Chapter 16 Torn Between Fate
The name still echoed in her ears.
Lyriana.
It wasn’t just a word. It was like a key, one that unlocked something inside her she didn’t know existed.
Azrael’s voice was calm, ancient, too knowing. “You felt it, didn’t you? The name belongs to you.”
Lyra…Lyriana…stood frozen, heart pounding against her ribs so hard it felt like it would crack through her chest. Dante stood only a few feet away, staring at her as though she were someone he had never seen before.
His eyes, those wild, stormy Alpha eyes weren’t angry.
They were scared.
“Lyra,” he said softly, as though speaking her old name would pull her back. “You don’t have to leave with him.”
Azrael smirked, his cloak dragging lethargic shadows across the ground. “She never belonged here.”
The bond surged through her body, mate-bond pull, an invisible string tugging painfully between her heart and Dante’s. When she made even the slightest step toward Azrael, her chest tightened, breath hitched, and Dante flinched as though someone had driven claws into his ribs.
It wasn’t just emotional.
It was physical. Real.
She looked at Dante.
He didn’t plead.
He didn’t command.
He didn’t force.
His voice trembled with restraint. “I won’t stop you… but I won’t pretend it doesn’t feel like dying.”
The cold air carried every unsaid thought between them, his fear of losing her… and her fear of not knowing who she really was.
Azrael stepped forward. “Lyriana D’Angelis. For nineteen years, they hid you. Buried your bloodline. Lied to you.” His eyes flickered with something between possession and reverence. “But your blood remembers.”
She hesitated. The moonlight seemed to shift, colder and sharper against her skin.
Dante whispered hoarsely, “If you go now… I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to wait.”
That broke something inside her.
Tears brimmed.
She didn’t want to go.
But the truth… the truth called louder.
Azrael extended his hand. “Come. Let your blood speak for itself.”
She looked back one last time.
Dante didn’t move.
He just closed his eyes.
And whispered, “Please… just come back to me.”
The mate bond tore inside her like a ripping seam.
She stepped forward.
And everything changed.
The world blurred around them as Azrael led her through moonlit forests, past rivers with strange silver shimmer, deeper into lands where the wind whispered in a language she didn’t recognize but her wolf did.
The wolf inside her stirred, pacing, restless.
Not fearful.
Awakened.
“How do you know who I am?” she asked as she walked, voice unsteady.
Azrael didn’t look at her. “Magic recognizes magic. Blood recognizes blood. You, Lyriana, were born of an ancient royal lineage that was wiped out. Except…” His dark gaze shifted to her. “You.”
“How do you know I’m… her? What if this is all a lie?”
Azrael stopped.
He lifted her hand, slowly, gently, and placed it on the bark of a towering, ancient ashwood tree. The bark was veined with silver, humming faintly like something alive.
At her touch, it glowed brighter.
Azrael whispered, “Some doors only open for the right blood.”
The glow didn’t fade.
It intensified.
Her wolf howled inside her.
She snatched her hand away, heart pounding.
“What is happening to me?”
“You’re waking up,” Azrael said calmly. “And once you fully awaken… every wolf, every pack, every council will know.”
She swallowed hard. “Know what?”
His eyes were not kind.
“They will know that the rightful heir has returned. And they will either kneel—or try to kill you.”
They walked for hours, past abandoned towns and forgotten roads, deeper into what felt like nowhere. But she could feel something like invisible threads connecting her to the wind, the roots, the ground, as though the land itself remembered her.
Even when she tried to block the mate bond, Dante still lived under her skin.
At random moments, she could hear his heartbeat, his breath, his pain.
And he could feel hers.
The bond wasn’t broken.
Just stretched.
Azrael noticed. “Your bond to him remains.”
She looked away. “I don’t want to lose him.”
Azrael smirked nicely. “You won’t lose him. But you will break him.”
Her breath trembled. “What do you want from me?”
His voice turned solemn. “Not want. Protect. They think you are weak, naive, fragile. But I know what you truly are something the world hasn’t seen since the Blood Dynasty.”
“My name is Lyra,” she whispered shakily. “I don’t know if I want to be anyone else.”
His dark eyes flickered. “Your wolf disagrees.”
They finally reached it at dawn.
The ruins.
What was left of a once-mighty temple stretched across a valley, white stone arches buried under vines and dust, walls cracked by time, pillars carved with runes that faintly flickered as though remembering their old purpose.
“This…” Azrael said, stepping onto the cracked stone floor, “is where your bloodline ruled before wolves had packs, before councils claimed authority.”
The air vibrated around her.
Her heart raced.
She didn’t know this place but her wolf did.
Her wolf went still.
Every instinct in her body pulled toward the center of the ruin. She followed it… slowly… breathlessly… until she stood before a marble pedestal scarred by claw marks, stained by something dark and ancient.
Her hand moved before she could think.
“Don’t ” Azrael began.
But her fingers had already touched it.
It burned.
Not like pain.
Not like fire.
Like memory.
She gasped as a sharp sting shot through her veins, and suddenly, she saw flashes.
A castle on fire.
Howling.
A woman screaming her name…Lyriana.
A silver crown falling.
A wolf, pure white and bleeding.
And then darkness.
Her knees buckled.
Azrael caught her before she hit the ground, eyes shockingly wide.
“It has begun,” he whispered, stunned.
“What….what have I done?” her voice trembled.
He didn't answer.
Because the answer was rising in the form of a crimson pulse spreading from her handprint across the temple ruins, awakening old runes, igniting long-sleeping magic.
The air trembled.
The earth hummed.
Somewhere, distant wolves began to howl.
Azrael turned to her…no longer calm.
Almost reverent.
“Lyriana,” he breathed, “you just called back the Bloodline.”
Her heartbeat thund
ered.
Her wolf awakened.
And somewhere far away.
Dante felt it.
He looked toward the sky, eyes widening.
Because without even seeing it
He knew.
She had awakened something that could destroy them all.