Elaris's POV
Tragedy had no regard for your plans. None whatsoever.
In two days, I was to turn twenty. Then my wolf would rise, and my mate would be confirmed to be Karl Draven, the eldest of Alpha Kurt Draven's triplets.
I will then become his Luna, as I have been groomed to be all my life, and we will live happily ever after. That was the plan, my plan. Well, until tragedy struck…
It struck as a thin, painful cry that night. I froze in the corridor leading to Alpha Kurt's quarters while searching around for my father.
Father was Alpha Kurt's beta, his trusted advisor, and best friend. Though the two had been at loggerheads lately, divided on a certain political issue.
The painful cry jarred the corridor again, moving beyond to be quickly swallowed by the music and noises from downstairs as the pack celebrated our yearly moon rite festivals.
The cry was distinctively familiar. My body drummed in alert as realization hit me point-blank in the face—Alpha Kurt.
I dragged my flowing gown above my knees, and I hurried in the direction of the scream. My breath shallow and loud, chest heaving so hard it felt like it might burst.
I pushed the door to Alpha Kurt's main room, and I froze cold in the doorway.
Father snapped his head to me, eyes wide and restless. He knelt beside the limp figure of Alpha Kurt Draven's form. Fingers stained bright red with blood held tight to the hilt of the knife buried deep in Alpha Kurt's broad chest.
I covered my mouth, my screams muted to a muffle before they raised the whole palace. "What happened, Dad?" I asked, my voice staticky and trembling.
He didn't reply. He just squeezed Alpha Kurt's hand tight, whispering to him how he would live for years more, though the other man gasped, choking on his own blood, which frothed in his mouth.
Safe for the soft glow of the single candlestand in the large room and the glow of lights from the yard, the room was dark. Yet the strange tinge in the blood was visible. He was poisoned. This was a carefully planned assassination.
A flurry of linen had me staring deeper into the room. Something flashed from underneath the curtain, dark, mysterious, and fast, like a phantom.
Father saw it, too. "Get that bastard, Elaris. Get him." He barked at me.
I charged for the curtain, but I hadn't gotten far before the creature jumped over the window and disappeared.
I stuck my head into the window. But there was no one, no scents. Just the blur of dancing and singing figures in the field downstairs, as the festivity continued. The loud murmur of voices from everyone below was almost swallowed by the blast of music.
Somehow, the killer had melted into the night, vanished. How did he do that?
"Get the pack doctor, Elaris. Get someone fast." Father choked in a strangled voice, between the trails of endearing promises he kept making to his friend and Alpha.
I refused to look down at the scene again. I wanted to remember Alpha Kurt as the robust, lively man and kind uncle that he is, and not as a corpse.
Something wet burned hot behind my eyes, and I blinked it back. Now wasn't the time to cry but to act. To find the bloody killer.
I proceeded to do as my father had asked and get the triplets—Alpha Kurt's sons. Halfway to the door, a sudden crash split the air, the cry of shattering glass tearing the silence in shreds. I broke to a halt.
A maid stood in the doorway. Her face was mortified, mouth agape, inching for a scream. What was once a big glass jar lay scattered before her feet in pieces of luminous shards.
The scream came, loud and intense. My eardrums jarred with each note. Boots thumped the tiles outside in an aching cry, and soon, the guards poured in, filling the doorway.
After another couple of seconds, the triplets were running to the scene—Karl, Darius, and Torren Draven, as well as most members of Alpha Kurt's court.
Their eyes all carried behind me. But burning over grief in their eyes was intense hate—hate so strong, it reeled me back. I turned, searching for what I had missed that they didn't.
Father was whispering to a corpse now. Alpha Kurt was as limp as a tree and white as chalk, with glassy eyes fixed to the ceiling. Father held onto the bloodied knife, now yanked from Alpha Kurt's chest.
The ice alive in my veins struck down my spine as I looked back at the room from everyone else's perspectives. To them, Father hadn't attempted to save his friend; he'd just killed him.
The murder weapon was firm in his bloodied hands. Coupled with the fact that my father and Alpha Kurt were known to be quite quarrelsome lately, this was what an investigator would likely term 'an open and shut case'—shut on my father.
I broke into a run to Karl. We were ten years apart in age, but he wasn't just my betrothed. He was the man I had spent all my life loving and also my childhood friend, just like his brothers.
I held his arms with both of mine. "My father didn't kill Alpha Kurt. He didn't. The killer escaped through the window. We have to find him…"
Karl slanted me a deadly stare, eyes as cold as glaziers. He wrenched my fingers free from his arms and flung me away. I staggered and fell roughly to the floor.
"How dare you lie to me, Elaris. Your father killed mine." He barked. He turned to the guards and threw his arm accusingly at Father. "Seize that murderer."
"I didn't kill Kurt! I didn't." Father cried as thick arms rolled around him, and they forcefully dragged him away. The crowd at the door parted for them to pass.
"I didn't kill, Kurt." Father kept yelling, whipping his head back consecutively at Alpha Kurt's limp body on the ground. "How would you all think I would kill my best friend? I didn't…" he kept yelling, but no one listened. No one tried to, and his voice faded as they hauled him off.
I picked myself up from the ground, running to Karl. I grabbed his shirt again. I wasn't one to cry, especially not before the man I had loved all my life, but right now, I couldn't hold back on the burning sting of moisture in my eyes, trailing down my cheeks.
"Please spare my father. He isn't the killer. He didn't kill Alpha Kurt." I begged.
Karl sneered heavily with a mix of derision and hate. His golden-amber eyes split in two, quivering with rage. The same eyes that always appraised me and adored me as his now stared down at me like I meant nothing.
He wrenched my hands away from his shirt, and he threw me away. He was strong, and I was paper compared to him. I sailed across the floor. Darius, the second eldest of the triplet, lunged forward to catch me, but a heated glance from Karl stopped him.
I crashed into the floor, a searing agony shooting up every nerve in my butt. But I wouldn't give up. This wouldn't end with Father. My whole family was at risk: my mother and my brother. The Moonblood pack recognizes family over individual—once a member of a family was guilty, every other person in the family was labeled a traitor too. Everyone.
Since Karl wouldn't budge, I ran for Darius, snatching his arm as he turned for the door.
"I am sorry, Ela." He muttered, and he shrugged me off, continuing after Karl.
I jumped to Torren. He was the wildest one of the three, but beneath that wildness had always been the kindest heart I have ever known. "Torren, please, my father is innocent. Save him. Please." I begged, tears pouring down my eyes. I pulled his arm, tugging gently.
His sharp green eyes eased into a smile. Hope surged in me at once. Finally, someone believed me. Finally, someone would help.
Or so I thought. His lips twisted slowly, turning his smile dark and sinister. Thick fingers fastened to my neck, and I was pushed back, my shoes scraping the floor until I slammed my back against the wall.
Every breath in my lungs was knocked out fast. I gasped, groaning in pain.
I struggled against him, writhing like a trapped snake, pulling at his fingers as he kept squeezing. "How dare you beg me. How dare you beg me to free your father when he killed mine?" He barked at me, yelling at the top of his voice, and yet, when he glared down at me, what I saw in his eyes was more pain than hate.
"My father didn't…" I croaked, despite his fingers squeezing life out of me.
"Shut up… Shut the hell up." He barked again. He punched the wall beside my head, and a cloud of white plaster scattered before my face. Still, his fingers didn't ease on my neck.
I struggled, writhing against the wall, eyes straining tight against their sockets. It took Darius snatching his arm and pulling him back to get him away from me.
"Get over yourself, Torren. She didn't kill our father. Her father did."
"No!" Torren yelled. "The daughter of a traitor is also a traitor. She is as guilty as he is." He snarled.
I rubbed blood back to my neck with my hands while I panted and coughed hard from the pain that had gathered on my chest.
The same jade green eyes with which he had always flirted with me now bore down on me like a dagger. He sniffed as he turned to the guards. "Seize her." He yelled.
The guards moved instantly for me. "Stop!" Darius barked, and they dropped back.
Karl had stood by the door, his posture menacing, with his eyes cold and arms folded across his chest. He declared, nudging his jaw at the guards. "Seize her."
And with those two words, I was damned, just like my father.