Chapter 91

Chapter 91
Jade POV

The whispers began like smoke, thin at first, drifting from corridor to corridor; I didn’t notice when they started. Maybe no one did.

But soon, I could feel the shift in the pack.

The Prophecy of the Blood Moon.

They thought they were being subtle. They thought I did not hear the way their voices dropped as I entered, how conversations dissolved into silence the moment I stepped near. But I heard. I always heard.

“The Blood Moon rises for judgement.”

“The one marked in silver fire will decide the fate of wolves.”

“The Alpha is bound to doom… or salvation.”

And always, there was her name behind the words.

My jaw locked whenever I heard it. The ones who should have bowed their heads and trusted me as they always had. Now they looked at me and saw uncertainty. They looked at her and saw an omen.

I could feel the shift and the distance.

They were afraid of her.

Of what she meant.

Of what I had chosen.

The council had already tested me. They had pushed. One had fallen for it. The others were quiet now, but quiet was never the same as loyal. Quiet had weight. Quiet had teeth.

Even my generals, men who had fought beside me in blood and fire, had begun to watch me differently. Paranoia, they would call it.

But paranoia is only madness when the threat is imagined.

And mine was real.

The prophecy had been a myth for generations, words written in an old tongue and spoken only under eclipse.

But now they said the Blood Moon was coming again. That the goddess had shifted fate. That a cycle was repeating. That a judgement long overdue had returned wearing a girl’s skin.

My hands tightened around the rail of the balcony as I stared down at the training field. Warriors sparred below, their movements sharp and efficient, but their glances flicked upward every so often as if checking whether their Alpha was watching…

My breath exhaled slowly.

I did not fear prophecies.

I feared losing her.

The mark I had placed on Sera still thrummed beneath my fingertips whenever I touched her. Sometimes, when I was not even near her, it pulsed, like something inside me was being pulled toward her with invisible strings.

I told myself it was the bond.

I told myself it was natural.

But when I looked at her now, when I saw the faint flicker of silver fire in her eyes, the way her presence filled a room without trying, the way the air itself seemed to bend closer to her, I felt something I could not name.

Something I did not want to name.

Destiny.

Or doom.

I closed my eyes and let the night wind hit my face. It did nothing to cool the heat that coiled in my chest, the restless, gnawing tension of wanting to hold her so tightly the world could not take her from me, even if it meant destroying everything else.

The whispers had reached even the children.

That was when I knew the infection had spread deep.

“The goddess has chosen the girl.”

“The Alpha is bound to fall.”

“Blood will answer blood.”

My wolves were no longer just afraid.

They were waiting for something to happen.

My hands curled into fists until my knuckles hurt. I felt the bones strain. The muscle coil. The instinct to tear, to crush, to defend.

If fate thought it could take her from me

If destiny thought it could dictate my life…

If the moon goddess believed she could play me like a piece on her celestial board, then she was damn wrong.

I would not lose Sera.

I found her away from the hall, where the stone was cool and the night felt quieter.

My feet moved before my head could catch up, and I stepped into the space beside her and closed it in, so the rest of the world became distant noise.

My hand went to her arm. I did not touch her like a guest or a stranger, and I did not touch her lightly because there was no light touch fit for what was inside me; my grip was firm because I needed something steady to hold onto in the middle of everything that was breaking around us.

She flinched, and that tiny movement hit me harder than any shout from the council. I leaned down so close that she could hear my breath, and I wanted my words to be clear and honest, not loud or cruel.

They talk about fate and the old lines and what the moon will decide, and the pack mutters and wonders and judges, but none of that was what I felt when I looked at her. All that mattered then was this: her, here, near enough for me to keep.

“If anyone touches you,” I said, my voice low but steady, “I will stop them. I will not let them take you. I will stand no matter what.”

There was no promise to burn cities or tear the world apart in that voice; there was only a plain hard truth. I would protect her. I would not hand her over.

She drew a small, shaky breath under my hand. The wind moved, the training sounds in the distance kept going, the stars kept their cold watch, and for a moment the world felt like it might hold together.

I kept my hand on her arm because hands are proof that someone stayed, that someone would not look away, and because saying the words was not enough until she could feel them on her skin.