didnât mean to... Argh!" When he lowers his hands, his face is smeared with the deer's blood, but Darius doesn't seem to care about it. "Give me some time to cool off..."
As speechless as I am when I first lay my eyes on that male Lycan, I lower my head and clench my fingers on the linen of Darius's shirt. Unconsciously, I'm tugging at the fabric, as if I want to use it to hide myself even more. And I really do.
Suddenly, the obvious emerges in my thoughts: if we fought last night while I was lost in a furious frenzy, and he not only tended to my wound but also dressed me in his shirt, it means Darius saw me completely naked. And he didn't do anything bad to me when he had the chance. I would notice, right? And if he saw me as an abomination, he would have killed me, just like Jared tried to â just like so many others have tried before, disregarding the goddess's command that has kept me alive until today.
He's telling the truth, isn't he?
My thoughts whirl. Everything is turned upside down.
The sound of Darius's heavy footsteps snaps me out of my introspective moment.
He approaches again and crouches over the dead deer. I believe he'll use this task to calm himself, as the blade starts slicing through the flesh with much more force than before, separating several thin strips that he piles on top of the animalâs broken neck.
"It seems we have a lot to talk about." Despite Darius's calm tone, his knife descends more and more fiercely into the deer's flesh. "From what you're saying, I see you've lived in darkness your whole life."
I feel like crying because if Darius hasn't tried to deceive me at any point, then I've been trapped in a lie, suffering in vain and nearly dying for it as well. Instead of rejoicing for the slightest possibility that my mere existence isn't a crime against the Moon Goddess, part of me still refuses to believe, simply because it all seems too cruel.
"Tell me about yourself now, little girl." Darius offers me another piece of meat. This time I accept and quickly chew it. "You can start with your name. We've been here for several minutes and I still know almost nothing about you."
After swallowing the meat, I fill my lungs with air.
"My name is Alina. Alina Kalaz." I reply. "It's a pleasure to meet you... Your Majesty."
"We don't need formalities here. I don't even like it, to be honest." He did that thing with the knife again, bringing it to his mouth and licking the bloodied blade. This time I felt my cheeks burn at the sight. "But Alina is a very nice name. And your parents? Did you get to know them?"
I nodded and told him how they had to hide in the forest that separated Norden from Agares because Lycan King Ulric never left them alone.
"First, my mother was labelled as crazy because she didn't accept the human mate that the goddess chose for her." I continued. "Then, not long after, the same thing happened to my father. He rejected his human mate... and the rest you can already deduce."
As I spoke, Darius made one grimace after another. Now he looked at me with disbelief bordering on annoyance.
"This is too bizarre. I've only heard about this human mate thing in Ralousâ legend, and that happened thousands of years ago."
"The goddess doesn't choose humans to be bonded to Nordenâs Lycans?"
"Yes, she does." Darius's expression is difficult to decipher. "But that's not her only option, nor is it forbidden for two Lycans to become a couple and have offspring. Werewolves are common in all Four Kingdoms." He pauses. "Well... In three of them, at least."
âWere⊠wolves?â The word sounds strange to me.
"That's the name given to your kind. You're a werewolf. You didn't even know that?"
I shake my head, tasting a bitter flavor on the tip of my tongue. His words strike me, almost as sharp as the silver blade that once wounded me. "So, the thing about your Luna..."
"She's real," he interrupts me, sounding very convinced of what he's saying. But I notice signs of sadness in his voice, in the way he momentarily stops skinning the deer before continuing. "A Luna is very, very rare. But she's real."
Now I see that he can't be lying about this, or about anything else, and I regret bringing up the subject.
After a full minute of silence, Darius asks, "Where is your human mate now?"
"He's..." I stop talking because a sudden headache makes me curl up.
I release the linen of Darius' shirt that I've been holding all this time and press my hand between my eyes, squeezing them tightly as I try to find the answer.
The same fragmented images from earlier return to my mind and mix even more, creating even worse chaos.
"Hey." I feel Darius' finger poking my left handâs back. "If it's too hard to remember, don't force it."
"But I..."
"Let's take it step by step, then. Don't focus on that specific point right now; think about what came before. Tell me about your Bonding Ceremony first."
His idea seems to work because when I shift my focus, the headache subsides and I begin to recount the entire process, from the moment Undyne came to my house to tell me I would receive a human mate, to the ceremony and the hell I endured with Jared.
"And that's as far as my memories go... I can see him leaving and closing the door to lock me in again, but... the rest is just a jumble of meaningless images."
Darius remains silent for several seconds, looking at me with a seriousness so dark that it scares me even more than when he was shouting minutes ago. His scent grows stronger again, laced with an almost palpable anger.
"Yesterday, the full moon appeared..." He finally speaks, and I realize I've been holding my breath all this time. "If you have such poor control over your wolf-shape, I can deduce what happened to your mate. And that's where the big problem lies."
A cold shiver runs up my spine.
"What do you mean?"
Darius abandons the dead deer and reaches out towards me. I instinctively try to move away, but he only grabs a leather backpack that is behind me.
"It means I'll have to take you with me to Norden," he answers. "And I need to do it soon because if you stay here, you'll die."