Rejected By The Alpha, Desired By The King

AYLA – POV

The moon had barely set by the time the ash from the destroyed Seer creature had faded into the lake.

We didn't speak of it.

Kael stood at the edge like a silent sentry. Rylan paced behind us, muttering calculations. I just watched the stars blink out one by one as dawn crept forward, slow as guilt.

It had spoken through me.

Not the creature. Her.

The First Luna.

I still felt her voice curling in my chest like smoke behind ribs. Not whispering, not screaming. Just... waiting.

"We have to go to the Bone Grounds," I said finally.

Kael turned. "That's Seer territory."

I nodded. "And the only place the Council fears to step."

Rylan stopped pacing. "You think it's real? The original Luna tomb?"

I looked down at my hands.

The runes were gone.

But I could still feel them beneath the skin.

"I don't think," I said. "I know."

We left before the light broke fully, traveling through narrow paths carved into the northern cliffside. The Bone Grounds were not marked on maps. They weren't spoken of in any official tongue.

Only rogues and witches whispered about them.

And they only did so once.

The trail led us into a canyon choked by ash trees and carved stone totems. Some marked with symbols I couldn't read—and I could read everything.

Kael kept close. Rylan scouted ahead.

It was silent.

Not the kind of silence the forest holds in fear.

But the kind it offers in reverence.

The closer we got, the heavier the air became.

I felt her.

Not watching.

But remembering.

As if these stones had held my name before I had been born.

We found the entrance just past nightfall.

A sheer wall of stone with a crack too narrow to be natural. It pulsed faintly with a light no one else seemed to see.

I reached out.

My fingers brushed the stone.

And the world split.

I fell to my knees, not from weakness—but because my knees had once knelt here before.

Images flooded me.

Not visions. Memories.

Stone halls. Candles without flame. Bone laid into walls like mosaic. A tomb built not for death, but for waiting.

She had not been buried.

She had been bound.

"Ayla," Kael said, catching my shoulders. "Your nose is bleeding."

I blinked.

Pulled back.

The crack in the stone had widened.

And the scent that poured from it wasn't decay.

It was home.

"We go in together," I said.

Kael nodded.

But I could feel it already:

Only I would make it all the way in.

The stone crevice opened like breath drawn after centuries.

Not a crack anymore. A threshold.

We stepped into the dark.

Kael moved beside me, a blade drawn but lowered. Rylan stayed just behind, scanning everything. But it wasn't necessary. The danger here wasn't the kind that could be fought with steel.

This place wasn't built to kill intruders. It was built to remember one woman forever.

The tunnel narrowed. Bones lined the walls. Not scattered. Arranged.

Skulls shaped like wolves and humans—some in transition. Ribs woven into the structure like lattice. Every step deeper into the tomb felt like walking through the spine of something that had never died.

The temperature dropped. The air thickened.

Kael reached for my hand.

I let him hold it.

It wasn't a weakness. It was an anchor.

We came to the first chamber.

A hall carved into a perfect circle, runes inscribed across every inch of the walls. Some glowed faintly.

There was no dust. No cobwebs. No time.

Rylan murmured something.

I stepped into the center.

The moment my foot crossed the inner ring, the runes flared.

A scream echoed.

Not from the stone. From inside me.

My knees buckled. Kael moved to catch me, but something stopped him—a pulse of energy that repelled even him.

I was on my own.

I stood.

Barely.

And then the bones moved.

The walls didn't collapse—they shifted. Pulled apart into arcs, staircases, altars.

A path rose at the far end of the hall.

Lit by nothing. But I saw it.

"I know this place," I whispered.

"How?" Kael asked, breathless.

I looked back at him.

"Because she built it for me."

The next chamber was smaller. Circular. In the center stood a stone coffin, its lid cracked but sealed by golden thread.

The Bone Rite.

I had read of it in forbidden texts: a ritual that sealed the soul of a dying Luna inside a vessel of silence, to be awoken only when the bloodline failed.

Only one had ever undergone it.

The First.

I stepped to the coffin.

My fingers tingled.

My vision blurred.

And I saw her.

Not in pieces. Not in whispers.

But whole.

A woman with silver hair braided with thorns. Eyes like moons. A voice like rain on metal.

"Child. You have come at last."

The coffin opened without a sound.

Inside was no body.

Just a crown.

Made of bone, ash, and silver.

It floated above the stone.

Waiting.

Kael stepped behind me.

"You don't have to take it," he said softly.

I turned to him.

"But I already did."

My hand lifted.

The crown didn't fall.

It flew to me.

Landed softly on my head.

And the tomb lit with light.

Not from flame. Not from magic.

From recognition.

I was not a vessel anymore.

I was the storm that had outlived the silence.

The moment the crown touched my skin, the tomb exhaled.

Not air. Not dust.

Memory.

It poured into me like floodwater—hundreds of lives, battles, births, betrayals. Her rage. Her grief. Her power. And her silence.

She had waited for this. For me.

And now I carried it all.

Kael reached for me, but a pulse of magic halted him. Not in rejection. In awe.

"Ayla," he whispered.

I turned.

And I wasn't just Ayla anymore.

I was every Luna who came before.

The crown had no weight. Because it wasn't made to sit on a head. It was made to awaken blood.

I took a breath.

The tomb walls responded. Bones shifted. Runes bled gold. The air snapped tight.

A fissure tore open in the far wall—a doorway to the final chamber.

Kael followed. Rylan behind him.

The chamber was circular, lined with mirrors of bone and obsidian. Each one flickered with a face.

Mine. Hers. Ours.

At the center, a dais. And on it, a pool.

Blood.

The true Rite.

To claim the past fully, I had to drink.

"Don't," Kael said. "You don't know what it will do."

I looked at him.

"It's not what it will do to me."

I stepped forward.

"It's what it will do to them."

I knelt.

Dipped my hand, and drank.

I stood in a field of fire. Above me, stars blinked in unfamiliar patterns. Around me, wolves circled. Silent. Huge. Made of shadow and light.

In front of me: a throne of bone. On it, the First Luna.

She rose.

Came to me.

Laid her hand over my heart.

"Now you know the cost. Would you still rise?"

I didn't hesitate.

"Yes."

"Then rise, Luna. Rise and burn."

She vanished.

And I woke up.

The tomb was shaking.

Kael was shouting.

Rylan dragged a ward stone across the floor.

I stood. Power surged in every vein.

The mirrors exploded.

And the Seers came.

Not in bodies. In spirits.

Three of them. Eyes made of blue flame. Voices like bells.

"Return what was stolen."

I lifted my hand.

"I was never yours to take."

They struck.

Magic roared.

But the crown lit.

And my wolves came.

The shadows. The light. The memory of every Luna before me.

They fell upon the Seers.

And devoured them.

When it ended, only silence remained.

I walked from the tomb, Kael and Rylan behind me.

Not as an exile. Not as a forgotten healer.

But as the truth made flesh.

The First Luna reborn.

And the war?

It hadn't started.

It had already ended.

And I was the one who would rewrite what came next.