Between Two Alphas: The Healer’s Revenge

Chapter 1

ELARA'S POV

The Silver Moon packhouse hummed with energy, the kind that only came when a new Luna was about to be crowned.

To anyone else, it was the smell of a new era. To me, standing before the full-length mirror in traditional Luna attire, it was finally a dream come true.

"The Alpha’s pet is making a scene again," a sharp voice whispered from behind the heavy oak door. "I heard it from the border patrol… Seraphina is standing on the cliffs of the Silver Falls. She’s threatening to shift and plunge down."

I froze, the lace of my white Luna gown suddenly feeling like a bandage.

I had spent five years in this pack. Five years as their head healer, stitching up shredded hides and pulling silver from warriors' hearts. Five years hoping that if I just gave enough of my light, he would eventually make me his Luna.

But this was the ninety-ninth time Seraphina had threatened to end her life.

Whenever Silas drew too close to me, whenever the pack began to acknowledge me as their future, she would find a new cliff to stand on or a new poison to swallow.

But today was the Ascension.

In our world, the Ascension wasn't just a wedding… It was like being bonded with a permanent stitch. If the ritual wasn't completed by the moment the moon reached its zenith, the Great Wolf would see the hesitation as a rejection. After the hundredth time, the bond would sour, and the chance to tether our souls would be lost forever.

"If she wants to plunge, let gravity take her! Why are you reporting this to me now, during the sacred hour?"

I snapped my head toward the balcony.

The doors were ajar, and Silas’s voice carried through the room. My wolf, Nala, who had been pacing restlessly behind my ribs, let out a low growl.

"When has that girl ever actually bled for this pack? She won't do such a thing." Silas’s growl was audible now.

He stepped inside, the moonlight catching the silver embroidery on his black ceremonial leathers. He looked like a god of war, smelling of wood and rain.

When his icy blue eyes met mine, for a heartbeat, a surge of genuine hope flared in my chest.

‘He’s staying,’ Nala whispered in the back of my mind. ‘He’s finally choosing the bond over her.‘

"Why are you staring, Elara?" he asked. "The elders are lighting the pyres, and the pack is waiting. Are you ready to ascend, or are you going to let the whispers of omegas get to you?"

I reached out, my fingers trembling as I touched the cold leather of his sleeve. "Silas... she’s at the falls. They say she’s serious this time. Please, once the mark is set, once the Great Wolf seals us... promise me she can’t come between us anymore. Promise me this is the last time her name enters our home."

He remained expressionless as he stared right at me. He didn't pull away, but he didn't lean in either.

"Mm. I know. Let’s go."

The doors to the Great Hall swung open, and the pack erupted.

Hundreds of wolves let out a collective howl of greeting… a sound that I'd heard countless times before the rejection.

As we walked down the long aisle, the heat from the ancestral fire began to prickle my skin. Silas walked with a commanding presence that silenced the room while I clutched his arm, my nails digging slightly into the leather.

I wanted to disappear into him. I wanted to believe that the five years of being the healer who gave her own vitality to keep his sickly childhood friend alive were finally being rewarded with a throne.

We reached the altar, meeting the Elders who stared at me with a hint of hesitation and pity.

This has always been the time Silas leaves to go get Seraphina.

"Members of the Silver Moon," the Elder boomed. "Witness the tethering… By the blood of the Alpha and the soul of the Luna, let the marking begin—"

He lowered the blade toward Silas’s palm.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

‘Finally,’ I thought.

Then, the world shattered.

A vibration cut through the sacred silence.

Silas’s phone.

It was supposed to be with his Beta. It was supposed to be turned off, but Silas had kept it in his inner pocket.

I watched his face. His nostrils flared as he listened over the phone, and his body went rigid as the muscles in his arm turned to iron under my touch.

"I’ll be there," he snapped into the phone, not even waiting for the person on the other end to finish.

He didn't look at me or even offer a word of apology; he simply shook my arm off and strode off the altar.

The hall fell into a deathly silence, followed by a roar of confused whispers.

"Silas, no!" I chased him, my heavy lace skirts dragging on the rough stone floor. I didn't care about dignity anymore. "The ritual is halfway done! The Elder has already drawn the circle! If you leave now, the moon will turn on us! This is the hundredth time."

He stopped at the great oak doors, his Alpha aura flaring so violently that the omegas in the front row collapsed, gasping for air. He turned his head halfway, his eyes no longer blue but a terrifying black void.

"Seraphina shifted, Elara. She hit the rocks. She’s dying," he said, his voice stripped of all warmth. "You are a healer… You know what a spinal break means for her kind. You soothe the pack; I’ll be back before the zenith."

"If you walk out that door, Silas, I am done!" I screamed, the words ripping from my lungs. "Nala will not accept this! A wolf cannot be mated to a man who leaves her at the altar for the hundredth time! If you go to her now, there is no coming back to me!"

He stepped toward me, his shadow looming over my white dress, and lowered himself to my ears.

"Then don’t regret it, Elara," he whispered, his voice low. "Duty comes before your temper. She is blood-debt. You are just... being dramatic."

He turned and ran, shifting halfway, his massive silver wolf tearing through the heavy doors and vanishing into the forest toward the sound of the falls.

I stood there, the pack watching me with a mixture of pity and mocking amusement.

And then, the pain hit.

It started as a dull ache in my heart but quickly escalated into white-hot agony. It felt like someone had reached into my abdomen and was slowly twisting my intestines around.

‘Traitor!’ Nala snarled in my head.

I doubled over, clutching my stomach. My wolf was physically trying to claw her way out of my skin to escape the shame of the rejection.

I forced myself to look out the high windows toward the cliffs.

Even from this distance, I could see them.

He was kneeling over a broken figure, licking the blood from her face, his tail tucked in, a sign of grief.

I thought he didn’t feel anything… I was wrong.

He could love.

Just… not me.

I reached up and tore the heavy lace veil from my hair, the pins scratching my scalp. I threw the silk into the green flames of the ancestral fire.

"The Ascension is over," I told the High Elder. "Tell the Alpha... he can keep his pack. I'm taking my wolf, and I’m leaving."

I turned and walked out the back entrance, my dress trailing in the dirt, staining the hem black.

As I stumbled toward the healer’s wing to gather my things, my phone buzzed in the hidden pocket of my skirt.

A text from Silas:

Why aren’t you answering me? Elara?

I tried reaching you through the link. Nothing.

I heard from my Beta that you canceled the ceremony and left the hall.

Don’t be dramatic, Elara. I told you I miscalculated her intent… She actually jumped this time. I’m at the medical bay with her. I’ll discuss the ceremony when I get home. Seraphina needs me right now.

I stared at the screen until the words blurred.

Don't be dramatic.

I dropped the phone on the bed as the pain in my abdomen grew, a sharp stabbing that made it impossible to stand up straight. I collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air.

My wolf was dying.

Nala was curling into a ball of pain, screaming and crying as we felt the pain of rejection.

I lay there on the floor, the moonlight shining through the window.

As the darkness rushed in to claim me, I made one final vow to the Great Wolf.

If I survived this night, I would never let another wolf touch my soul again. I would bury Nala, and I would become the one thing Silas Vane could never command.

I would become nothing to him.

The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the moon reaching its zenith.