Seeing my son's blood spill across the flagstones, memories I had tried to bury came flooding back, sharp and unforgiving.

When I first met Kaelen, he was nothing but a rogue, a lone wolf lying at death's door outside the Sanctuary.

His pack had cast him out because the wolf inside him was deformed, chained by a dark curse.

The Supreme Alpha of the time—Kaelen's own father—refused to acknowledge him as his son, leaving him to rot.

I found him. I was captivated by his untamed, unbroken spirit.

When he looked at me, there was no fear in his eyes, only a burning defiance.

I fell in love with a dying dog.

To save him, I broke the sacred laws of my kind.

I fed him my royal blood. The magic of a pureblood vampire healed his deformed wolf, transforming him into a creature of terrifying power.

But that wasn't enough for him. He wanted revenge. He wanted his father's throne.

Because I loved him, I gave him the world.

I used the vast wealth and secret armies of the Night Clan to fund his rebellion.

I fought by his side, using my shadows to block silver arrows for him on blood-soaked battlefields. Step by step, bathed in blood, I helped him conquer the packs and reclaim his rightful title as the Alpha King.

On the day of his coronation, he carried me into the luxurious penthouse suite of the Blood Moon Packhouse. He fell to his knees, buried his face in my stomach, and wept.

"I swear to the Moon Goddess," he whispered, his tears soaking through my dress. "I will cherish you forever, Elara. I will never betray you. You are my life."

We were happy. For a fleeting, beautiful moment in time, we were incredibly happy. Even when I discovered I was pregnant—an unprecedented miracle between a vampire and a werewolf—his joy was boundless.

He treated me like fragile glass.

Until he brought her home.

Selene.

He found her during a border skirmish—a stray, beautiful, and fragile Omega with clear, doe-like eyes.

She was shivering, claiming her entire pack had been slaughtered. Kaelen took pity on her and brought her back to the pack lands.

Because she was a wolf, and because my pregnancy left me bedridden and weak, I welcomed Selene with open arms.

I treated her like a little sister.

She was so gentle, always sitting by my bed, reading to me, and brewing special herbal teas to ease the agonizing pains of my pregnancy.

Whenever I asked about her future and offered to find her a strong, high-ranking mate within the pack, she would blush, look down at her hands, and softly say that her heart already belonged to someone out of reach.

I was so blind. Utterly blind.

The tea she fed me every day wasn't some miracle cure; it was a slow-acting dark voodoo brewed by a swamp witch.

It suppressed the werewolf genes in my womb, mutated the baby, and slowly drained my own magic.

When I went into premature labor, the pain was apocalyptic. I screamed until my vocal cords tore.

When the child was finally born, the midwives gasped in horror and backed away.

I didn't give birth to a majestic, powerful wolf pup. I birthed a scrawny, scentless, hairless creature that looked like a sickly feral mutt.

Kaelen, the proud new Alpha King, stood by the bed. I will never forget the look of absolute revulsion on his face. The love in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a cold, murderous fury.

He accused me of whoring myself out to a rogue dog. He refused to believe the child was his, entirely ignoring the biological fact that vampire loyalty is absolute.

Fueled by wounded pride and the whispers of the pack, Kaelen flew into a blind rage and drew his massive silver broadsword.

Before I could even reach for my baby, Kaelen brought the blade down, cleanly cleaving the newborn infant in two.

I screamed.

He stripped me of my Luna title right there, while I lay in a bed soaked in my own blood. He announced to the pack that I was a whore, banished me to the Sanctuary, and that very night, he took Selene as his new mate.

Only then did I realize who Selene's "out of reach" lover was. She had played the long game, and she had won.

To stitch my child back together, I performed a forbidden blood sacrifice.

Kaelen was right about one thing: purebloods possess nine drops of Ancient Blood, the source of our immortality and magic. Every time we suffer a fatal wound, we burn a drop to resurrect ourselves.

To regenerate my son's severed limbs and broken body, I sacrificed my Ancient Blood, pouring my life force into his tiny, shattered form.

But what Kaelen didn't know was that I didn't have nine drops to spare. I only had two left.

During his ruthless rise to power, I had secretly used seven drops of Ancient Blood to save him from assassinations.

I took the silver bullets and poisoned blades meant for him, dying and coming back to life in the shadows, never letting him know the price I paid.

In his final battle with the old Alpha King, when the magical core of his wolf was shattered, he was inches from death.

While he lay in a coma, I tore open my own chest, ripped out my crystallized Scarlet Core, and placed it into his heart to sustain his wolf's life.

I gave him my heart. Literally.

With only two drops of Ancient Blood left, saving my son consumed one. I was left with a single drop, hovering on the brink of death, entirely stripped of my magic, my core, and my strength.

As I lay exhausted on the blood-soaked sheets, holding the miraculously revived and breathing infant, my bedroom door locked with a heavy click.

Selene walked in.

The sweet, clear-eyed Omega was gone. Her eyes were manic, gleaming with dark, triumphant malice. She held a silver dagger.

"Don't blame me, Elara," she whispered, her voice dripping with venom. "Blame yourself for trusting a wolf. Blame yourself for standing in my way."

She bound me in silver chains, burning my weakened flesh. She grabbed me by the hair and dragged me out of the Packhouse and into the blinding sunlight.

She sliced open my chest with the dagger and plunged her hands into the cavity, searching for the Scarlet Core that would grant her supreme power and immortality.

When she found the cavity empty—because the core was already beating inside Kaelen's chest—she shrieked in frustration.

She crushed my remaining cardiovascular system and dragged my broken body to the edge of the Daylight Rift, a bottomless chasm eternally bathed in lethal sunlight.

"Goodbye, Princess," she sneered, kicking me off the cliff.

As I fell, turning to ash, I looked up.

At the edge of the cliff, a tiny, determined figure hurled itself into the abyss, plunging after me. It was my son. The baby I had just saved.

Through the searing, blinding light, the curse placed upon my womb broke. Just before the darkness swallowed me, I saw his true form for the very first time.

He wasn't a mutt.

Kaelen didn't wait three days. He returned early the next morning.

Wolves are creatures of potent, volatile magic. A human or low-ranking Omega mate can rarely survive carrying a Supreme Alpha's pup without magical intervention. The fetus is simply too powerful and drains the mother's life force.

That was why Kaelen was so desperate. Selene's body was failing, and he needed pureblood vampire magic to stabilize her.

This time, the sky above the Sanctuary was overcast and grim. Kaelen hadn't just brought a hundred men; he brought an entire army. The mountainside was swarming with werewolves.

He descended from the sky, cradling Princess Selene in his arms, and landed gracefully in the courtyard outside my crypt.

When he saw Lucian standing alone on the steps, blocking the entrance to the tomb, Kaelen's lips curled back to bare his fangs.

"Stubborn as your bitch of a mother," Kaelen growled. "I'll give you one last chance, boy. Tell me where Elara is hiding."

"If you tell me, I'll take you back to the pack. I'll adopt you. You'll live like an Alpha's son. You'll never go hungry or cold again. How about it?"

The gathered enforcers muttered among themselves. To be an officially recognized member of the Blood Moon Pack was a privilege lower wolves killed for.

They mocked Lucian, assuming the "mutt" would eagerly accept.

To my surprise, Lucian slowly lowered his head. He nodded. "I will tell you, but on one condition."

A cold smirk played on Kaelen's lips, a look of arrogant triumph. Everyone breaks eventually. "Name your price."

"I want to hug the Luna."

Lucian's voice was small and trembling, perfectly mimicking a terrified child desperate for a mother's touch.

The pack members burst into laughter.

Of course the rogue wanted to suck up to his new stepmother to secure a comfortable life.

But I knew my son. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Selene offered a sickeningly sweet smile. She stepped forward and opened her arms like a benevolent goddess. "Of course, little one. Come to your Luna."

Keeping his head down, Lucian descended the stone steps. The moment he stepped into her embrace, the moment his tiny arms wrapped around her waist, a flash of pure silver glinted from his sleeve.

It was a stake carved from pure silver and coated in wolfsbane.

With lightning speed, Lucian drove the blade upward, aiming right beneath Selene's jaw—a killing blow meant to pierce her brain.

But Kaelen's reflexes were inhuman. He was a Supreme Alpha. Before the blade even grazed Selene's skin, Kaelen moved.

His heavy boot slammed into Lucian's chest.

The sound of shattering ribs was deafening. Lucian was launched into the air, crashing into a stone pillar. He crumpled to the ground, vomiting a massive mouthful of blood.

"You dare attempt to assassinate the Luna?!" Kaelen roared, his aura exploding outward.

The pack enforcers rushed forward, grabbing Lucian by the hair, smashing his face hard against the cobblestones, and twisting his arms behind his back.

Kaelen strode forward and snatched the fallen silver stake from the ground. Unbridled fury contorted his face. "I should have known a mutt's blood is tainted with treachery!"

Without a second thought, Kaelen drove the silver stake straight into Lucian's right shoulder.

Lucian let out a piercing scream—the shrill, agonizing shriek of silver burning through his half-breed flesh.

Kaelen ripped the stake out and drove it into the boy's left thigh, then into his calf.

One strike. Two. Three. Four.

Dark blood rapidly pooled across the cobblestones, mixing with the freezing morning rain.

"Stop! Goddess, please stop!" I shrieked, throwing myself over my son's mutilated body.

I tried to cover his wounds with my ghostly hands, tried to take the blows for him, but the silver stake passed right through me, plunging into my child's flesh again and again.

An unbearable phantom pain ripped through my chest.

Watching this, I felt as though I was dying a thousand deaths.

Selene stepped forward and placed her manicured hand gently on Kaelen's arm. "Enough, Kaelen. I'm unharmed. The poor thing is just confused."

Kaelen yanked the stake out one last time, his chest heaving. He tossed the blood-soaked silver aside. "I never should have trusted the bastard."

"Perhaps my sister hasn't forgiven me," Selene said, her voice trembling, accompanied by perfectly staged tears.

She rested her head on Kaelen's shoulder. "I've taken her place by your side... It's only human nature that she hates me and refuses to give me her core. Let's go, Kaelen. It's my fault. I'm too weak to bear your child. I don't want to see any more bloodshed."

Her words were like oil poured on a raging fire.

He roared and slammed a fist into the crypt's iron gates, bending the thick metal out of shape.

"Elara! You have five minutes to show your face!" Kaelen marched back to Lucian, grabbed him by his blood-matted hair, and violently jerked his head back.

He pressed a silver dagger against Lucian's throat. "Or I'll chop his head off and mount it on your crypt!"

Five minutes passed.

There was nothing but the patter of rain and Lucian's heavy, wet breathing.

Kaelen paced like a caged beast, his amber eyes scanning the shadows.

Lucian coughed and spat a mouthful of blood and rain onto Kaelen's boot.

"I told you," the boy rasped, a bloody smile creeping across his pale face. "My mother is dead. Just kill me and get it over with, you coward."

Kaelen's jaw twitched, the muscles in his neck pulling taut. "You think I won't?" He pressed the blade deeper into the boy's windpipe, drawing a thin line of blood.

Then, he suddenly stopped. A cold, cruel realization dawned on his face. He lowered the blade.

"No. If I kill you, Elara will just sacrifice more of her power to resurrect you like last time. Let's see if she can heal you from this."

He turned to his Beta. "Bring the Sacred Fire."

My phantom heart plummeted into the abyss.

Vampires are creatures of ice and shadow; there is nothing we fear more than fire.

But Sacred Fire was a different nightmare entirely.

It didn't just burn flesh; it incinerated the soul, completely erasing a being's existence.

As the guards scrambled to retrieve the braziers from the armored vehicles, Kaelen ordered the rest of his men to tear the crypt apart.

"Search every inch! Tear down the walls if you have to!"

Lucian's pale face went entirely white. He struggled weakly against the enforcers holding him down, his eyes darting toward the tomb's entrance.

Minutes later, a shout came from deep within the catacombs: "Alpha! We found a hidden chamber!"

Kaelen let out a manic laugh, the sound of vicious triumph. "I knew the bitch was faking!"

"Alpha... we found this corpse on a slab of ice. It looks... like a mummified vampire."

Two burly werewolf goons dragged my withered, gray body out into the sunlight and dumped it unceremoniously on the wet cobblestones at Kaelen's feet.

Kaelen's smile vanished. He stared down at the hideous, rotting corpse. The skin peeled back from the skull, fangs jutted grotesquely from shriveled lips, and the chest cavity was a gaping black hole.

"Elara was a peerless beauty," Kaelen sneered, nudging my lifeless arm with the toe of his boot. With a sickening crack, my brittle wrist snapped. "This is just some dead hag. Toss it in the trash. Burn it."

"No!"

Lucian thrashed wildly, trying to break free from the goons holding him.

For the first time in five hundred years, the boy's mask of cold apathy shattered. Absolute terror destroyed his composure.

"Don't burn her! Don't touch her!" Lucian screamed, dislocating his shoulder as he fought desperately against their grip. "Kaelen, I swear to God, if you burn her, I'll kill you! I'll tear you to pieces!"

Kaelen tilted his head, genuinely taken aback by the boy's sudden panic.

"Must be someone important to you. A surrogate mother? A friend? Tell me where Elara is, mutt, or I'll burn this little corpse of yours."

"She's dead!" Lucian shrieked, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the blood. "I've told you a thousand times! She's dead, and she's right in front of you! That's her! Don't touch her!"

A flicker of genuine hesitation crossed Kaelen's eyes.

He looked down at the corpse, studying it closely. The shape of the brow, the length of the silver-white hair clinging to the scalp...

But he quickly shook his head, dismissing the thought.

"Nice try. Pureblood vampires only die when their core is destroyed. And I can still feel her core. It's beating. It's close by."

Right then, Selene let out a harrowing gasp. She stumbled, clutching her stomach, and collapsed to her knees in the mud.

"Luna!" the guards shouted, rushing forward.

Kaelen abandoned the corpse and dropped to his knees beside her. "Selene? Is it the pain again?"

The pack healer, who had been hovering nearby, checked her pulse, his face grim.

"Alpha, her vitals are dropping rapidly. Without a Scarlet Core to stabilize the pup's magic, the Luna won't survive the hour."

"Kaelen," Selene whimpered, clutching his shirt, her eyes rolling back. "I don't want to die. The baby... save our baby."

Kaelen held her tight, his face twisted in agony. "I won't let you die. Even if I have to drag Elara out of hell myself."

He stood up, his aura radiating lethal intent. He gestured to the goons holding Lucian. "Tie him to the stake."

They dragged my son to the center of the courtyard and chained his wrists and ankles to a thick iron post. They piled silver-soaked wood at the boy's feet and doused it in alchemical accelerant.

"I've been too soft on you!" Kaelen roared, his voice echoing through the mountains. "Elara, this is your last chance! If you don't come out, I'm going to burn this mutt alive and use his ashes to brew a potion for my mate!"

He snatched a torch from a guard and tossed it onto the pyre.

The Sacred Fire erupted in a blinding flash of silver-blue flames.

Lucian threw his head back and screamed.

It was a sound of absolute agony. It wasn't just his flesh burning; his soul was being ripped apart by the holy silver. I knew that pain. It was the feeling of your very existence being unraveled thread by thread.

I fell to my knees before Kaelen, weeping uncontrollably, begging a man who couldn't hear me.

"Kaelen, please! Stop the fire! He's just a child, he's too weak! He's your son! I beg you, take my body, take my ashes, but let him go!"

My wails echoed only in the spirit realm, but suddenly, Kaelen froze.

His body went rigid, and his head snapped toward me, his amber eyes wide.

"Stop!" Kaelen ordered his men, his voice trembling as he raised a hand. "Halt the fire! I... I hear her voice. I can hear Elara."

I froze.

Could the wolf inside him sense my soul? Was the Scarlet Core in his chest—my heart—reacting to my presence?

He took a slow step forward.

He reached out, his fingers brushing the empty air mere inches from my tear-stained, intangible face.

"Elara? Are you right here? Are you invisible?"

Before his hand could find mine, Selene let out an exaggerated, blood-curdling scream. "Kaelen! It hurts so much! My heart is breaking! The baby is dying!"

The trance was broken.

The connection shattered instantly.

Kaelen spun around and pulled Selene into his arms.

"Don't worry, baby," Kaelen kissed her forehead frantically, completely stepping away from where I knelt. "I'm right here. I'll get it for you."

Watching this, watching him hold the woman who killed me while my son burned alive on the pyre, the last thread of my soul finally snapped.

The final lingering trace of love I had clung to for five centuries turned to ash.

Once, he had held me like that. When I was pregnant, he had looked at me with that same concerned gaze.

Promises truly are the most useless things in the world.

Kaelen stood up, his face hardening like stone.

He walked over to my body lying in the mud and hoisted it up by the neck. Stripped of the glacier's protection, the dry, cracking skin flaked off like dead leaves under his brutal grip.

The flames roared around Lucian. My son's skin was charred black, his clothes burned away, but his eyes... his eyes burned with a hatred that not even death could extinguish.

He stopped screaming and just stared blankly at his father.

"Last chance, boy," Kaelen growled. "Tell me where she is, and I'll put out the fire. I'll forgive everything you've done to me."

For a Supreme Alpha like Kaelen, forgiving someone who assaulted his mate was an enormous concession. For Selene's life, he was forcing himself to swallow his immense pride.

He thought he was being generous.

Lucian laughed. Through the scorching flames, his laughter sounded dark and hollow, chilling every werewolf present to the bone.

"You want her back?" Lucian sneered, blood bubbling past his lips. "She doesn't want you anymore. She stopped loving you, Alpha."

The words struck Kaelen like a physical blow, igniting a blind rage. His eyes turned feral, his pupils dilating until they were pitch black. "You're lying! She gave up a throne for me! She would never stop loving me!"

Consumed by fury, desperate to force my hand, Kaelen swung his arm and hurled my shriveled corpse straight into the Sacred Fire.

"No!"

Lucian's scream tore through the heavens.

He lunged forward, thrashing against the silver chains until his flesh tore down to the bone, desperately trying to reach my burning body. But he was too late. The Sacred Fire instantly engulfed my dry, brittle corpse, turning it into a pillar of blinding white flame.

I stood on the outside, watching my own cremation, feeling a numb sense of peace wash over me.

For five hundred years, I had watched my son suffer alone. He was bullied, starved, and treated like an abomination. He never fought back because he spent all his energy trying to keep me tethered to this world.

Perhaps this was for the best.

With my physical anchor destroyed, my soul could finally pass on. Lucian's burden would be lifted.

We could both be free. We could reunite in the afterlife.

Kaelen stared at the roaring flames, his chest heaving. He muttered to himself, "No... she's not dead. She'll show up. She has to show up."

Selene walked up behind him, shivering, and rested her head against his broad back. "Kaelen, let's go home. She's not coming. It's too cold here, it's bad for the baby."

Kaelen nodded numbly. He wrapped an arm around her and turned his back on the burning pyre where my son and my remains were turning to ash.

They took three steps.

Then, the earth cracked open.

A wolf!

A White Wolf!

The most revered bloodline in werewolf history manifested right there.

A deafening howl ripped through the Vampire Sanctuary.

The sound was so ancient, so unfathomably powerful, that even the obsidian walls of the cavern groaned.

Every single werewolf present—the hundred elite enforcers, and even Kaelen himself—fell to their knees. The beasts within them whimpered in total submission. It was a biological instinct.

The Sacred Fire exploded outward in a shockwave of silver-blue light.

From the very center of the ashes where my son had burned, a massive, ethereal beast rose.

It wasn't a mutt. It wasn't a feral dog.

It was a White Wolf.

The legendary Alpha King.

A mythical creature extinct for ten thousand years, said to be blessed by the Moon Goddess herself, born only from the purest fusion of magic and royal blood.

The wolf was the size of a warhorse, its fur shimmering with the iridescent glow of moonlight. Its eyes were two pools of liquid silver. The oppressive, divine aura it radiated blanketed the entire mountain, far surpassing anything Kaelen had ever possessed.

Kaelen was completely utterly dumbfounded.

He fell back into the mud, staring up at the towering myth.

The massive wolf circled the dying embers of the pyre twice before landing silently on the stone in front of Kaelen. With a blinding flash of silver light, the beast shifted.

The sickly six-year-old boy was gone.

In his place stood a tall, broad-shouldered young man radiating lethal grace. The jagged scar on his face had vanished, healed by the ascension of his magic.

The moment my body burned, his true power had been unleashed, reclaiming the five centuries of magical energy he had constantly funneled into my corpse, pulling it back into his own soul.

He held my body in his arms, miraculously spared from further burning by the Sacred Fire. The White Wolf's ancient lunar magic had formed a protective barrier around my corpse, preventing its total incineration.

Lucian gently laid my body on a stone slab. He pressed two fingers against my freezing forehead. A surge of pure silver light shot through my dead veins instantly.

The gray, rotting skin turned porcelain white; the brittle hair regained its silver luster. He used the moon's magic to seal my body, preserving it perfectly.

Only after I was safe did he finally turn his icy gaze upon his father.

A myriad of complex emotions waged war on Kaelen's face. Shock, awe, and a sudden, suffocating, crushing wave of guilt as all the pieces in his mind finally clicked together.

"You... you're a wolf," Kaelen choked out, his voice barely a whisper. He tried to stand, but his knees shook. "You're a White Wolf."

He stumbled a step forward, his hands trembling.

"That means... that means you're mine."

"That means my mother never betrayed you," Lucian said, his voice carrying a resonant power that made the ground tremble. "I was always your son."

"I am the perfect culmination of the werewolf and vampire royal bloodlines. But someone poisoned my mother's tea every day with a swamp witch's curse, sealing my wolf, mutating my appearance, and masking my scent."

Kaelen's pupils dilated until they were entirely black, looking as if he had just been stabbed. "Are you telling the truth? Who would dare? Who even had the power to poison Luna blood?"

"Who lived in her palace?" Lucian asked. "Who brewed her tea? Who called her 'sister' to her face, only to crawl into your bed the very night you slaughtered me?"

Lucian's silver eyes locked onto Selene, who was cowering behind Kaelen, her face pale as a sheet. "I think you know exactly who, Alpha."

Kaelen turned his head very, very slowly. "Selene?"

Selene stumbled backward, clutching her stomach. "No! Kaelen, he's lying! Just because he's a wolf doesn't mean she didn't sleep around! It's a trick! Vampires cast illusions!"

She was desperate, but she didn't understand the truth of wolves.

An Alpha's scent never lies. Kaelen could smell the undeniable, unmistakable scent of his own bloodline radiating from Lucian. It was biological certainty. The boy was his.

"Is it true?" Kaelen advanced on Selene, his voice low and dangerous. "Did you do it? Did you poison my mate and kill my child?"

Cornered, Selene resorted to her oldest trick.

Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed into the mud, screaming, "My stomach... Kaelen, the baby is dying! The stress is killing him! Help!"

They had been mates for five hundred years. Seeing her writhe in pain, Kaelen's protective instincts warred with his horror.

He scooped her up, his face twisted in agony, and looked back at Lucian.

"If what you say is true, I will deal with her," Kaelen's voice cracked, struggling to maintain his authority. "I will restore your mother's title. I will make you my officially recognized heir."

"But right now, Selene is carrying your little brother or sister. Wake your mother, and give the core to Selene. I will make all of this right, I swear."

He thought it was a generous offer.

He thought he was being a fair and just Alpha, balancing the lives of the past and the present.

Lucian looked at him with unfathomable disgust.

"You really are the coward I always knew you were," Lucian snarled. "My mother is mutilated, dragged through the mud, has her heart ripped out, gets murdered, and your solution is 'we'll deal with it later'? Keep your title. Keep your pack. If you won't execute her right now, I'll do it myself."

Lucian lunged at Selene.

Kaelen roared and shoved Selene behind him, meeting the attack head-on.

Black Alpha energy clashed with pure lunar white magic. The shockwave leveled the surrounding crypts, sending centuries-old tombstones flying like shrapnel.

The fight between father and son was brutal and earth-shattering.

They shifted into wolves—a massive, battle-scarred black wolf clashing with a lightning-fast, ethereal white beast.

They tore at each other's throats, staining the Sanctuary walls with blood.

Though Lucian was a White Wolf, he had spent five centuries draining his magic into my corpse. He had just ascended and was exhausted.

Kaelen, hardened by five hundred years of war and bloodshed, was a seasoned killer.

After a vicious struggle, Kaelen pinned the White Wolf to the ground. They shifted back into human form, and Kaelen pressed a silver blade against his son's throat.

"Lucian, enough!" Kaelen snapped, though his amber eyes were filled with pleading, brimming with tears. "I said I'd give you justice, and I will! Stop acting like a feral child! How are you supposed to lead my pack like this?"

"I don't want your damn pack!" Lucian spat a mouthful of blood into Kaelen's face. "If you don't let me kill her today, I'll come back tomorrow. And the day after. Until one of us is dead."

Kaelen wiped the blood from his face and bared his fangs. "Don't push me, boy. You're my son, but I'm still the Alpha."

He let out a heavy sigh, the fury bleeding out of him, replaced by a pathetic desperation.

"I admit I was wrong. I was a fool. If Elara refuses to see me, fine. Just give me the Scarlet Core to save the unborn pup, and I will accept whatever punishment Elara demands. She can whip me, banish me, whatever she wants."

"The core?" Lucian let out a near-hysterical laugh, sounding almost like a sob. "You want her core?"

Lucian grabbed the blade pressed against his throat, ignoring how it sliced open his palm, and yanked Kaelen closer.

"Look inside your own chest, you fool! It's been feeding your pathetic wolf for five hundred years! You want a heart for your bitch? Then rip your own out and give it to her!"

Kaelen froze, the blood draining from his face. "What are you talking about? My Alpha spark..."

"Feel it," Lucian hissed, his silver eyes seeming to pierce straight through Kaelen's soul. "Stop blocking it with your pride and actually feel it."

Kaelen slowly closed his eyes.

He reached inward, past the muscle, past the ribs, searching for the source of his magic. For the first time in centuries, he bypassed the roaring beast within and felt it.

Cold, ancient, rhythmic pureblood vampire magic beating inside his chest cavity.

His eyes flew open, and he stumbled back from his son as if he'd been shot. He clawed at his chest, ripping his shirt open.

"No... how...?" Kaelen gasped, falling to his knees.

"You won so many wars, Kaelen," Lucian said mercilessly.

He stood up, towering over his devastated father.

"Did you really think you were just that gifted? That invincible?"

"Every time you took a hit, she bled for you."

"Centuries ago, when the old King destroyed your Alpha spark, she ripped out her own heart and transplanted it into your chest so you wouldn't die."

"The only reason you are alive is because she hollowed herself out for you."

Kaelen clutched his chest tightly, his breathing turning ragged and chaotic. The memories he had repressed—the times he woke up miraculously healed, the lingering taste of Elara's blood on his lips—flooded back with agonizing clarity.

"No! Stop!" Kaelen begged, clutching his head as tears streamed down his face. "Stop, please."

"And one last thing," Lucian said, driving the final nail into the coffin. "My mother gave up everything for you. Her crown, her magic, her heart."

"But the killing blow? While she lay weak and defenseless after saving me, your sweet little Omega walked in."

"Selene bound her in silver, sliced open her chest with a dagger, and threw her into the Daylight Rift. My mother burned alive in the sun, Kaelen."

"While you were completing your new mating ceremony, my mother was turning to ash."

Thunder rumbled overhead. A torrential downpour unleashed upon the Sanctuary, washing away the ashes of the Sacred Fire.

"Impossible," Kaelen whispered, staring blankly at his trembling hands. "She can't be dead. She can't be dead."

He looked around frantically, screaming into the rain, his voice tearing. "Elara!"

"You don't believe me?" Lucian stood up. "Go ask the guards who stood outside her room the day you banished her. Go ask the ones Selene bribed to look the other way. They saw Selene drag her out."

Kaelen whipped around, his eyes wild, feral, entirely devoid of sanity.

Selene rushed forward and grabbed his arm. "Kaelen, he's manipulating you! Don't listen to him! Vampires are liars!"

Kaelen didn't even look at her. He violently shoved her aside, shifted into his massive black wolf form, and bolted toward the pack lands with the speed of a madman.

Selene fell into the mud. "My baby! Kaelen, the baby is hurt!"

But Kaelen was already gone.