Chapter 2 The Bloodline Revelation

Chapter 2 The Bloodline Revelation
Chapter 2:

Sera's POV

Pain dragged me back to consciousness. Sharp, insistent, wrapped around every nerve. My eyes cracked open to unfamiliar ceiling beams, rough-hewn wood instead of the polished stone I'd known my entire life.

Not the Forsaken Hollows. Not the pack house.

Where the hell was I?

"Awake, are we?" A gravelly voice cut through my disorientation. "Took you long enough."

I bolted upright, instantly regretting it as the room spun. An elderly man sat in a worn leather chair by the window, his face mapped with wrinkles, eyes sharp as broken glass. Human, by the lack of wolf-scent. But something about him felt... aware.

"Who are you?" My voice came out raw. "Where-"

"Questions can wait." He rose with surprising grace for someone his age. "First, you tell me how a Lunar Lycan ends up half-dead in my forest, dressed like a rejected bride."

The words hit like a physical blow. "A what?"

His eyes narrowed. "Don't play stupid, girl. Your mark gave you away the moment I found you." He gestured toward my collarbone. "That crescent. Pure silver. Can't fake that, can't hide it. Not from someone who knows what to look for."

I touched my collarbone, felt the raised skin where smooth flesh should be. The mark from last night was still there, still warm. "I don't understand. I'm an Omega. I've always been-"

"An Omega?" He barked out a laugh that held no humor. "Is that what they told you? Those fools?"

"The entire pack-"

"Wouldn't recognize a Lunar Lycan if she shifted in front of them." He moved closer, studying me like I was a puzzle missing pieces. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-three."

"And your wolf? When did she first speak to you?"

"Last night." The admission felt like failure. "Before that, she was... silent. Weak."

"Not weak." His expression shifted to something almost like pity. "Dormant. Your bloodline does that...suppresses the wolf until you're either in mortal danger or-" His gaze dropped to my stomach. "Or carrying an heir."

Ice flooded my veins. "That's impossible."

"Is it?" He tilted his head. "When did you last bleed?"

My mind raced backward. The full moon ceremony. The one before that. The one before... "Seven weeks," I whispered. "But we only....once. Just once, and he was drunk, and-"

"Once is enough." The old man returned to his chair, suddenly looking every one of his years. "Especially for a True Alpha and a Lunar Lycan. That kind of pairing... the bond demands an heir."

"Stop." I pressed my palms against my temples. "Stop talking like this is real. I'm nobody. My mother was nobody. My father-"

"Your father." His voice went cold. "Tell me about your father."

"I never knew him. He died before I was born. My mother never talked about him."

"Convenient." He reached into his shirt, pulled out a worn leather journal, and tossed it onto the small table between us. "Read the entry marked with the red ribbon. Then we'll talk."

My hands trembled as I opened the journal. The pages were yellowed, the handwriting elegant but faded. I found the ribbon, began to read.

'The Lunar Lycan bloodline was thought extinct after the Purge of the Northern Territories. King Theron and his entire family were executed by the High Council, who feared their power. But rumors persist that one child survived...a daughter, spirited away by a loyal servant.'

'The child would bear the crescent mark. She would seem powerless until her bloodline awakened. She would be hunted by those who fear what she represents.'

'She would be the key to everything.'

"This doesn't prove anything." But my voice shook.

"Look at your shoulder. The back of it."

I twisted, craning my neck. There-barely visible, faded like old scars...were marks I'd always assumed were birthmarks. But now, looking closer, they formed a pattern. A crest.

The same crest sketched in the journal's margin.

"No." The word came out broken. "My mother would have told me. She would have-"

"Your mother was protecting you." The old man's voice gentled. "The High Council has hunters. They've spent twenty-five years eliminating every possible Lunar Lycan heir. If they'd known about you..."

"They'd have killed me." The reality settled like stones in my stomach. "So she hid me. Made me think I was weak. Made everyone think-" Rage ignited, hot and fierce. "She let them treat me like nothing."

"She let you live." His words cut through my anger. "And now you're here, alive, carrying what I suspect is a very powerful child. The question is....what do you do with that life?"

I stood, paced the small room like a caged animal. Everything I'd believed about myself was a lie. The weakness, the inadequacy, the rejection, all based on a false identity.

"How do you know all this?" I turned on him. "Who are you?"

"Marcus." He said it simply. "I was your grandfather's advisor. His friend. I escaped the Purge by sheer luck and have spent the last two decades searching for survivors."

"And you just happened to find me?"

"I've been tracking the Crimson Fang Pack for months." His jaw tightened. "Heard whispers about an Omega with strange silver eyes. Silver eyes haven't appeared in wolf bloodlines for generations except in Lunar Lycans." He paused. "I arrived too late to stop your rejection. But I was there when you crossed into neutral territory."

"Why didn't you help me sooner?"

"Would you have believed me?" He raised an eyebrow. "Or would you have thought I was a madman trying to kidnap the Alpha's rejected mate?"

Fair point.

A wave of nausea hit me without warning. I gripped the table's edge, breathing through it.

"That'll get worse before it gets better," Marcus said. "Lunar Lycan pregnancies are... intense. The child draws power from you constantly. You'll need training, preparation-"

"I need revenge." The words came out cold, certain. "Dante rejected me in front of the entire pack. Humiliated me. Sent me to die."

"And you want to make him pay."

"I want to destroy him." The admission should have scared me. Instead, it felt right. True. "I want him to know exactly what he threw away."

Marcus studied me for a long moment. "Revenge is a dangerous motivator."

"I don't care."

"You should." He stood, moved to the window overlooking dense forest. "The Aurora Territory lies three days' journey north. They've been without a leader since their Alpha died last year. The council is weak, fractured. They need someone with legitimate royal blood to unite them."

My pulse quickened. "You're saying-"

"I'm saying you have options." He turned back to me. "You can hide, raise your child in obscurity, and hope the High Council never finds you. Or-" His eyes glinted. "You can claim your birthright. Take the Aurora Territory. Build an army. And when you're ready, you can return to face Alpha Dante as his equal."

Not his equal. His superior.

The idea took root instantly, growing like wildfire through my thoughts. I could see it...walking back into Crimson Fang territory with power radiating from every pore, watching recognition and horror dawn on Dante's face.

"How long?" I asked. "How long until I'd be strong enough?"

"Five years." Marcus didn't sugarcoat it. "Maybe less if you're a quick study. The Aurora Territory needs stability before it needs war. You'll need to prove yourself, earn loyalty, master your abilities."

Five years. An eternity. But also... nothing. Not compared to a lifetime of revenge.

"What about the child?" My hand drifted to my still-flat stomach.

"He'll be powerful." Marcus said it with absolute certainty. "The combination of True Alpha and Lunar Lycan blood? He'll be stronger than any wolf alive. But he'll also be a target. Every enemy you make will see him as a weakness to exploit."

"Then I'll teach him to be a strength." The decision crystallized. "I'll teach him everything. And when we return, Dante will see exactly what he created."

Marcus smiled...thin, dangerous. "There's the Queen I was hoping to find."

Another wave of nausea hit, stronger this time. I doubled over, and Marcus was there instantly with a basin.

"This is normal?" I gasped between heaves.

"For the first trimester, yes. The child's power is already manifesting. You're essentially housing a dominant Alpha in a body that hasn't fully awakened yet." He helped me to the narrow bed. "Rest. Tomorrow, we begin your training."

"Tomorrow?" I wanted to protest, to insist I was fine, but exhaustion pulled at me like a riptide.

"Tomorrow," he confirmed. "You have five years to become a Queen, Sera. We don't have time to waste."

I closed my eyes, feeling the strange warmth in my core that was apparently my child. Dante's child. The heir he'd never know about, until it was too late.

Sleep crept in around the edges of consciousness, but just before it claimed me, I felt it.

A pulse of power from the child inside me. Strong. Demanding. Alpha.

And something else...a whisper in my mind, my wolf's voice clearer than it had ever been.

"They will all kneel," she promised.

"Everyone who hurt us will kneel."

I smiled in the darkness.

Yes. They would.