Chapter 6 - Blood and Moonlight
The rain had turned into a freezing, torrential downpour by the time Mason Reed and his remaining hunters cornered Kiran and Tessa against the sheer drop-off of the Widow’s Peak.
Lightning fractured the sky, illuminating the jagged cliffs in stark, blinding flashes.
“End of the line, Your Majesty!” Mason shouted over the roar of the wind, his longsword drawn and gleaming with malicious intent. Behind him, a dozen elite archers had their composite bows drawn, arrows nocked and pointed directly at Kiran’s chest.
Kiran stepped in front of Tessa, his posture completely relaxed yet coiled like a spring ready to snap. The physical wounds he had suffered in captivity were rapidly healing, knitted together by the surging tide of royal alpha energy flooding back into his core.
“Mason,” Kiran said, his voice cutting through the tempest with icy calm. “You were once a captain of the royal guard. You swore an oath upon the sacred hearth of the North. And yet you sold your soul to a usurper for a title.”
“Oaths don't keep a man warm in winter, Your Majesty,” Mason sneered, taking a step forward. “Holloway holds the treasury, the armies, and the future. You are a ghost trying to reclaim a throne that has already moved on. Yield now, and maybe the girl gets a quick death.”
“You won't touch her,” Kiran replied softly.
Before Mason could give the order to fire, Tessa stepped out from behind Kiran’s broad shoulder. Her hands were trembling, but her gaze was fierce. She looked at Mason, then past him toward the distant lights of Greyhaven. For two years, she had let this pack dictate her worth. She had let them make her feel small, broken, and invisible.
Not anymore.
As Mason raised his sword to signal the archers, Tessa closed her eyes and focused inward, reaching for that strange, warm resonance Kiran had told her about.
Suddenly, a brilliant white-gold aura erupted from her palms.
The archers’ bowstrings snapped simultaneously with a deafening twang. A shockwave of pure, unadulterated Luna energy surged outward from Tessa, knocking Mason and his front-line guards off their feet and sending them skidding backward across the slick rock.
Mason scrambled up, staring at Tessa in absolute, unadulterated horror. “What… what are you? That’s… that’s the ancient bloodline. Holloway said it was wiped out!”
“Holloway lied,” Tessa said, her voice echoing with a resonant, supernatural power that didn't sound entirely like her own.
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Kiran didn't hesitate. In a blur of motion, he shifted halfway—his claws extending, his eyes blazing like twin stars. He closed the distance between them faster than the human eye could track, slamming his fist into Mason’s chest and sending the traitor flying over the edge of the cliff, where he caught the rocky outcrop by his fingertips, screaming in terror.
“Hold on to that rock, Captain,” Kiran murmured coldly, looking down at him. “Because the fall is going to be much longer than you think.”
