Chapter 36 Caught In The Center
Aurelia
Before Zhayad left, he kissed me long and hard my knees buckled and the mark on my chest flared bright enough to light the room.
Then he pulled back just enough to speak against my swollen lips. “You’re going back to the main quarters. We'll finish this when I'm back.” He squeezed my ass and kissed me again, pressing me into himself as if he wanted us to become one in both body and soul.
He turned to the shifter-guards stationed outside the door, his voice dropping to his signature no-nonsense voice of steel.
“Escort my Luna to our private wing. Anyone who delays her or touches her is to be thrown into the holding cells immediately. Understood?”
The guards snapped to attention, bowing low.
“Yes, Alpha.”
Zhayad gave me one last look, a dark, hungry look promising more later, then strode away, leaving heat and the ghost of his touch lingering on my skin.
The walk back felt endless, because I couldn't stop turning over the news of Irina's disappearance.
It was rare for a shifter to go missing just like that, and the fact that there were no signs of struggle showed there were loopholes that needed to be looked into.
The guards flanked me like silent shadows, their boots echoing in perfect rhythm.
Every corridor we passed drew stares. The maids froze mid-task, shifter-warriors pausing mid-conversation, their eyes sliding from the glowing mark at my throat to my body.
Would I ever get used to the fact that every male I passed was either thinking of claiming me or claiming me already in his head? I wasn't sure.
Ravina intercepted me the moment I crossed the threshold into the main wing. She stepped straight into my path, her face twisted with the same vicious malice she’d worn on the night of the maiden selection.
I wondered if she knew that Zhayad instructed his guards to throw anyone who delayed or as much as touched me into the holding cells.
Her voice rose dramatically, sharp enough to shatter glass.
“Your father is holding my daughter captive,” she snarled in my face. “Won’t you do something about it?”
I didn’t stop walking. My strides remained steady, forcing her to fall in beside me or be left behind.
“How would my father capture Irina if she wasn’t on the other side of the border?” I asked calmly, not breaking pace.
Irina wasn't missing. My guts told me this much. Ravina and her daughter were up to something, and I had to be vigilant so they wouldn't take me unawares.
Ravina hissed like a serpent. “Your father has succeeded in planting spies in our territory, spies who disguise themselves as shifters. I will not rest until the Alpha looks into this matter. My daughter must be found, or I'll do everything within my power to put you into the ground.”
Was she threatening me?
“You've been trying to do that the very night the Alpha chose me. You're welcome to continue.” I said dryly.
She moved closer, her voice lowering to a dry whisper. “I know you spread your legs for him to charm him into releasing you from isolation, but know this: he only sees you as a means to an end. You are bait. The moment he wins the war, he’ll discard you like filth.”
The words landed like claws, raking across old wounds. I stopped, then turned slowly to face her.
Ravina’s lips parted, ready to spit another venomous barb. I didn’t give her the chance.
“The moment he wins the war,” I said, my voice low and lethally calm, each word sharpened to a blade, “he will see exactly who his true enemies have been all along. And when that day comes, traitors will not be exiled or imprisoned. They will be punished the way traitors have always been punished: swiftly, publicly, and without mercy.”
The corridor went deathly still. Ravina’s mouth opened, then closed again. No sound escaped.
Her eyes widened, shock flickering beneath the fury, because I had just stripped her of every rehearsed retort, every smug certainty.
I had spoken not as the broken little witch she’d caged, but as the Luna who would one day judge her.
For the first time since this nightmare began, Ravina looked truly afraid.
I stepped closer, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet my gaze.
“And when that reckoning arrives,” I continued, soft enough that only she could hear, “remember this moment. Remember the day you stood in my path and thought you could break me. Because I will remember it too.”
Her throat worked, but no words came. Good.
I smiled and turned away, leaving her frozen in the middle of the corridor like a statue carved from her own arrogance.
I had barely crossed the threshold of the bedroom when a voice sliced through the quiet behind me.
“Luna.”
I froze mid-step. A scout, one of Zhayad’s elite runners stood in the doorway, his eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder as if direct eye contact might burn him.
“We have orders to drive you to the Shifter’s Council Headquarters. The Alpha is waiting.”
I whirled to face him, confusion sharpening into alarm.
“What? Why? Is anything wrong?”
The scout’s jaw tightened. He spoke carefully, each word measured like he was reciting from a script he hated reading.
“Irina was last sighted at headquarters before she was taken. Two men, rumored to be your father’s, kidnapped her. They disguised themselves as shifters to get inside.”
The words landed like stones in still water. Ripples of disbelief spread through me. Irina? At headquarters?
Weird. She wasn’t council staff. She had no business there. Her mother, Ravina, did.
My mind raced, turning the pieces over, searching for the lie, the trap, the angle. Nothing fit cleanly. And that made it worse.
“Why would Irina even be at headquarters?” I asked in a low voice, almost to myself.
The scout didn’t answer, but his silence said enough: questions were not part of his orders.
I exhaled slowly through my nose.
“Give me a few minutes to change. I’ll join you.”
He inclined his head once and stepped back into the corridor. Through the open doorway I caught the low murmur of his voice speaking to the shifter-guards stationed outside, their tones clipped and urgent.
I closed the door with deliberate softness. For one heartbeat I stood motionless, my hand still on the door, staring at nothing.
This wasn’t random. Nothing involving Irina and Ravina ever was. If my father’s men had truly taken her, if they had crossed borders, infiltrated council grounds, risked open war, then either my father had escalated far beyond anything I’d imagined… or someone was staging a very careful, very public provocation.
And I was being summoned straight into the center of it.