Seren

Let me share with you one last story.

Salacia Lunae sent a raven with the message to warn of her arrival to Pack Flovia.

She never made it.

Neither did the rest of her Clan. And her children.

Felix. Quitus. Maxym. Livia. Murdered. All except one.

Valirym Lunae was born seconds after your father, and their closeness extended beyond the womb.

She was brilliant, my mother told me, if nothing else. A little peculiar, a little too interested in the occult. But overall curious, and a loving spirit despite her head floating amongst the clouds.

Until your grandfather died, whom she shared her love of the unknown with.

And, as tradition and the moon goddess intended, your father received the Heir blessing.

In her words, she couldn't understand. Yes, she was female, second born by a breath.

But she was the one who spent countless hours with her father, tucked under a sparrow's wing. Learning the history of their kind, practicing in potions and healing, scouring over academia.

While Felix, charismatic and headstrong, as much as she loved him, was just that—believing the title handed to him rather than earned.

What did he have that made him worthy to the goddess and not she?

The true Salacia Lunae shunned her inquiries, her once endearing curiosity now a hindrance to the Lycan way of life. Which the Lunae Clan desperately clung due, after falling from grace and rising back up from the ashes.

There was no straying, not without severe consequences.

Valirym pushed back of course, which led to the first crack in the formidable Lunae family.

She distanced herself from Felix, her twin, the new Alpha. Diving head first in what she deemed to be the craft.

Once only a slight interest in the occult became a fascination. Not the healing and potions she'd learned through the library.

But darker vices—necromancy, wearing another's flesh, invading the mind and creating false memories. She wanted to know more than any Lycan in our pack did about magic of any sort.

Eventually, toiling with fate, which even the gods do not begin bargaining with would be her drop too far.

Felix—my mother noted—begged her to stop.

No one could reach her.

The Pack began to fear her, deeming her a witch. Not able to understand how she revived dead birds, healed torn deer just to kill them again.

Or wore the faces of those who were already long gone, to see how long she could trick their loved ones.

Felix and your grandmother could no longer stave off the Pack's hunger for justice when they discovered her torturing Outcasts for her 'experiments'.

Some of which included switching around organs, and sewing on differing limbs, seeing if the moon goddess would favor one over the other.

She was sentenced to death by the Council. The day of the execution, Felix let her go. He couldn't kill his twin, but let the council believe he'd purged the world of her himself so that it would not be a spectacle.

Instead, she was exiled to a human village, settled just by Pack Flovios's territory.

The same village, your mother was born and lived in.

Solitude and the mercy your father gifted sowed a bitterness that could not be contained. Even as he spared her, it was him who had control over her life and death.

Something she coveted herself.

Ovidius Fracticulum Lunae and his short-lived reign became an obsession. She found herself in him, believed that her greatness was a threat to others and she was punished for it. Just like him.

That cutting and reforming Lycan created a power so enticing, the Lycan traditions were overruled by the gods that usually did not intervene.

And so began her last experiment.

Felix, who disguised his visits with diplomacy and bartering, was the only person to keep her company.

Until she befriended the human healer, someone the humans needed, but ostracized because they couldn't understand her curing talents.

Through blood magic, Valirym discovered Lucia Ciervo possessed a long lineage, both Witch and Umbra Lycan.

Valirym's understanding of the bond was deep, as she convinced the elders to tell her things here and there before the exile.

Though she had no true control, she believed a mate bond could be suggested upon and honed.

She introduced her friend to her twin. The first cut. Again and again, she believed, until it became a wound that would not heal.

They were fated mates and soon after, with child.

A hybrid Fracti. Witch, human, and Lycan. Umbra and Lunae, the most powerful lines, directly from the Silver Witch. The first of our kind.

Vyra Lunae, named in honor of her.

Her creation, her chance at discovering what power the Lycan wished to keep at bay.

She discovered my father in the beginning, stalking Felix. Saw him as a mere nuisance, until she deemed him greedy enough to be her eyes and ears.

It started gentle and prodding. She would bide her time, let you grow before acting.

Yet when Marcus shared that Salacia hadn't rejected her perfect son for breaking our laws by copulating with a human—that he received their mother's blessing—that is when her intentions became malignant.

Marcus was a means to an end. Her game piece to turn the Pack against Felix when he revealed his mate.

The title of Alpha would remain in his hands, ready for the taking when you became of age.

She promised him my mother—Aurelia. Falsifying her memories of Marcus, making her believe she was in love with him.

So the pact was made, with the inkling that whenever Marcus was successful, she would be discarded by him.

And still, he was surmountable.

Her family was the problem. Beloved and pedalstalized.

She killed Salacia Lunae in the forest outside the Pack. Then captured your mother thwarting her attempt to escape with you.

After their deaths, she hid in the shadows, until she could warp the Pack's memory, little by little.

Wearing a human woman's face until she became Volga. The Mistress.

Had I not suspected she'd been poisoning you with wolf's bane to keep you from shifting until she could groom you into her weapon.

She would have been successful, had I not read my mother's letter.

In which she admitted that she murdered my father. Valirym was my mother's other target.

She said that if I found her dead, it would not be her doing, but Valirym who suspected she hadn't forgotten her true face.

When I read the letters between the pair of you and realized she helped awaken your memories, I worried she tampered with them.

So I visited Valirym, who confessed easily that she was pretending to be your grandmother so that you would trust her.

She knew that I would keep her secret, because of what you told her about me. Understood that I would not harm you.

Valirym agreed upon my terms for her execution, despite her years of planning. She believed it to be the final piece to make you rise above, to take the power she wanted for herself but could never have.

In her strange, horrifying way I think she cared for you, if not only in the idea you were a better version of her. One that could live on and create a new dawn for Pack Rupes.

Someone worth all the grief in killing her own family for her own gain.

Her trickery was my last chance, my last effort to make you want to kill me.

I'd learned from Titus's father that the bond could be tethered through the mind, if strong enough. And you confessed—that you cared about me. That you didn't want to hurt me.

I loved you—and I'm so sorry—loved openly and fiercely until I had to make you believe the opposite, that it was all a lie.

Desperate enough to make you believe you killed your innocent grandmother. So that whatever care you had for me would splinter and dissipate.

I wanted you to live on. And it just so happened to be what Valirym wanted it too.

But I didn't care—whatever she thought you capable of did not mattered. Just that you would win.

You asked me that night that you saw your mothers memory for the impossible. To deliver the person who was responsible for this, and to let you kill them.

I could not drag my father up from the underworld.

But I gave you Valirym.

Even if you did not understand it at the time, you avenged your parents. Your Clan. Yourself.

A sacrifice I would commit a thousand times over, and in each timeline, even if it is selfish.

I would rather die than live a life without you.

Now, I am sure you're exhausted reading the self-righteous ink splashed across the page. I'm sick of it too.

I am sick of myself justifying the pain I caused you to help you. No matter what good I've done, it'll never erase my terrible actions. I am without redemption even now—my punishment, our separation.

I deserve nothing from you. If you can find enough tolerance in your heart, please make sure that I am buried next to my mother. Not my father.

If you're feeling especially kind, lay snowdrops at my feet, so they may grow, blossom, and root themselves into me. Cover me. Hold me in the rain, the snow.

They've always reminded me of you.

You. Vyra Helena Lunae. If these are my last words, they must contain what is left of my heart. Not to guilt you but again to provide you the honesty you always needed from me.

Story tellers speak of love as something that happens, that catches by surprise.

And before ever learning you, I thought it was a passing phase. My heart's longing for the forbidden. That it was a rebellion against my father's endless cruelty (which I longed for) and that it was exciting merely because it was the furthest thing he could want for me.

Vyra—you're the light in the dark, the moon in the midnight sky. The opposite of me in every way imaginable.

When you were named as my mate and heir, I was in indulgent denial. A sweet carcass of desire. I could finally have you, but only for mere tastes when I longed for eternal damnation.

Even then, I blamed it on a curse. A reason.

Then...

You held me—the Alpha of an entire pack, chosen by divinity—to a higher standard than I could ever set for myself. You bit me, and apologized for using my mother's death against me.

Instead of finding my mistakes inevitable, you were betrayed by them.

You use your flesh like a journal. Sweet one moment, and making me regret ever crossing you the next. A natural leader—one I could only pretend to be.

Beautiful—so beautiful that I was able to cover my speechlessness with indifference. Sharper than a blade, wise despite being barred from knowledge.

Effervescent. Sparkling. A gentle fall of snow, the comfort of melted wine.

You listen to understand, even when you have every reason not to.

How ignorant I was, to ever pretend I could let you go. That whatever image of you I created in my head out of obsession and fascination would be more grand than reality.

Worse for my sanity, the Vyra I created in my head to keep me company pales in comparison to who you actually are.

It was never a passing limerence.

It does not rely on my understanding of your pure heart, or your affinity to do good.

You are not absent of darkness, you never let it consume you. You wield it, instead of being led.

And somehow, as amazing as you are, you care for me too. Something I couldn't account for, and never expected.

I spent the rest of the night alone in my chamber after you gifted me that bracelet and broke down in my arms.

It was frightingly strange to stare at myself for hours, trying to both capture my likeness, and understand what you saw in me, even for a moment.

All I was able to see was my father.

Over time, I noticed I have my mother's eyes, and I am grateful for them.

It's with their absolute clarity that I fell in love with you.

Falling for you would have happened at any given point. It's what I chose, time and time again. It's been ingrained in my soul before I was born, you and I.

When I say you're mine it is with no material possession.

You are mine to cherish. Mine to protect. Mine to keep sacred. I've known it deep within my bones before I could even understand it.

I have loved you. I did love you. I will love you. I swear it.

I'm sure this has been the origin and continuation of all of our problems, and yet I cannot stop.

Please do not stay with this Pack. Leave with Sonya, Petir, and Titus. Drag Mena with you if you can manage it.

Become an Alpha in your own right with others who share beliefs of change. Start anew, where Cyrus or any others can not find you.

I know you can do it. Even though I am dead and cannot see it come to pass.

That's the curse of being wholly Lycan. Our love is dangerous, it breaks and reforges just to crash down again. It's the most beautiful, terrifying thing in the world. Maybe it's why some of our forebears choose not to feel it at all.

Do not let that stop you.

Not for a second do I think it would, as I'm sure you are delighted that I've left this earth and you are free of the bond you wished to break.

Honor yourself by finding someone who loves you more than I could ever show you.

You deserve it Lux Mea. Even if I will writhe in jealously from the pits of the underworld, trying to claw my way through the earth back to you.

My apologies. I'm rambling. It seems that I'm having an awfully wretched time saying goodbye.

Not to the world, not to living.

But to you.

Still insidiously yours from beyond the grave, from beyond the test of time, and to forever more.

Don't forget me,

Seren Felix Umbra.

My apologies. It's a force of habit, but since I am no longer willing to tell you lies—

Please don't forget me,

Seren Felix Anguis

***

Vyra

I stared at the letter in my hands. The two portraits that fell out from its folds.

One of me. My head turned to the side like I was staring somewhere else, light reflecting like stars in my dark eyes. Written on the back were instructions to give it to Sonya.

The other was a portrait of Seren, but I hardly recognized him. Not that he was lacking in skill, every single line of his face was exact, the proportions ethereal and all him.

It was the expression he chose of himself, not bogged by obligation or regret.

Mirth danced in his eyes. Admiration softened his lips. Light radiated from him as though he had never once been touched by darkness.

A face I had never seen on a man I never got to meet.

On the back, he'd written words as beautiful, and unbearable, as the rest:

The very thought of you.

My fingers spasmed. The letter smeared in my vision. I couldn't hold it anymore.

I crushed the paper in my shaking hands, threw it into the fire, and watched the flames devour every confession.

They burned until nothing remained.

Except the ache of the truth I didn't want to touch.

I left Sonya without a word. Walked the silent corridors of the fortress that had become my home and my ruin. My steps led me without thought—all the way to Seren's empty room.

I stood there for a moment, letting the quiet wrap around me. Letting the ghost of him linger in the air.

Then I sat on his fine, downy bed, the sheets still holding a faint trace of his warmth.

The bond kissed my chest, as I lifted my dagger.

***

Seren

"There is no sign of her waking." Petir explained, a line forming between his furrowed brows. "On the issue of the breach in perimeter—"

"Agh!" I screamed, falling to the floor on one knee.

Petir bent with me, unruffled by the gaping, ghostly wound that opened on my palm, as if stabbed through the hand.

"It looks like she's ready to speak with you."

Though it was the most likely answer, it did little to quell the tense panic that seized me. Ever since the bond fused, the  primal need to be near her intensified to painful heights.

It taunted every waking moment warring with my good sense. To give space, not go searching where she didn't want to be found.

I'd already done enough.

"Or she's hurt herself." I whispered to myself, my chest tightening until I couldn't breathe.

Petir's voice became an echo as I launched from the ground, opening myself to her scent and being pummeled by its effect on me.

"Vyra." Her name left me, a sigh. She was in the West corridor. Somewhere by our chambers. 

It didn't matter if she hated me, I wouldn't let harm come to her. Even if it was self-inflected.

So I followed her like I always have, a sailor without a ship and only a siren to lead him to shore.

Immune to her compulsion, but entirely bent to her whim.