Luna Queen
Aurora POV?
Valerius stopped pacing, turning fully toward us.
From my vantage point behind Kieran, I watched the mocking amusement fade from his face.
It was replaced by a sharp, predatory grin.
I could practically see the gears turning in his mind, piecing the puzzle together in real-time, deliberately laying his deductions bare just to see if I would crack.
“They fought with the ferocity expected of the Argentis blood, fighting against half a dozen scaled brutes before they were finally pinned,” Valerius recalled, a genuine note of respect bleeding into his aristocratic drawl.
My breath hitched. A cold, suffocating phantom smoke filled my lungs, smelling of ozone and burning flesh.
Varek. He was talking about Varek. My personal guard.
My best friend. I dug my fingernails into the tense muscles of Kieran’s back, trying to anchor myself against the dizzying, nauseating wave of grief that threatened to pull me under.
“Even from a distance, we watched the Draconian flames consume them,” Valerius continued softly. “I saw the life bleed out of those remarkable eyes as they were reduced to ash upon the royal crest.”
He smiled then, it was a cold, terrifying expression that flashed a hint of elongated fangs. He wasn’t angry about being tricked; he was profoundly impressed, treating the greatest tragedy of my life like a masterfully played game of chess.
“Yet here you are, breathing the same air as myself, radiating the undeniable power of the Argentis Royal Family,” he said smoothly. “Which means those mindless Draconian brutes slaughtered a decoy. A changeling I assume?”
Valerius shook his head, his voice dripping with provocative awe.
“I must confess a deep admiration for the person who died in your place, Princess. To perfectly mimic the royal traits is a staggering feat of magical manipulation. But to hold that physical shift so flawlessly that the magic didn’t unravel even as they were burned alive by Draconian fire?
To take that agonizing death and never once revert to their true form, ensuring the world believed the Argentis line was extinct?”
He attempted to lean forward, craning his neck to peer around Kieran’s solid frame. He was searching for my reaction, desperate to catch a tear, a flinch, or a burst of reckless, grief-stricken anger.
Kieran immediately snapped a vicious, earth-shaking growl, shoving a hand toward the vampire’s chest and forcing him to halt.
The bond between us flared with Kieran’s ferocious instinct to protect me, his anger rising as he felt my pain.
But even with my mate standing as a shield between us, Valerius pressed his verbal assault.
He was fishing for intelligence, probing my trauma.
“That requires an incredibly rare talent. A mastery of self that borders on the divine,” Valerius murmured, his voice a silken purr of weaponized curiosity.
“Who were they, little star? A fiercely loyal cousin? A hidden bastard of the King? I simply must know what other ancient, powerful bloodlines survived that glorious purge. Tell me, who burned so you could live?”
Who were they, little star? The vampire’s silken, mocking words echoed in my ears, pulling me back to a time before my world had turned upside down.
Varek. I thought of his lopsided smile and the bright, mischievous spark in his eyes.
While the rest of us wolves were bound solely to our canine or human forms, Varek had been born with a unique, ancient changeling ability.
But he had never used his rare magic for anything sinister; he had used it to make me laugh.
I remembered the countless times we had used his gifts to prank my family, giggling behind tapestries as he shifted his features to look exactly like me, perfectly mimicking my voice to confuse my brothers and send the palace guards running in the wrong direction.
I never could have imagined that the very magic we had used for innocent childhood games would one day be the very thing that would save my life.
A phantom scent of heavy ash and Draconian smoke caught in my throat, choking me with a memory I had spent eight years trying to bury.
I hadn’t been in the grand hall when the flames took him.
I remembered Varek’s soot-stained hands grabbing me, physically dragging me away from the slaughter and shoving me into the suffocating darkness of a hidden corner in the royal library.
His face was etched with a terrifying, absolute resolve as he gripped my shoulders.
‘You have to escape, Rory,’ he had pleaded desperately, his voice breaking as his ancient magic took hold.
Right before my eyes, his features began to blur, his bones shifting and reshaping until my own mismatched eyes stared back at me.
‘Survive. You have to live beyond this war. Live for those of us who cannot. You are the last heir of the Argentis.’
Before I could stop him, before I could even scream his name, he shoved me backward into the yawning mouth of a hidden escape tunnel concealed behind the ancient bookshelves.
He slammed the heavy stone door shut, plunging me into absolute darkness.
Trapped on the other side, all I could do was listen as he sprinted away to get the Draconians attention and draw them away from my escape route.
That was the last time I ever saw him.
Through the mating bond, Kieran felt the tidal wave of my memories.
He felt the suffocating, pitch-black weight of that hidden tunnel pressing down on my chest.
Expecting me to finally crumble beneath the trauma, Kieran let out a feral, earth-shattering snarl.
I felt his muscles coil like a loaded spring beneath my fingertips.
He reached back, his massive hand wrapping protectively around my waist to pull me completely behind him, ready to unleash his wolf and tear Valerius limb from limb to stop the interrogation.
But I wasn’t going to break.
The frightened, grieving princess had died a long time ago, buried beneath eight years of ash. I wasn’t just a survivor anymore. I was the Luna Queen of Valdora, and a Queen does not hide behind her King.
I placed a gentle, steadying hand over Kieran’s white-knuckled grip.
He froze, his head snapping down to look at me.
His eyes were completely submerged in the violent, feral protectiveness of his wolf.
I met that furious gaze, pushing a wave of absolute calm through our bond, and offered him a single, resolute nod.
Reluctantly, but with absolute trust, his grip loosened. Letting go of his arm, I stepped out from behind the impenetrable wall of my mate’s back.
I didn’t just let my power flare; I unleashed it. The freezing weight of my magic crashed over the altar, intertwining seamlessly with Kieran’s own dominance. It was a heavy, suffocating mantle of absolute authority that made the leaves of the ancient oaks tremble.
I refused to cower. I did not shrink from that bastard’s predatory gaze. I stood tall, radiating the ancient, untamed magic of the Argentis line, now fused perfectly with the unbreakable strength of my pack. I looked at the arrogant vampire lord not as a rogue he could manipulate, but as a Queen.
Valerius’s breath hitched, his eyes widening fractionally. The mocking amusement melted into a delighted, wicked smile as he absorbed the sheer, suffocating force of my presence. He opened his mouth, undoubtedly to press his cruel, calculating game even further.
“Enough.”
Kieran’s voice cracked like a physical blow, a rumbling thunder that demanded immediate, absolute silence.
He stepped up flush against my side, his arm brushing mine.
He didn’t pull me behind him this time; he stood with me, our combined auras locking together to present a completely united, unbreakable front. Two monarchs, ready for war.
“You speak fondly of the night King Azrael and the Draconians purged my mate’s kingdom,” Kieran stated, his tone lethally calm and dripping with political ice.
“But you seem to be forgetting the current state of your own empire, Valerius. Azrael is dead. He was executed by your current monarch for his arrogance. The peace treaties that secure these borders, the very treaties you are currently toeing the line of breaking,
were negotiated and signed with Queen Lilith Vane.”
Valerius’s smirk faltered slightly.
“Lilith took the throne after the war to bring order to the chaos Azrael created,” Kieran continued, expertly weaponizing the politics he had spent years mastering.
“If you strike at my Queen, or if you push her one inch further with this interrogation, you aren’t just breaking Valdoran law. You are committing an unsanctioned act of aggression that directly violates Queen Lilith’s treaties.
Are you truly prepared to explain to her why you reignited a continental war?”
The clearing fell deadly silent. The tension was a living thing, waiting to snap.
Valerius stared at us, his crimson eyes darting between me and Kieran. He was arrogant, but he wasn’t suicidal, and he certainly wasn’t foolish enough to commit treason against his own reigning monarch.
Slowly, the damn leech let out a soft sigh, smoothing the velvet of his lapel.
“Always so painfully pragmatic, King Kieran,” Valerius murmured, the predatory edge leaving his voice as he elegantly conceded the point.
He offered me another bow, this one noticeably deeper and far more calculating than the last.
“Rest assured, Your Majesties. I have no intention of breaking Queen Lilith’s treaties, nor do I wish to ignite a war. I merely came to collect the trash that crossed your borders...”
He paused, his dark eyes lingering on my face.
“...and to see a miracle with my own eyes.”
Before I could answer, a sound descended directly from the heavens.
A deafening roar tore through the upper atmosphere. It was a sharp, metallic shriek that sounded like tearing metal combined with a reptilian hiss. The clouds fractured as the vibration rattled the very bones in my chest.
Beside me, Kieran relaxed his stance. The violent tension completely bled out of his muscles. He tilted his head back to look at the sky, a slow, knowing smirk touching the corner of his mouth. He recognized the sound as well.
Around the altar, the thousands of Valdoran guests held their ground, seamlessly shifting into tight defensive formations with their eyes fixed on the canopy above. Valerius broke form, his confident posture collapsing as his pale face drained of color.
Another shriek tore through the night, closer this time, accompanied by the heavy, rhythmic beat of massive, unseen wings. The wind pressure spiked violently, sweeping through the clearing and blowing out the ceremonial torches in a single, cold gust.
I knew that sound better than anyone.