Under the Twin Moons: Owned by the Lycan Alphas

Her skin burned.

Every breath was a shudder, every nerve a flame. The grass beneath her chilled her back, the night air sliced sharp with pine and mist, but none of it cooled the fever coiling inside.

“Everything hurts…” The words cracked from her lips, broken, desperate.

A shadow parted the trees.

He stepped into the moonlight, silver burning in his eyes, shoulders broad enough to block out the world. His hand brushed her throat, feeling the tremor beneath her skin.

“Wait… you’re in heat?” His voice was rough, dark as smoke.

Her breath caught. Shame tangled with need until she could not separate them. “Yes…”

The sound he made was half growl, half oath. His fist drove into the earth. “How could he leave you like this?” His eyes narrowed, savage, furious. “I’ll deal with him later.” He leaned closer, voice dropping to a claim. “But you—I’m taking you. Now.”

Her head shook weakly, strands of hair damp against her cheek. “No… you can’t. I belong to another Alpha.”

He laughed, low and bitter. His breath slid hot against her ear. “Really? And where is he now? Because from what I see…” His hand gripped her jaw, forcing her gaze to his. “He doesn’t give a damn about you.”

Tears stung. Her voice broke. “I can’t… I need—” She swallowed, shame spilling into hunger. “I need a knot. Fast.”

Something dark lit in his eyes. Not pity. Not gentleness. A truth she could no longer deny.

“You want this,” he murmured. “Say it. Or nod. I’ll only take what you give.”

Her nod was the smallest movement, but it was enough.

“Don’t move.” His thumb stroked her cheek once, almost tender. “Relax. Look at me. From this moment, you’re mine.”

Heat surged, devouring the night, the forest, her fear. Her body arched into the danger, into the promise. And just as the fire broke free—

***

Later, she would remember that night not as weakness, but as the beginning.

The moment when choice was stripped bare.

The moment two marks clashed inside her veins.

The moment the Shadow stirred awake.

And none of them—not the priests, not the clans, not even the Alphas—would ever chain her the same way again.

***

The curved stone steps stretched before her in a gentle arc, each one worn smooth by countless feet, their edges rounded with age, leading Lora deeper into the temple’s silent embrace. Her own bare soles pressed softly against the cool surfaces, and with every step the echo of her movement seemed to vanish into the hush, swallowed by the surrounding stillness as though the stones themselves were keeping secrets. Flickers of stray moonlight drifted down from high above, dancing across the ancient masonry, and Lora found herself leaning into the descent as if drawn by an unseen hand toward whatever lay waiting at the bottom.

As she moved into the temple’s hollow heart, the air transformed around her, growing lush and heavy with an almost tangible weight. The faint sweetness of charred herbs—sage, perhaps, or mugwort—mingled with the damp, mineral scent of the rock, rising in gentle spirals that hung like veils before her nose. With each breath she felt the air thicken in her lungs, slow and deliberate, as though the very atmosphere was determined to hold onto its mysteries. In that quiet, every half-caught whisper of her own footsteps became a private announcement of her presence, and Lora’s chest tightened at the strange intimacy.

At last she reached the far chamber, where walls of dark marble rose up all around, veins of crystal quartz branching across their faces like threads of frozen starlight. The polished stone glimmered faintly under the silver and copper glow filtering down from a circular aperture overhead, revealing more of its subtle patterns with each wavering beam. There, at the center, stood the ritual basin—a broad, obsidian bowl whose surface was as still and mirror-flat as a midnight lake. Reflections of both moons hovered together upon its ink-black water, merging and parting in gentle tremors that seemed almost like a promise.

Just a few paces behind her, Ayrella’s staff tapped against the marble in a deliberate, almost melodic rhythm, each “click” measured and precise. Through all the years that she had guided Lora—since the priestess first claimed the girl from her birth clan—Ayrella had never softened her methods with warmth or comfort, but rather shaped her charge with watchful eyes and an unwavering commitment to tradition. Her silver hair fell in a straight, unadorned line down her back, her lips pressed into a shape that held every secret the temple dared not speak out loud. She was the keeper of rules, the observer of rites, the ever-present sentinel.

“Remove the dress,” Ayrella instructed, her tone gentle enough to soothe without inviting argument. There was a firmness underneath, as though the command carried the weight of destiny itself, but in that soft cadence was also the slightest kindness.

Lora’s fingers fidgeted at the narrow straps holding the pale garment in place. She thought—or maybe whispered under her breath—a quip about modesty or the absurdity of standing naked before a moon-lit basin like a portrait in progress, but the hush closed around her thoughts and swallowed her retort whole. So she obeyed, lifting her arms and easing the fabric off her shoulders until it pooled, whisper-soft, at her feet. The chill of the chamber brushed over her bare skin, raising gooseflesh along her arms and thighs in a thousand tiny pricks of sensation.

“Step in,” came Ayrella’s next instruction, offered as calmly as a mother might invite a child to sit.

Lora lowered one foot into the basin’s dark water, and a sudden gasp escaped her lips as cold shot up her calf, sharp and electrifying. The liquid wrapped around her legs with surprising weight, each ripple tugging at her ankles like a living thing. She settled herself slowly until the water hugged her waist, and in its embrace she felt the curious thickness of minerals clinging to her skin, as though the basin itself sought to brand her with the scent of rock and ritual. Above her, the two moons quivered in the water’s gentle agitation—one pale as dreaming light, the other rich and red, bold as blood.

Ayrella watched from the rim with unwavering attention, as though she too were drawn to the shimmering twin orbs. “Born under the Twin Moons,” she murmured, her words drifting across the basin’s surface like a soft breeze. “Your path was set the moment you entered the world. Two lights, two shadows. And tonight, you will be marked.”

Lora couldn’t help the half-sarcastic tilt of her mouth. “Marked like a lamb for slaughter,” she thought, though her voice stayed silent, afraid it might shatter the fragile hush.

“In a manner of speaking,” Ayrella replied, her gaze never leaving Lora’s reflection. “But marked like a woman for claim. Do not pretend you do not sense it—the call in your blood.” A flicker of something almost like pity crossed the lines of her face, vanishing before it could settle.

At that moment, the water around Lora began to pulse, as though stirred by an invisible hand. She sensed it first as a low thrum beneath her skin, an echo that matched a soft ache kindling in her chest—a hunger that had whispered to her for months, growing louder with each passing cycle of the moons. The basin’s surface rippled with concentric waves, though its feeds remained still to every eye but hers, and she realized it was her own presence that unsettled the waters.

With deliberate calm, Lora submerged herself completely, letting the dark smoke of the water close over her eyes. Underneath, the world shimmered in deep blue-black infinity, and in that weightless suspension she opened her eyes wide. There, within her own reflection, rose a second shape: a shadowed echo that watched through her eyelids, darker than the water itself, an outline pulsing with a fierce, nameless hunger. This was the Taint, the Shadow within, rising from the depths to remind her that she carried two natures.

Her lungs screamed for air, and Lora emerged in a single, shuddering motion, water cascading off her like threads of liquid glass. She drew in a breath rich with the scent of marble and ritual smoke, her chest burning as though she had plunged into a winter lake and sprung back into the sun. Ayrella remained still at the edge, her lips parted in silent recognition, the faintest crease marking her forehead as though she too had glimpsed the restless spirit that lurked beneath.

When Lora finally climbed out, droplets skittered from her limbs onto the stone, catching stray moonbeams and breaking them into tiny sparks. Ayrella offered a garment then—a robe of weightless silk as pale as morning mist, its transparency veiling and revealing in equal measure. With fingers quick and sure, she fastened silver clasps at the shoulders, and the robe settled around Lora’s damp skin like a second veil, draping her form in folds that rippled with every subtle movement.

“You will walk in procession soon,” Ayrella said as she clicked the final clasp at Lora’s collarbone. Her touch lingered for a heartbeat longer than etiquette demanded, her voice softening to a near-whisper. “Do not let them see your fear. The Alphas search for weakness first. If you lower your gaze, they will seize your spirit. Keep your head high, even as they press their power against your throat.”

Lora’s pulse thundered so loudly she feared it might drown out the echo of her own thoughts. “So I am to be fed to beasts,” she mused silently, half amused by the ferocity of her own inner revolt.

Ayrella allowed the corner of her mouth to lift in the subtlest hint of a smile. “Then bite them back, child,” she advised, her tone light but charged with hard-won truth.

From a pouch at her waist, Ayrella produced a slender chain of polished silver and placed it in Lora’s palm. The pendant at its end was a delicate emblem carved with the twin moons, an emblem of destiny and recognition. It was not a comfort or a flashy adornment but a sign that Ayrella had singled her out to teach, to protect in the harshest way she knew.

Behind them, the chamber doors creaked open with a slow insistence, and a rush of night air—crisp, filled with distant salt from the sea—flowed inward. Faint at first, then growing clearer, came the rhythmic beat of drums echoing up from the courtyard beyond. Lora felt her stomach tighten as if she were on the threshold of a great unveiling.

Drawing the silk robe around herself like a fragile shield, she let her fingertips brush against the cool silver chain and lifted her chin. The twin moons above cast their watchful light through the opening overhead, their combined glow promising exposure to every eye. With Ayrella’s steady hand at her back—equal parts guide and guardian—Lora took her first step out of the chamber and into the night, each beat of the distant drum now echoing in time with the new cadence of her own determined heart.