Chapter 3 Blood and Water

Chapter 3: Blood and Water

POV:Lyra Vale

Every word she said felt like a slap. That was the problem. She wasn’t even trying to be mean—she was just being Selene—and it still cut.

Daughter of the Virel line. She used that name like a shield. Like she had actually done something to earn it besides just being born. I watched her standing there in the moonlight, her eyes all wide and hurt, and I hated her for it. Even now, she looked like a painting. She looked like something people write stupid songs about.

I had loved her my whole life. That was the real rot at the center of this. She was my best friend. She was the only one who knew the things I whispered in the dark when we were kids. I thought that meant something. I thought it was permanent. But there she was, standing between me and the only thing I ever wanted. I didn't want it for the pack or for duty. I wanted it for me.

Kael wasn't just an Alpha to me. He was the sun. And Selene had him without even trying. She didn’t fight, and she didn't scratch. She just existed. I could feel my wolf clawing at my ribs, that low, ugly pacing that had been there so long I had started to think it was just part of my heartbeat.

The jealousy wasn't a feeling anymore. It was the shape of my bones.

"You think I don't know you?" My voice cracked, and I sounded pathetic to my own ears. "I know exactly who you are. You’re the girl who gets everything handed to her on a silver tray. The crown. The name. Kael. All of it."

"This isn’t a competition, Lyra!" Her voice was thin, barely carrying over the roar of the water. "I didn't ask for his heart to be cold. I didn't ask for you to look at me like I’m an enemy."

"It's not hate." I stepped right into her space, my chest tightening. "It's the truth. You’re holding onto a man who already let go. You’re calling it love, and we’re all supposed to just bow down to that lie?"

"Stop." She shook her head, her face turning pale. She stepped back, her heels skidding on the wet moss at the edge of the bank. "You’re not yourself. It’s the moon, Lyra. It’s the pressure. Let’s just go back. Please."

"Don’t." I was screaming now, and I couldn’t stop myself. "Don’t stand there being gracious at me while you hold a crown you're too soft to carry. You don’t deserve him. You never did." I stopped, my jaw so tight it ached. "It should have been me."

Something changed in her then. The softness died. A door slammed shut behind her eyes, leaving something hard and cold in its place.

"I am the Luna." Her voice was low and steady. It made the hair on my arms stand up. She tilted her chin back and looked down at me, and for a second, I finally saw it. I saw the power she kept buried under all that gentleness. "By blood and by the Mother’s will, I am your Luna. You will respect that."

That word.

Luna.

Something inside me just snapped.

It didn't matter what I gave this pack. It didn't matter that I matched him, fire for fire, while she just gave in. I was always going to be the one standing in the shadows. I was always second. Always wanting, never having.

"You're nothing," I spat.

My hands moved before my brain could catch up and stop them.

I hit her shoulders with both palms, pushing hard. The shock of the impact jolted all the way up to my elbows.

Her eyes went wide with total, absolute disbelief. For a heartbeat, everything went completely silent. Then her feet went out from under her on the slick moss. She reached out for nothing, her fingers clawing at the empty air, and then she was just gone.

She made a small, choked sound on the way down.

The river took her. The splash sounded like a building collapsing into the deep.

I stood there with my hands still out in front of me, shaking. I waited for her to come back up. I waited for her to scream my name, to tell me she was okay, to make me live with what I had just done.

The river started to glow.

A silver light pulsed deep under the surface. It happened once, then twice. Then the water turned completely black again. A tight, hungry whirlpool swallowed the reflection of the moon and went still.

"Selene?"

There was nothing.

Every pup in the pack knew about the sacred river. It wasn't just water, it was the blood of the ancestors. It had rules. To fall in without a blessing was a death sentence. The currents didn’t give you back.

I dropped to my knees. The stones bit hard into my skin, but I didn't feel the pain. I just stared into the dark, looking for a scrap of silk, a hand, or anything at all.

The water was still. It wasn't peaceful, it was just finished.

I knew what I should do. I should howl, scream for the guards, or jump in after her.

Instead, I stayed frozen.

If I called for help, I was a murderer. I had shoved the future Luna into the river four days before her coronation. There was no version of that story where Kael listened to my side of things. I could see the executioner's blade as clearly as if it were already at my throat.

So I sat there, and the lies started to form like a reflex. Maybe she would wash up miles away. Maybe she would just disappear. I was the last person who saw her, and nobody had to know what my hands had done.

Then the guilt hit. It felt like being buried alive. She was my best friend. She knew everything about me, and I had just watched the light go out of the water and did nothing.

I am a traitor. The word felt too small and too clean for what I was.

I forced myself up on legs that felt like jelly and ran. The woods were dead silent around me. The moon just watched me run, cold and judging, remembering every single second.

The river was quiet when I left it behind.

It had taken what it wanted.

And I was the one who fed it.