Rejected By The Alpha, Desired By The King

KAEL – POV

Cassia's voice echoed like a stone dropped into still water.

"She's the Luna."

Every wolf in the grove turned, as if gravity itself had tilted toward the clone. Her followers didn't chant, didn't howl—they simply stood, eyes hollow, waiting.

And in the center of it all, Ayla stared back at her own face.

Not with fear.

With recognition.

"She's using your blood to craft allegiance," Rylan whispered beside me. "Using your past to twist their truth."

"No," I said quietly.

"She's using their longing."

Because for wolves who had suffered under silence and powerlessness, Ayla had become a beacon.

But a beacon burns.

And the clone had offered something different: A version of Ayla who didn't demand evolution. Only loyalty.

Cassia moved first. Not toward Ayla.

Toward me.

Her eyes were glassy, not like mind-control—worse.

Conviction.

"You were mine once," she said, voice steady. "But you were taken. Just like our Alpha. Just like our world."

I stepped forward. "You don't sound like you. You sound like someone who gave up just before it got hard."

Her mouth twitched. "No. I sound like someone who finally found a Luna who didn't ask for sacrifice."

Ayla didn't react.

She was studying the wolves behind the clone now.

Not just their faces.

Their marks.

Her bond etched into their skin—but backwards.

Corrupted.

Still active.

But decaying.

"I know what you're doing," Ayla called. "You're feeding off their wounds. Not healing them. Reopening them."

The clone only smiled.

"I'm offering them peace without transformation. That's all they ever wanted."

Ayla took one step forward.

"No," she said. "That's all you ever wanted."

And the bond between them flared. Not as mates. As mirrors.

Rylan stepped beside me. "This is a soul divide. It's not going to end in debate."

Daya: "Then we draw lines now. Before we lose the middle."

We called the Council into emergency session.

But it didn't feel like a court.

It felt like a prelude.

To rupture.

To war.

Ayla stood at the stone dais. She didn't raise her voice. Didn't invoke her title.

Only said:

"You've seen me rise. You've seen me bleed. And now you see a version of me that never dared to change. That stayed soft, stayed silent, stayed exactly what she was made to be."

She stepped down.

And stood among them.

"I can't stop you from choosing her. But if you follow her, know this—you are not following Luna. You are following an echo."

A wolf stood.

Not one of ours.

One of the border clans.

"I came here because I lost everything," she said. "And I found strength in you. But she… she looks like peace."

Another wolf: "She looks like a second chance."

Rylan opened his mouth to object, but Ayla raised her hand.

"Let them speak. They need to."

And they did.

One after another.

Until the chamber dimmed.

And I realized—

This wasn't just about power anymore.

It was about who wolves wanted to be.

Ayla turned to me.

And whispered:

"This is where the divide begins."

They began to leave at dusk.

Not in anger. Not in rebellion.

In silence.

Wolves stepping back from Ayla's fire. Choosing the cool shadow of a mirror that didn't ask them to be more—just to remember who they were before the pain.

Twenty-seven wolves left that night.

Half of them former rogues Ayla had sheltered.

She watched each one go without flinching.

Even when Daya whispered, "They were ours."

"No," Ayla said softly. "They were never mine. They were their own. I just gave them the space to choose."

The clone's camp appeared by morning.

Built fast. Too fast.

Like it had always been waiting.

Her wolves moved like whispers. They didn't smile. They didn't speak. They listened.

The clone stood at the center in robes dyed obsidian-black, the fake crown pulsing with stolen moonlight.

Kael scouted from the trees with Rylan. The symbols woven into the camp weren't old.

They were fabricated.

Echoes of Seer rituals twisted into loyalty runes.

This wasn't a court. It was a construct. A weapon.

The first challenge came that afternoon.

Two wolves from Ayla's side crossed into the clone's territory to speak with friends.

They didn't return.

We found their collars by nightfall.

Empty.

Burned.

Ayla called the council together. Not the full circle, only those who remained. Thirty-six wolves. We sat around the ash tree as the fire crackled.

And for the first time, Ayla's voice broke.

"I never wanted to rule," she said. "I just wanted to survive long enough to be free. But freedom—real freedom—demands more than escape. It demands change."

She looked at the empty seats where our allies had once sat.

"They're not wrong to want peace. But peace built on illusion is just another kind of chain."

Rylan leaned forward. "She's building a bond-forged army. You know what that means."

Ayla nodded.

"Every wolf she binds, weakens ours."

And then she turned to me.

"Kael… if I fall—"

"You won't," I growled.

She touched my chest.

"If I fall," she said again, "you hold the line. Not the bond. Not the crown. The truth."

I couldn't speak.

So I held her hand.

And made a vow with silence.

That night, under the blood moon's rise, Ayla sent a raven to the clone's camp.

No threats.

No demands.

Only one sentence:

"Let us speak—face to face, no wolves, no wards, no weapons."

The raven returned by dawn.

Its message burned into bark:

"Come. And see what you might have been."

Ayla left before sunrise.

No guards. No wolves. Not even Rylan.

Just me.

She wore her healer's cloak, the one from before her scent was stolen, before her name was whispered in ash. No blade. No crown. Only the runes on her skin—dimmed, but not asleep.

"I don't want to bring war," she said as we reached the ravine.

"But you're ready for it," I said.

She looked at me.

"I have to be."

The Meeting Hollow lay between the two camps. Once a sacred place for vow-rites, now cracked and silent. Stones that used to echo pack bonds were scorched black.

She was already there.

The other Ayla.

Cloaked in shadow-woven silk, obsidian crown glowing, eyes the same silver—but hollow. Like light trapped in ice.

She smiled.

"You came alone."

"I'm never alone," Ayla said quietly.

They stood ten paces apart.

A storm of memory and magic coiling between them. I stayed at the ridge. Out of sight. But not out of reach.

"Why do this?" Ayla asked. "Why pretend to be me?"

"I'm not pretending," the clone replied. "I am you. Just... perfected."

"No scars?" Ayla asked. "No betrayals? No fire?"

The clone stepped forward.

"No hesitation. No doubt. No breaking. I am what the wolves wanted."

Ayla shook her head. "No. You're what they were told to want."

"You rule with questions," the clone hissed. "I offer certainty."

"You offer sedation," Ayla snapped. "You're not a Luna. You're a spell."

The clone's aura flared—an imitation of the First Luna's power. But colder.

Synthetic.

"I don't need to defeat you," she said. "I just need to outlast you."

Ayla stepped closer. And for a breathless moment, their faces aligned.

Not twin.

Not reflection.

Opposition.

"Then you'll have to bury the truth," Ayla whispered.

"Because I'll never kneel to a shadow."

The clone leaned in.

"I don't want you to kneel."

She smiled.

"I want to watch you fracture."

And then—She pressed her hand to Ayla's chest.

A burst of dark light exploded through the hollow. And I felt the bond between us snap.

I ran but it was too late.

Ayla collapsed.

The clone vanished.

And in her place, a whisper of Ayla's voice echoed:

"She's inside me now."

I carried Ayla through the ash grove like a broken prayer.

Her body was still warm. Her heartbeat, steady. But the bond—our bond—was silent.

Not dead.

Absent.

Rylan met me at the ward gate, his staff already lit with runes. Daya followed, blades drawn, eyes wild.

"What happened?" Rylan barked.

"She touched her," I said, setting Ayla down in the sacred ring.

"Who?"

"The other one."

Rylan's eyes went wide. "She touched her soul."

He dropped to his knees and began tracing sigils into the dirt, chanting old spells, searching for signs of possession or projection. The air buzzed, but nothing answered.

"She's not cursed," he whispered. "She's inhabited."

That night, the grove went silent.

Even the ash tree didn't bloom.

I sat at Ayla's side. Her body slept. Her mind... we didn't know. But something was happening beneath her skin.

Every few hours, her runes would flicker—then shift.

Reverse.

Like they were being rewritten.

By her own magic.

By someone else's will.

At midnight, she opened her eyes.

For a moment, they were hers.

Then they weren't.

"You shouldn't have let her walk alone," the voice said.

It wasn't Ayla's.

It was hers.

The Echo.

Daya stepped forward.

"What are you?" she hissed.

The clone's voice smiled through Ayla's lips.

"I'm what happens when truth forgets who made it."

Rylan tried a purge ritual.

The sky cracked.

The wind screamed.

Ayla's body convulsed—once, twice—then went still.

The bond flared and I felt her again. Not the clone, Ayla.

"Kael," she gasped.

"I'm here," I whispered, grabbing her hand.

"I'm—"

She screamed.

Her body arched off the altar.

Her eyes rolled back.

And when they opened again—They weren't hers. They were both—Silver and black. Light and shadow.

The Luna. And the Echo. 

Sharing a single body.

"I can't hold her," Ayla whispered, her voice overlapping with the clone's.

"She's breaking through."

And then, she laughed.

They laughed and the bond fractured.

I felt it snap. Not gone, split. Half of it is still bound to Ayla. The other half...To something else. Something is rising.

Outside, the clone's camp lit with fire.

Red fire and howling. Too many voices. And Cassia, standing at the edge of the wards, screamed into the night:

"The Echo has risen! The throne is doubled! Choose your Luna!"

And the wolves—They began to run toward her.