Chapter 153

Lyra's POV

Cian froze mid-motion, his grip still locked around the man's arm, clearly struggling to process my command to let go.

But eventually, he complied.

The man scrambled to his feet, rubbing his twisted arm while spitting curses. "What the hell is wrong with you people? Jumping someone like that—who do you think you are?"

I frowned, pulled a card from my pocket, and held it out to him.

"There's fifty thousand dollars on this. Consider it compensation."

He eyed me skeptically, took the card, turned it over in his hands, and finally shut his mouth before disappearing into the crowd.

Cian bent down to retrieve the tracker, examining it closely, his voice barely above a murmur. "How did you know that wasn't Varyn?"

"Wolfsbane is lethal to vampires," I said, my gaze still following the man's retreating figure. "That guy had wolfsbane solution splashed all over his face and didn't react at all—not even a hint of redness on his skin. There's no way he could be Varyn."

Cian fell silent for a moment, clutching the tracker in his palm, visibly frustrated. "If we don't catch him this time, God knows when we'll get another chance."

"He'll surface eventually," I said, patting his shoulder.

I went ahead with the race as planned.

Even knowing Varyn likely wasn't here, I figured it was worth a shot. But to avoid drawing unnecessary attention, I held back. I delayed my start by half a beat, eased off a corner where I could have overtaken, and settled comfortably into third place. Still, when I crossed the finish line, I caught the muted cheers rippling through the crowd nearby.

I returned the car to Cian, said my goodbyes, and drove back to Blackwood Manor.

Outside the window, the silhouettes of fir trees grew sharper in the gathering dusk, and the familiar cobblestone driveway whispered softly beneath my tires. I parked the car, pushed open the manor's front door—and stopped cold on the threshold, forgetting to take another step.

The lawn before the Moon Goddess altar had been transformed with silver and white florals. Moon-stone lanterns lined both sides of the path from the entrance to the altar, each one wrapped in fir branches and white ribbons. The wedding venue had been arranged with exquisite care. White chairs stood in neat rows, each armrest adorned with a small moonstone pendant that swayed gently in the evening breeze.

A maid arranging one of the floral columns spotted me and hurried over, her face alight with barely contained excitement. "Luna, you're back! The Alpha arranged all of this before he left—he made us promise over and over to give you the perfect wedding."

My fingertips brushed against the nearest white rose, and I felt heat flood my cheeks.

That night, I lay in bed staring at the wedding dress hanging from the wardrobe, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. Moonlight slipped through a gap in the curtains, pooling on the lace hem and rendering its patterns nearly translucent.

Tomorrow was the wedding.

I closed my eyes and traced the scene in my mind over and over—Orion's face, his voice, the way he would turn to look at me as I approached the altar. I rolled over again, still restless, and finally sat up, reaching for the guest list on my nightstand to review it one more time.

Just as my finger slid past one of the names, a sourceless pang of dread pierced through my chest.

It wasn't the racing heartbeat of excitement—it was something sharper, as if my heart had been seized and wrung out by an invisible hand. An inexplicable unease consumed all my attention in an instant.

Deep in my consciousness, Selah released a low whimper I had never heard before—a sound of confusion, the kind of tentative, almost pleading cry she made when trying to confirm whether the other end of the bond was still alive.

Tears spilled from my eyes without warning, streaming down my cheeks, though I had no idea why I was crying. I pressed a hand to my chest, gasping for air, trying to shake off this suffocating dread, but nothing worked. No matter how I called out through the bond, there was no response from the other side.

The guest list slipped from my fingers and scattered across the floor, pages spreading out like a promise torn to shreds before it could be kept.

Selah's whimper grew into a long, keening howl—the sound of a wolf who had lost her mate.

Lost her mate.

The moment that phrase crashed into my mind, I clamped my hands over my ears and curled in on myself.

No. That couldn't be.

He was supposed to marry me tomorrow.

He wouldn't lie to me.

He had never lied to me.

Just then, a deafening crash echoed from downstairs as a door was flung open. Footsteps thundered through the halls, torches flared to life one after another, and every light in the estate blazed on at once, as if trying to tear the night into daylight.

I heard Isolde's muffled sobs—piercing through the door, through the corridor, shattering my last line of defense.

I stood by my door, hand on the knob, trying to turn it twice.

It wouldn't budge.

For a moment I thought the door was broken, but then I realized it was me—I didn't want to open it, as if keeping it closed would let this all remain just an illusion.

"Luna."

A maid's voice came through the door, trembling as though it took every ounce of her strength to string the words together. "The Alpha… something's happened."

I opened the door, my legs moving as if pulled by a thread, numb and distant. Step by step, I crossed the hallway and descended the stairs.

In the distance, the great hall blazed with firelight. The Blackwood elders stood in a circle around Isolde, who knelt in the center with her hands covering her mouth, her face streaked with tears. Darian stood beside her, his expression frozen in grim solemnity, something clutched in his hand.

As I approached, the sobbing quieted slightly, and the crowd parted to let me through. The way they looked at me was complicated—reliant, lost, and burdened with a grief I didn't know how to carry.

I walked to the center of the hall and stopped before the stretcher.

A white sheet covered the figure beneath, but even from the outline alone, I knew the truth that would shatter my heart.

I took a shaky breath and reached out with trembling hands to lift the cloth.

Despite a werewolf's superior vision, I couldn't make out his face—tears blurred everything into a wash of fractured light.

I stood there for a long time, so long that my body began to stiffen, before I could finally see who lay there.

Orion.

His eyes were closed, his lips drained of color, his face holding a stillness I had never seen before.

With shaking hands, I reached to feel for his breath, but there was nothing.

I turned to Darian, and when my voice emerged, I barely recognized it as my own. "Why did this happen?"

Darian lowered his eyes, the words scraping out of his throat with difficulty. "We were about to make our move when the Alpha suddenly collapsed."

He paused, glancing at me cautiously. "Ian examined him and found that the Alpha had been poisoned."