ELENA
+25 BONUS
The torches lining the path flickered like stars pulled down to earth. Each one stood tall and still, the flames flickering gently in the mountain air. The pack moved slowly, reverently, their bodies bushed in instinctive deference to the night and what it represented.
Beside me, Aiden held my hand. His small fingers were curled around mine, warm and still a little sticky from the honey bread he’d insisted on having before the ceremony. His eyes, wide and curious, scanned everything.
None of the wolves spoke. Not even the elders, whose joints groaned as they ascended the slope. Not the warriors, dressed in ceremonial black with Moonstone sashes across their chests. The Bath was sacred, and silence was part of the rite.
Aiden tugged at my hand, his voice a whisper. “Why wasn’t Daddyvited?”
The question pierced me more than I expected.
I looked down at him and gave a soft shake of my head. “This is just for Moonstone. Now hush.”
I couldn’t tell him the truth. That his father’s choices had left a wound too deep to ignore. That trust didn’t come with shared blood, not anymore.
The High Ridge was windswept and raw, perched on the spine of the Moonstone lands like a crown. Here, the trees thinned out entirely, giving way to bare rock and hardy grasses that clung to cracks in the stone.
The wind came in steady currents, lifting the edges of cloaks and carrying the mingled scents of pine, smoke, and something older–something wild.
Below us, the land unfolded in every direction. The hills rolled gently down to the dark treeline, touched by silver moonlight. The forest gleamed as if dusted with frost, its canopy shimmering with dew and shadow. Far off, the river glinted like a coiled ribbon. From this vantage point, all of Moonstone was laid bare.
At the very center of the ridge sat the Moon Stone.
It was larger than I remembered. As wide as a banquet table and twice as long, carved directly from the mountain itself. Its surface was worn but unyielding, covered in names and clawed lineages etched into its skin.
Some names had faded into the rock, ancient and unreadable. Others stood crisp and clear. My father’s. My grandfather’s. Generations of leadership, passed from hand to bloodied hand.
The torches here were different. Taller, with thicker glass and darker iron bases, they cast broader circles of light. Arranged in a perfect ring, they enclosed the entire gathered pack, the flames snapping like watchful eyes in the sharp wind.
We stepped into the circle, the heat of the fire brushing our cheeks. It was like stepping into a world suspended outside of time.
A memory rose, unbidden. I was small, no older than Aiden, standing next to my mother as we watched my grandfather step down. I hadn’t remembered that night in years, not until recently.
But the vision was suddenly vivid.
The hush of the pack. The smell of smoke and iron. My mother’s hand tight around mine. And my father–taller then, pro radiant–approaching the altar with reverence.
I remembered the way the moonlight had caught in his hair. The way my breath had caught as he sliced his palm and let his blood fall. I had been scared then, but awestruck, As if I’d witnessed something holy.
The ritual hadn’t changed.
nd
If the Alpha succession was peaceful, both wolves–the one stepping down and the one stepping up–offered a drop of blood to the stone. Their claws rested on it, one after the other. A symbol of continuity. Legacy. The blood that marked the line between
eras.
7/2
Chapter 254
+25 BONUS
If the Alpha was challenged, if the succession was earned through folence, the defeated Alpha’s body was carried here in humiliation. The victor would coat the stone in the blood of the fallen and then add his own.
was relieved that this, at least, would be the former.
My father stepped forward first. He looked older now than I’d ever seen him, his hair nearly all silver, his frame still strong but thinner than it had been when I was a child. His steps were measured. Purposeful.
He knelt beside the altar, drew a ceremonial claw from his sash old blade honed from moon–granite, passed down through our line–and pressed his hand to the stone.
He sliced his palm with a smooth, practiced motion. Blood welled mediately, dark and thick.
