The fortress had too many doors.

Clara moved quietly through the halls as dawn filtered in through narrow slits in the stone. The torches had burned low. No guards were posted this deep. Which meant she wasn't supposed to be here.

The dreams hadn’t stopped. The girl’s voice still echoed in her head.

“Help me…”

Clara had woken shaking again, her fingers clutching her chest where the mate bond hummed like a buried ember. She tried to ignore it. She tried to tell herself she didn’t care.

But she did.

And if Caelum wouldn’t give her the full truth, she would find it herself.

---

Past the eastern corridor, the stone turned older. The walls bore cracks laced with black moss, and the air was heavier, colder. She reached a thick iron door at the bottom of a spiral stairwell. Her hand hovered near the lock.

Then she heard it, Humming, Soft, Off-key. Familiar.

A lullaby.

Clara’s blood turned cold. She didn’t remember the melody but her body did. Her fingers trembled as she reached out and placed her palm against the center of the door.

The metal shimmered. The sigils etched across it flared with blue light. Then the lock clicked. The door creaked open.

---

The hallway inside was narrow and dim. The stone whispered memories she didn’t have—of crying, of warmth, of being carried through this place in arms that smelled like rosemary and rain.

She followed the sound until she reached a chamber at the very end.

The moment her foot crossed the threshold, the humming stopped.

Two figures sat inside, one lying on a cot, pale and still; the other curled on the floor near the far wall, arms around her knees.

Clara took a step closer, heart racing.

The woman on the bed stirred. Her eyes fluttered open. Warm brown, rimmed with red.

Her voice was rasped, broken.

“Clara?”

Clara’s breath caught.

“I—” she staggered forward, hands trembling. “I don’t… How do you know my name?”

The woman sat up slowly. Her face was older, lined with grief and time, but Clara knew her—not from memory, but from bone.

“Elena,” the woman whispered. “I’m your mother.”

---

Clara sank to her knees.

It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t make sense. But as Elena’s hand touched her face—light as air, trembling with emotion—Clara knew it was real.

“You were just a baby,” Elena whispered. “I sent you down the river to save you. I thought you were gone forever.”

Clara shook her head. “Why, why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Because no one wanted you to survive,” said a colder voice from the corner.

Clara turned.

The girl in the shadows rose slowly, dark hair tousled, eyes sharp and burning.

She looked exactly like Clara.

Except… harder. Like life had taught her to expect pain.

“You’re her,” Clara whispered. “The girl in my dreams.”

“I’m Lila,” the twin said flatly. “Your sister.”

Silence throbbed between them.

Lila stepped closer, gaze scanning her from head to toe. “You smell like him.”

“Who?”

“Caelum.” Her lip curled. “Did he make you believe he’s your protector?”

Clara’s stomach twisted, “I didn’t know about you,” she said softly.

“Of course you didn’t. You were safe. We were left behind.” Lila glanced toward their mother. “We were the bait.”

“Elena,” Clara whispered, needing confirmation.

Her mother nodded. “He took us. Not to kill us, he needed us alive.”

“Because of the curse?” Clara asked, eyes wide.

Elena stiffened. “He didn’t tell you?”

Clara’s voice was hoarse. “He said I was hunted. That he saved me.”

Elena’s expression crumpled. “No, child. He’s the reason we’re still here. The reason you were hidden.”

Clara backed away slowly, her mind spinning.

The mate bond. The sparring. The kiss.

He’d known. All along. And he’d let her feel it anyway.

“I have to go,” Clara said, turning toward the door.

Lila didn’t stop her. But her voice followed like a knife.

“Don’t come back unless you’re on our side.”

---

Clara ran through the corridor, vision blurred, heart pounding like it was trying to escape her chest. Everything burned.

The mate bond pulsed inside her like a wound. She wanted to scream. She wanted to collapse. She wanted to find Caelum and—

He was waiting for her near the main stairs, hands behind his back, watching her like he’d expected her all along.

“You weren’t supposed to find them,” he said softly.

Clara stopped cold. Her voice trembled with rage, “You knew.”

“I did.”

“You lied to me.”

“I withheld what you weren’t ready to handle.”

“That’s not your decision to make!”

“I had to keep you from leaving,” he said. “If you found them too soon, the bond would break before it rooted. I need you to stay.”

Clara stared at him in disbelief. “Do you need me?”

The way he didn’t answer said everything.

“Is that what I am to you?” she whispered. “A key? A piece in your ritual?”

His jaw clenched, “You are the only thing keeping us all alive.”

---

In another part of the fortress, Elder Selene stood in a private chamber lit by cold silver flame. A table stood before her, its surface glimmering with moonlight. Upon it: a crystal basin filled with blood.

She dipped a silver needle into the vial and pressed it against a slip of parchment engraved with ancient symbols.

Slowly, red runes began to appear.

She smiled thinly, “It’s begun,” she murmured. “The child will carry the power of both lines.”

She turned to Viktor, who stood behind her with arms crossed.

“Prepare the ritual site. Quietly. Caelum won’t interfere if we don’t give him time to waver.”

Viktor hesitated. “And the girl?”

Selene’s eyes narrowed. “She’ll die with honor. A sacrifice the gods will not forget.”

Chapter Six – Bonded and Betrayed

Clara stared at Caelum across the war room table, the flickering torches casting harsh shadows on the ancient maps between them. Her heart felt too loud in her chest, like it was trying to warn her of something she already knew.

He stood tall, calm, hands folded behind his back as if delivering a strategy to soldiers—not a confession to the girl he’d kissed only a night ago.

“There’s a curse,” he said finally. “One that was placed on me and my pack by your father.”

Clara said nothing.

“Marcus used a witch. Ancient blood magic. It bound my strength to his will. When I defied him, it cursed every male of my line to suffer and fade unless the blood of his heir...” He paused, looking at her. “...released it.”

“And you knew I was his heir all along?” she asked quietly.

He nodded. “I didn’t know you were alive. Not at first. But once I found the sigil on your stone...” He exhaled. “I knew.”

“And you needed me to survive. To grow strong. To bond.”

“Yes,” he said. “The prophecy only works when the bloodline fully matures. And when the bond is sealed.”

Clara forced herself to look at him, even as her fingers dug into the edge of the table. “So what was I to you? A prophecy? A vessel?”

He didn’t answer.

So she smiled a bitter, perfect smile.

“I see.”

“No,” Caelum said, stepping forward. “It wasn’t just that. It isn’t just that. The bond, what we feel—” His voice softened. “That wasn’t in the plan.”

“And yet it’s convenient, isn’t it?” she whispered. “That the thing binding me to you also happens to complete your ritual.”

His hands curled into fists.

Clara looked down at the map on the table. Her eyes landed on the blood moon sigil drawn at its center. She recognized it from the tapestry. From her dreams.

And now she knew what it meant, Sacrifice.

She kept her face carefully blank.

“Then I’ll help you,” she said softly. “Whatever you need.”

Caelum looked up sharply. “You’ll stay?”

She nodded. “Of course.” but She knows it's a lie.

---

Later that afternoon, she stepped out into the training courtyard. Soldiers passed by without meeting her eyes. Some bowed. Others avoided her altogether.

It was easier that way. She wasn’t here to make friends. She was here to break the walls from within.

Viktor found her near the archery range, sharpening a blade she didn’t need.

“Clara,” he said with a curt nod.

She glanced at him. “You’re Caelum’s second?”

“Was,” he replied. “Now I’m what he lets me be.”

Clara paused. “He listens to you?”

“Sometimes.” He crossed his arms, watching her. “You’ve softened him.”

“I doubt that.”

Viktor tilted his head. “You should know something. The curse—it doesn’t just break the body. It breaks the mind.”

Clara frowned.

“He hides it well,” Viktor continued, “but it’s eating him. Slowly. He doesn’t sleep. He barely eats. And when the bond activates…” He met her eyes. “It makes things worse.”

“You’re saying he’s losing control?”

“I’m saying,” Viktor said carefully, “the man you kissed may not be the man you’re left with.”

She looked away.

---

That night, Clara wandered.

No one stopped her now. Maybe they assumed the bond meant loyalty. Maybe they knew it was already too late.

She found the western tower by instinct. Its door was locked—but the rune on her wrist glowed faintly when she touched the handle.

It clicked open.

Caelum’s chamber was unlike the rest of the fortress. Warm. Filled with the scent of pine and steel. A bed draped in black fur. A desk cluttered with scrolls and—

Maps.

She stepped closer.

There, pinned across the wall, were dozens of maps. Territories. Villages. Her village.

Lines drawn. Dots marked.

Next to it—sketches. Dozens of them. Her as a wolf. Her eyes. Her hands. Her shift.

Drawings of her from years ago.

He’d been watching her.

Tracking her.

Studying her.

On the far side of the desk lay one map drawn in crimson ink—a ceremonial circle under a blood moon, with her name scrawled at the center.

She didn’t cry.

She didn’t scream.

She just stared, numb, and swore she would burn this place to the ground.

---

She returned to her chamber and sat by the fire until her stomach twisted with a sudden, sharp pain.

Clara stood, hand against the wall, trying to breathe through the nausea.

Then—she vomited.

Hard. Violent. Painful.

Her breath shook as she wiped her mouth with trembling fingers.

Something was wrong.

Or… right, in the worst way.

A soft knock sounded at the door.

She opened it to find a woman in healer’s robes.

“Caelum asked me to check on you,” the woman said gently. “He said you looked pale.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” The woman entered without waiting. “Sit.”

Clara obeyed.

A few drops of blood from her fingertip, a crystal dish, a whisper of old magic.

Then silence.

The healer looked up, her face pale.

> “You’re with child,” she whispered. “You’re carrying the Moonborn heir.”

Clara’s heart stopped.

---

Across the fortress, Elder Selene listened.

She stood just beyond the chamber wall, her eyes sharp as knives, her hands hidden in her robe.

She turned, disappearing into the hallways like smoke.

---

Back in the sanctum, Selene stood before the altar in her private chamber. She lit a single silver candle, its flame dancing like starlight.

“The child is growing,” she said to no one. “The bond has been sealed. The blood is awakened.”

She turned to Viktor, who stood by the door.

“If Caelum hesitates again, we take her. Before he lets his heart ruin what destiny has written.”

“And the baby?”

Selene’s smile was thin, cruel, “It will die on the altar. As it was always meant to.”