The Fire Lycan’s Divided Twins

Elara’s POV

“Take off the veil.”

Alpha Lucian’s command snapped through the mating ceremony hall.

The music stopped instantly. Hundreds of faces turned toward me.

Tonight was supposed to be the night I became Luna, the night I would finally reunite with my true mate. My hands shook as I reached for the clasps. One. Two.

The heavy silk slipped away, pooling at my feet.

A woman near the front gasped. “Oh, Goddess…” Someone else whispered behind her. “What happened to her?”

I stared at the floor. I already knew what they saw: burned, scarred skin stretching from my left temple across my cheek. The fire had taken part of my hair, too.

“Elara?”

Lucian’s voice was different now. I forced myself to look up.

He stood before the entire pack in his ceremonial black coat, his golden eyes moving slowly over my face with something that looked, for one strange second, almost like shock.

“What happened to you?”

“There was a tragedy, Lucian,” my uncle said. I turned.

My uncle Cyrus stood among the guests with his wife, Felicia, and their daughter, Celeste. After my parents died, Cyrus had taken my father’s place as Alpha of the Averwyn Pack. Felicia was now its Luna. And Celeste… Celeste had been more like a sister to me than a cousin.

She stepped forward, concern filling her face. “The fire that killed Uncle James and Aunt Evelyn,” she said softly. “Elara barely survived.”

I pulled the veil tighter in my hand. Whispers spread through the hall.

“Enough.” Lucian didn’t even raise his voice, but the entire hall fell silent.

Relief washed over me. Was he defending me?

“Lucian, please.” My voice shook. “Can we talk somewhere private?”

His expression softened. “Of course.”

He stepped down from the dais and offered me his hand. Relief almost made my knees buckle. I reached for him.

But instead of taking my hand, his fingers closed tight around my wrist, his smile never changing. He leaned close enough that anyone watching might have thought he was comforting me.

“Put the veil back on,” he whispered. I froze as his fingers tightened even more. “You’re frightening my guests.”

The breath left my lungs.

Lucian straightened and turned back toward the crowd with the same polite smile still fixed in place, releasing my wrist as he did. "Please, continue without us."

The musicians hesitated before starting again.

I bent quickly to grab my veil off the floor, and my foot caught on the hem of my dress. I lost my balance and dropped to my knees. When I looked up, I caught Aunt Felicia watching me with a disapproving frown.

“Easy, sweetheart.” He bent down and offered his hand, his voice suddenly full of concern. “You’ve always been so clumsy. Someone needs to keep an eye on you.”

A few people nearby smiled.

I took his hand. As soon as our fingers touched, his grip tightened painfully around my wrist, and I sucked in a breath. Still smiling for the crowd, he pulled me to my feet and started toward the back of the hall. I barely had time to drag the veil over my face with my free hand before he pulled me after him, through the crowd and toward a narrow door behind the dais.

“Lucian, you’re hurting me.”

He didn’t loosen his grip.

The door shut behind us, muffling the music down to almost nothing. A dark stone passage stretched ahead.

“Where are we going?”

He said nothing. I had to hurry just to keep up with him.

At the end of the passage, he pushed open another door, and winter air hit me so hard I gasped. We stepped onto a narrow stone terrace behind the castle. There were no windows on this side, no guards, and no guests. Far below, the Forbidden Lands stretched out beneath us like a black ocean.

Tonight, the Blood Moon would rise over those trees. And somewhere inside that forest lived the creature every wolf in the northern packs feared.

The Fire Beast.

I looked back at Lucian, rubbing my aching wrist. The winter wind ripped straight through my thin dress.

“Lucian, please. I know it’s hard to look at,” I said, my voice shaking. “But the healers said once we complete the bond—”

“Complete the bond?” He stepped closer. “You still don’t understand.”

He lifted a hand. For one heartbeat I thought he meant to touch my cheek. Instead, his fingers stopped inches from my scar.

“You expect me to kiss this face? Wake up beside it? Claim you as my mate?”

Tears burned my eyes. “You didn’t feel that way when I was eighteen.”

His gaze turned cold. “You were beautiful then. You were Alpha Averwyn’s daughter.”

“My father trusted you.”

“And now your father is dead.” The words hit harder than the winter wind. “Your uncle is Alpha now. Everything your father had belongs to him.” He leaned closer. “So tell me, Elara. What exactly am I claiming now?”

“So I was just a business deal to you?” I choked out.

Lucian stepped closer, a dark laugh escaping him. “Did you honestly think I loved you?”

Tears burned my eyes as I searched his face for some trace of the man I used to know.

“You’re so naive, Elara. If I could choose for myself instead of being chained to some bond the Moon Goddess decided for me, I’d choose someone strong enough to be my Luna.” His mouth curved into a cruel smile. “Someone like your cousin.”

My blood ran cold. “Celeste?”

His silence answered before his mouth did.

“For how long?”

“Long enough.”

My stomach twisted. While I’d been hiding in my pack, hoping my scars would heal and waiting for him, Lucian had been with Celeste.

He stepped closer. “Stay away from me. You’re disgusting.”

I stumbled back, my heel slipping against the icy edge, and for one terrifying second there was nothing beneath my foot at all. My heart lurched — but Lucian caught me by the waist and pulled me back hard against him.

I stared up at him in shock.

“And you’re clumsy,” he said. “Maybe if your wolf had ever awakened, you’d have better balance.”

I shoved against his chest, but his arm stayed locked around my waist. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and lifted my chin.

“If I’m so far from perfect for you,” I whispered, “then reject me and go be happy with my cousin.”

Lucian said nothing. He had caught me when he could have let me fall, and a foolish spark of hope stirred inside me despite everything I already knew about him. Maybe our bond still meant something to him.

Before he could answer, the door behind us flew open.

“Well? Did you reject her?”

I froze. Celeste stepped onto the terrace, her eyes going straight to Lucian, skipping over me entirely.

“Celeste?” I whispered. “You knew?”

She didn’t so much as glance my way.

“Did you?” she asked him again.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because rejection won’t break the bond completely. It’ll weaken it. But I’ll still be tied to her.” He said it flatly, like he was reporting a fact that annoyed him more than it troubled him.

Celeste’s expression darkened. She crossed the terrace, took his hand, and pressed it against her own cheek, the gesture slow and deliberate, like she was staking a claim in front of me on purpose.

“Then rejection isn’t enough.” Her eyes shifted to me, cold and perfectly calm. “Only her death will free you from her grasp.”

Her palm slammed into my chest before I understood what was happening.

I stumbled backward, my heel slipping over the icy edge. I reached for Lucian on pure instinct.

“No!”

My fingers almost caught his hand. Lucian stepped back, and Celeste stepped back with him.

“Goodbye forever, Elara.”

My other foot slipped off the edge.

Then there was nothing beneath me.

I fell.

Freezing wind roared in my ears as the cliff rushed past. The last thing I saw was Lucian and Celeste standing at the edge, perfectly still, watching me fall.

Then, far in the distance, beyond the black tree line, the night sky suddenly lit up with fire.

Something roared.