Chapter 3 Torn Between Two Alphas

Elene 

We walked into Kai's study and it smelled of cedar and old paper. Rows of leather-bound books lined every wall, and the stained-glass window threw red and gold light across the floor like something out of a painting. It should have felt peaceful. It didn't.

Kai stood at the window with his back to me, hands on his hips, shoulders locked tight enough that I could see the tension from across the room.

"How long have you felt like I ignored you?"

His voice was quiet. I hadn't expected it to be quiet.

I sat on the edge of the leather chair with my spine straight, crossed arms. Ready for whatever will happen. Because I wasn't going to pretend after what happened in the training yard. "It's not a feeling, Kai. It's a fact. My mother died for you when you were four. My father lost his legs for your family. And I've trained in the same yard as you for eighteen years, and you've said maybe ten words to me in all that time."

He turned around slowly. The fury that had been in his face out in the training yard was gone now. Replaced with heavier.

"I knew who you were, Elena." His voice cracked slightly on my name. "Every time I looked at you, I saw your mother's face and remembered who she sacrificed her life for me. I saw the debt my family owes yours, walking around in my own training yard every single morning. Do you have any idea what that's like? Looking at someone and knowing their whole family was destroyed so you could keep breathing?"

I blinked. That wasn't the answer I'd built in my head for eighteen years. I'd told myself he was arrogant. Cold. That I wasn't worth his attention. I never once considered that looking at me actually hurt him.

"Avoiding me didn't pay that debt down, Kai," I said, quieter now. "It just made me invisible." I spoke the truth.

He crossed the room. Stopped in front of my chair, leaned down, so close that I could smell his scent, rain and pine.

"You're not invisible." His eyes searched mine like he was trying to memorize something. "Not anymore. Lucian thinks he can walk into my home and take what's mine. I won't let him. Not as your Alpha. Not as…” He stopped himself before he called me his guardian.

"And what if I don't want to be your Guardian either?" I held his gaze, refusing to look away first. "What if I want a life that isn't just my parents' ghosts wearing my face?"

Someone knocked before he could answer.

Elder Silas entered the room without waiting for a reply. He was seventy-eight, with a gray beard that reached his chest, wrinkled eyes, and a pale, weathered face. 

"Excuse me Young Alpha prince but…." He nodded to Kai, then turned to me. "Elena. I need to speak with you about your bloodline."

Kai straightened, stepped back. "What about her lineage? We already know her parents were Guardians."

"We do." Silas closed the door carefully behind him. "We know they carried the Guardian bloodline, a rare gift, passed down through certain bloodlines. But what happened in the courtyard today wasn't that."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"When Lucian made his claim, your wolf reacted." Silas lowered himself into the chair across from me, slow, careful of his own joints. "Did you feel something stir in your chest, child? Do you feel something waking up?"

My stomach dropped. "Yes. Like something inside me I didn't know was there."

He leaned forward, voice dropping low. "A Guardian is usually made, by talking the sacred oath, and years of training, a gift earned from the Moon Goddess. But once every few centuries, a child is born already carrying that spirit inside them. Born, not made."

"That's a myth." Kai's arms crossed over his chest, jaw tight. "Guardians are trained. Everyone knows that."

"It is not a myth." Silas's eyes were fixed on me. "A born Guardian doesn't just protect an Alpha. Their blood can double his strength. Heal wounds that shouldn't heal. Fortify a territory's borders against things that shouldn't be able to get through them. That's what Lucian smelled on you from three territories away, Elena. He didn't come here for a wife. He came for what's in your blood."

My stomach dropped. I looked down at my wrapped hands, the same hands that fight Tracy this morning like she was the biggest problem I had. I'd spent my whole life believing I was working to earn my place. If elder Silas was right, I'd never need to earn anything. I'd just been a target the whole time, waiting to be found.

"If Lucian can feel it from three territories away," Kai said, voice dropping into something darker, "other packs will find out soon too. She won't be safe anywhere."

"No," Silas agreed. "Which is why the council meeting in two days matters more than either of you understand. And Elena, Lucian isn't the only danger circling. There are darker things in the eastern territories that have been hunting for a born Guardian's blood for a very long time." Elder Silas warned.

After our heated conversation with Kai and Silas revelations I returned home. It was already sunset and I knew everyone in Silver Moon knew what happened.

I didn’t need to look for Lyra, Wyatt, or Tessa to know they’d heard. There was probably no corner of the pack that hadn’t.

But I couldn’t bring myself to face anyone.

Not yet.

It was night before I knew. I couldn't sleep. My brain was doing a lot of calculations. So I went out to the gardens behind the packhouse, hoping to clear my head.

It didn't. But something else found me instead.

"You walk quietly for someone carrying that much weight."

I turned toward the voice, hand already on the dagger at my hip.

Lucian stepped out from under the stone archway, moonlight catching him first, he wasn’t wearing a coat now, just a dark shirt with the sleeves shoved up, forearms scarred in ways that told their own stories.

"You shouldn't be out here," I said, not moving closer. "This is pack territory. Private. You suppose to be in the guesthouse"

"Needed air." He came a few steps nearer, unhurried. "And I wanted to see if the girl from the courtyard was still that fierce once no one was watching."

"I'm not afraid of you."

"Good." He stopped a few feet off. "I don't want a Luna who flinches. I want someone who can actually stand next to me."

"You don't know me." My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. "You want my blood. Some old legend, that's all this is."

Something shifted in his face, almost like my words hurt him. He crossed the distance between us before I could think to draw the blade, his thumb brushing my jaw. It felt like touching a live wire. I gasped before I could stop myself.

"You think this is about a legend?" His voice dropped low, rough at the edges. "I knew you were mine the second I walked into this pack years ago. Before I ever learned who your parents were or what your bloodline is." His eyes held mine steady. “I feel something was here years ago,” Lucian continued. “A presence. A pull I could never explain.”

His gaze dropped briefly to my chest. “I didn’t know it was you.” His eyes met mine again. “Until recently.” He confessed. "Don't let Kai convince you that you belong in his shadow, Elena. Stand next to me, and you'll never be invisible again."