Chapter 3 Cat's anger
ZEPHYRA'S POV
My hand raises unwillingly... Paw, not hand, it brings Zade to his knees in front of me.
I hear sounds, but all I feel is anger.
"YOU RAPED ME. YOOOOU!"
The wind blows, and everywhere turns dark for a while
The Elder moves back, his eyes wide in shock like I'm a ghost, but all I focus on is Zade.
I move to him,my paws dig into his wrist, and his blood pools on my white fur.
"YOU'LL LEAVE ME ALONE!" I roar, and the wind intensifies.
"She shifted!" Naville's voice is jubilant and loud, too loud inside my head.
My claws dig deeper into Zade's wrist.
His scream merges with mine as another gruesome pain shoots through me.
Someone catches me before my body hits the floor.
"Zephyra." Van. His voice is clear and loud in my head.
"I'm fine," I whisper, and he helps me up.
"She's my wife and needs no proving," Van says firmly.
The council picks up his squealing cat. The old woman helps Zade up.
I try to stand straight but can't.
"You shifted, rest a bit." Me? Caaaat. I call for her, but she seems far away.
The Elder's cracked voice pulls me back.
"I don't care. We won't allow a wort....."
"Careful what you say next, Council. I hold no respect for you," Van growls, and the Elder stares at me.
"You belong to me, High priestess"a man's voice grumbles in me.
"Because you're afraid of joining your pack to Solam's pack," the Elder corrects, then his gaze finds me again as he speaks.
"The council and the state of Denver won't allow you to marry an unverified wolf as your Luna. The sanction begins in five days."
Van, radiating unusual heat, starts toward the council, but his father stops him.
"He's right." His eyes meet mine, the softness I didn't see earlier now present. Deepened, almost like an apology.
"Let her prove herself." He finalizes.
And people gasp.
VAN'S POV
Cold spreads through my chest, frozen like ice inside my veins. My wolf screams for violence, for protection, for blood... anything to keep our mate safe.
Then a small whimper cuts through the rage in my mind.
Zephyra.
I look down and realize my fingers are digging into her waist, hard enough to bruise. She's not pulling away, but her face is tight with pain.
"I'm sorry." I release her immediately, but she catches my hand before I can retreat fully, intertwining our fingers.
She stares at me with longing, a plea.
"Zephyra... "
Through our bond, I feel her fear, her determination, her desperate hope that maybe, just maybe, this nightmare has an escape route.
But I know better.
I don't understand what my father's game is, allowing this. There's no way my wife will enter a trial designed to kill her. We just got married. Minutes ago!
"Father" Naville's scream turns the Elder's gaze from me to her.
"You can't be serious about this. Zeph has never even shifted."
"She did now, before our eyes" My dad counters calmly. Nauseatingly calmly with a glee he had during Zephyra's wolf-birth. Damn it!
I forgot his greed.
"Half shifted, for few seconds" Morrigan says, and I swear I'll lose it if he doesn't stop.
He looks at Zephyra, his eyes deep and breathing pacing very fast.
He wants our mate! My wolf squeal.
I glare at him,he looks away with a gulp
"We can agree she's not a wolf, much less a Lun—"
I flick my finger, and fire circles where he stands.
"One more derogatory statement about my wife, Morrigan, and you'll leave here in ashes!" I might as well kill him before he does what my wolf thinks.
The temperature around us spikes twenty degrees. Sweat beads his forehead instantly.
Good. He tries putting off the light but can't.
It'll complete its sixty seconds burn.
"I'll go."
Every head whips toward her. I move beside her as she steps forward, facing Morrigan directly. Her wolf surges—I feel it through our bond like a second heartbeat, loud and insistent.
Her eyes flash gold for just a second before settling back to brown.
"I'll go to the Proving," she says clearly, her voice carries across the destroyed garden.
"If that's what it costs to never be a slave or go back to him."
Her finger points at Zade, who actually starts moving toward her until my father's voice stops him cold.
"You won't go anywhere near my daughter-in-law." The Alpha command in his words forces Zade back three steps. He looks to the council for support and finds none.
My father's gaze moves to Morrigan who is draped in sweat.
"The Arnauld household accepts Zephyra Homelin Arnauld's request to enter the Proving."
"Father" Naville and I scream together.
"It starts in five days," Morrigan says dryly.
"The Proving key will be sent to your household before dawn on the fifth day."
"She's my wife and I don't...." Zephyra's hand tightens on my wrist, stopping me mid-sentence.
Her heartrate is galloping. She's terrified.
"Zephyra, you don't have to do this."
"I want to." She turns to face me, and those brown eyes hold mine with an intensity that steals my breath.
"I want to belong to you without doubt."
"You're mine!" The words tear out of me with Alpha power I can't control. Everyone within twenty feet stumbles back.
Everyone except her.
"He'll still find a way to claim me," her eyes hooded with tears.
"I'll rather die in the Proving than go back to...."
I can't bear it. I pull her into my arms, crushing her against my chest. My heart is breaking. My wolf is howling in me, furious that we can't protect her after sixteen years of searching.
We're losing her again.
"You won't die." My father's voice cuts through. I loosen my hold enough for Zephyra to breathe.
I watch my father's face,... usually so controlled, show something that might be pain as he approaches my wife.
"Your father was Alpha Dean Homelin," he says, each word careful and deliberate.
"Your grandfather was an Alpha King in his earlier years. And your mother was a Priest Saint: third-highest rank in the priestess order."
Zephyra's jaw drops. Her wolf howls, not in fear, but in recognition. The sound reverberates through our bond, and I steady her as she begins to shake.
"She's just my slave!" Zade screams from behind and the soldiers restrain him.
"She's a rogue until proven otherwise" the elder adds with a shrill voice.
The words ignite something in me.
"Quiet!" My father's command silences everyone. His eyes flash green..... his Alpha power fully manifested. Morrigan , the old woman who looks awfully familiar and Zade, all step back instinctively.
"Father..." I start, but his raised hand cuts me off.
"Trust your wife, son," he says, but I am too angry to process the words.
Everything should burn.
"Brother!" Naville's voice sounds distant.
"Alpha!" Ronah's too.
I barely hear them. My body feels like it's burning from the inside out. I am angry at the council. At Zade. At my father for accepting this. At myself for not preventing it.
At the universe for taking her from me again.
I feel a power against me... It feels like my father's own but I am too livid to find out.
"Van, please."
Zephyra's voice cuts through the roar in my head, at the feel of her body pressed against mine.
"You're burning everything up," she whispers
Our mate is crying That single word from my wolf is enough.
I look around, finally seeing what I have done.
Fire erupted from my palms before I could stop it. The remaining flower arrangements burnt immediately. The carefully arranged white roses Naville spent hours on now ashes.
The garden is half destroyed and my father's aqua power is what has been containing it, stopping it from spreading into the house.
"Leave Everyone!" Ronah's command is absolute. Zade and the woman shifts back.
The council starts to protest
"LEAVE!" Naville's voice cracks like a whip. Her witch power manifests—purple energy crackling at her fingertips. She rarely uses it except in war.
The council members and his entourage look shocked and this time no one argues.
They flee. Zade half-crawls, the old woman supporting him. Morrigan practically runs.
When they're gone, only my family remains. The Arnauld household. And Zephyra, now Arnauld by marriage, Homelin by blood.
"Don't listen to them, sister." Ronah's pace quickens as he approaches her.
"You're the Homelin household's only daughter. Their only surviving heir"
