Darkness swallows me whole—then comes light. Blinding. Searing. It pierces through me like a thousand needles, numbing my senses even as it frees something deeper within. It suffocates with its brilliance, yet brings peace. Calm. A clarity I hadn't known I needed.
I tremble beneath the weight of it. Too much—and still not enough.
And then, as suddenly as it came, the light recedes. Silence returns. Cool, smooth marble meets the soles of my bare feet. My toes curl against the stone, grounding me. I take a steadying breath and slowly open my eyes.
The world holds its breath.
Before me rises an impossibly tall tower of white marble, faintly glowing under the moonlight. The gates—pearly, ethereal—stretch wide before me, beckoning me forward.
Had I failed? Had I died?
I don't know. All I know is I must keep moving. I step forward, heart pounding louder than my footsteps echoing across the marble floor.
Inside the tower, a vision unfolds.
A woman lounges on a settee in a lavish salon, her laughter soft and musical—like wind chimes stirring in a breeze. She speaks to a wolf, a magnificent creature with shimmering fur and eyes sharp with ancient knowing. Firelight dances across her coat, bathing her in warmth.
The woman's laughter breaks the silence, beckoning me closer. But when I try to reach her, my feet pass through the furniture like mist. A ghost. Unseen.
The woman doesn't notice me—but the wolf does.
Her gaze finds mine—ageless, intelligent, endless. And then, without warning, she speaks.
"Child of the Moon. Last of the Touched."
Her voice floods my mind like starlight—soft, timeless, threaded with gravity.
"You have come before the gates. Will you take the rite of queens with an unclouded mind, a steady heart, and purpose unbroken?"
I swallow, steadying myself, my pulse a thunderous beat in my chest. The words are sacred—whispered to us since we were pups. The rite. The test. What we were born and bred to face.
I nod once, sharply, never breaking eye contact with the wolf. Her gaze softens. I swear she smiles.
"Good." Her eyes shimmer with quiet intensity. "And what do you believe the challenge is?"
I straighten, trying to sound braver than I feel. "Only what we were told as pups. --that the trial is unique to each wolf… a reflection of their greatest test."
The firelight flickers across her pelt, catching in the silver strands like stardust. She tilts her head, regal and mournful.
"No, child. The challenge is eternal."
Her voice holds the hush of deep space, the ache of ancient memory.
"You will not face your own fears—you will live hers. The first queen's life becomes your crucible. Her fate… your fire."
The words land like a blow.
The first queen—her name shrouded in half-truths and silence. Her story one of hardship, ruin, and a bloody end. I'd read the old songs, the scraps of lore, but so much was missing. My heart stumbles in my chest, breath caught tight in my throat.
The woman—her companion—rises from the settee with liquid grace. Each step she takes across the salon feels otherworldly, as if her body remembers a time before time. She doesn't look at me. Still, something in her presence pulls at a part of me I didn't know was missing.An answer I'm not ready to hear.
I swallow the dread rising in my throat, "If I die as the queen..."
The words come out small, brittle, "...will I truly die?"
Silence answers first. Long. Dense. The kind that presses against your skin.
The wolf watches me, her eyes vast with things I cannot name. Then she turns away, toward the woman who now kneels to place a cup of steaming tea at her feet and a dish of raw meat on the stone. The woman's touch is reverent as she strokes beneath the wolf's muzzle, unaware—perhaps uncaring—that she pets a deity.
The goddess speaks again, her voice softer now, sadder.
"There is one truth you must carry, child."
It echoes not in the air, but inside me.
"This vision is a thread. Lose yourself in it, and you will vanish. Only your will can draw you back. Only your heart can crown you."
The words root in me like seeds, heavy with meaning. The past is not just memory here. It's a world with teeth.
The words hit me hard, my mind spinning with the implications. The challenge ahead is not just about facing the past; it's about surviving it, holding onto myself through a storm of time and fate.
"How long will I be there?"
The question rushes from my lips, ragged and breathless. I can feel time thinning around us, the world unraveling at the edges.
But before she can answer, it's the woman who speaks—soft, wistful. She leans down to the wolf with eyes full of heartbreak. I hear her whisper, "My love... must you punish me? Must you stay in that form?"
The wolf rises with a slow grace that is anything but mortal. Her fur ripples like moonlight on water, her shape shifting before my eyes—stretching, distorting, becoming more.
I can't look away.
A glimpse of the divine, raw and impossible.She changes. She becomes.
And I finally feel the weight of what she truly is.But the light is too blinding for me to see her clearly.
Perhaps I'm not ready to.
A thousand questions break free inside me, but only one escapes.
"Why did you forsake me? Why did you ask my father to kill the queen?"
Her answer comes through the bond—not spoken aloud, but felt. Like a breath inside my bones.
"You were never forsaken, little one."
Her voice is gentler than I expect, and infinite.
"I have walked beside your shadow since your first breath... and I will walk beside it until your last."
The words wrap around my heart like a ribbon of starlight, comforting—but not enough.
Not yet.
There's one truth I still need.
I whisper it, barely daring to believe I can, "Is my father alive?"
No response. Not a sound.
Only the soft hum of the world beginning to dissolve, edges blurring, gravity slipping away.
Her silence is a blade.
And as the tower fades, as reality bends, I feel something twist deep inside me.
The gods never lie.
But they don't always answer either.
I close my eyes and breathe in deep—Moonlight and earth. Cold and clarity.
Then—The world shudders.Tilts.And warmth rushes in like a tide.
A breath ghosts across my neck.A body—solid, warm, overwhelming—presses close.A voice, low and reverent, rumbles at my ear.
"My love."
The words are thick with sleep… and something older.Possession. Hunger. Recognition.
I don't know him.And yet—he knows me.
A scent wraps around me: pine, cinnamon, musk. Intoxicating. His lips graze my throat as though I'm sacred. Breakable. Claimed.
His hum is a vibration I feel in my bones.
This is wrong. This is impossible.
But in this life… this body… he is my mate.And every nerve in me aches toward him like gravity.
How can I want what I do not know?
A scent like pine and cinnamon curls around me, heady and dizzying. His breath grazes my throat, his lips brushing tender skin as if I were something precious. A hum vibrates against my skin.
"My love," he murmurs again.
This isn't right. I don't know this man. But I remind myself of what I know to be true, in this life, this body, he is my mate. And my soul aches for him.
His mouth finds the mark on my neck, suckling gently, drawing shivers down my spine. I gasp, legs trembling beneath him. Every touch is like fire and honey—sweet and searing.
My body betrays me. Every nerve sings. My back arches into him, a moan slipping from my lips before I can silence it. The bond recognizes him before I do and in this moment... I let it.
"Where are you" he breathes, "come back to me."
I want to protest, to ask questions, but the words melt away under his hands. All I can think is he's mine, he's mine and Bricent never will be again. And thank the Moon Goddess for that. When did a stranger become better than a man I'd once chosen as my mate?
"My love" he growls pressing my hands above my head as he licks again at my mate mark to get my attention. I feel myself grow wet and blush deeply, evidence of our bond. If he notices he doesn't comment as he licks his way down my breasts. My nipples grow hard with arousal. I feel myself gasp and whimper with need I'd never experienced before. The mate bond was the most powerful magic in the world and I tried to struggle against it, reel back, but the arching of my chest just made him chuckle warmly in his throat. I let myself soak in the feel of his tongue, it's electric sparks, against my skin.
"Patience my love." He chides playfully taking a nipple deep into his mouth. I could feel my whole body tingle and twitch. His tongue was sending little electrical currents up and down my skin. His hand shifted so that one of his much larger hands held both of mine pressed above my head while his other trailed languorously down my skin. He teasingly etched small circles with his thick powerful fingers but when he slides between my thighs, worshipping me like something divine, I lose myself fully to the magic, to him.
I can hear myself panting and moaning beneath him like an out of body experience. A euphoric high. His index and middle finger tease my clit with soft circular motions while his mouth releases my pert nipple in favour of my other breast. He starts rubbing more vigorously and I realize I should object to this stranger using me like this but I can't seem to find my voice and in this reality he's not a stranger, he's my mate. The pleasure ripples over me like a powerful tide as I cum all over his hand. I can feel and hear him growl appreciatively through his chest. I ache for more.
He drops the other hand that was holding me down and releases my breast. I gasp and cry out at the loss of him but he grabs me unexpectedly. He lays down and pulls my pussy down on top of his face with a hungry growl. He starts to suckle and I hear him growl, "Ride my face with that pretty pussy my queen, my love and let me devour you whole".
And he does. He relentless suckles my clit while I grind against his open mouth until I come undone again on top of him and I can feel the pleasant vibration of his mouth against my pussy while he sucks me clean. I gasp when my orgasm rocks me again and he adds three of his thick fingers, one by one. They claw at the nerve bud inside and I whimper, my orgasm carrying over like a ricocheting tide, rocking me in unstoppable waves of bliss. I lose myself in the feeling, and his face is drenched with my juices but we don't stop. He drinks deep of me like a faucet made just for his pleasure.
We keep going until almost his whole fist is inside of me and then he pushes me off. I hear myself growl, angry to be torn from something that felt so right but he grips my throat with his soggy wet hand and presses me down into the soft mattress. A hungry look in his eye. Expressing dominance. I thrash against it, I was his queen, not his beta, but I also revel in it. A delightful shiver running down my spine.
That's when I see his massive, throbbing cock and gasp. He suckles at the mating mark and I'm so stimulated I nearly cum right there. "I need you to lay very still, the first time I know it will be tight." He growls into my ear tenderly.
My... first time? My eyes widen as horror and realization strike me. This was going to hurt. I nearly start to claw at him to get away but the hand around my throat catches my arm and then my other and presses me against the bed. He starts to suck the mating mark again and whispers in my ear, "Do not fret my love, I will be gentle, you will not hurt."
I writhe under him, a mess of emotions. Somewhere lost in pleasure and in the throes of panic. I remembered my first time laying with Bricent and nearly cried out. It had been awful and brutal and painful. I tried to buck my legs but he held me down. The contact against his skin soothed my nerves slightly. The touch of him was like magic.
And then I felt the pressure between my legs. It wasn't painful really, just tight, as he slowly inched the monster he called a cock inside of me. It was a strange feeling, the tight pressure with the immediate pleasure of his sucking the mate bond. He thrust deeper and deeper inside until his full length was sheathed in my wet core. I realized with a start that it didn't hurt like Bricent had. My mate hadn't lied to me. He stayed very still for a long time before he started to gyrate his hips and I moaned at the feeling of his thick cock pressing against the sensitive nerves inside my core. He lightly growled with appreciation.
His mouth never left our mating mark but his hand dropped my arms and his fingers made their way to my clit. He began to massage my clit while swirling himself around inside of me. A few minutes later my body was wracked by a new kind of orgasm and I heard him gasp as I clenched down on his cock internally. He started to buck his hips and move himself in and out of me while I loudly cried out in the throes of pleasure.
He picked up the pace as my orgasm carried over into another and another. Each thrust, suckle and massage throwing me deeper into the abyss of pleasure. It felt like hours had passed. I whited out from the pleasure and then came back to myself to the booming claps of him pummelling my pussy with his beautiful cock. My body rippled underneath him, I was puddy in his experienced hands and he coaxed another orgasm out of me while he continued to thrust in and out of me relentlessly.
He stopped for half a heartbeat before throwing me onto his lap with a grin, "Ride me my queen, please don't stop." He commanded me for the first time in hours releasing my mating mark from his mouth. He watched me with appreciation as my chest bounced in his face and I found myself loving the feel of him. Urging me on, wanting to press deeper, he began to meet my thrusts and I whimpered on top of him before cumming again all over his cock. He growled appreciatively and then threw me down again. This time he spun me around and I was disoriented but he never once removed his cock from inside of me.
My face and body was pressed down into the bed. He moved my legs so that they were closely pressed together and then reached underneath me to grip my breasts. He whispered into my ear, "I'm going to cum inside of you my beautiful wolf." He nuzzled my neck and then I felt him deeper than ever before. His cock jammed against my g-spot relentlessly as I twitched and he massaged my breasts. His right hand shifted down to my clit as he started rubbing there again feverishly.
The thrusts echoed in the room like drumbeats and I felt myself orgasm again for what must've been the hundredth time. This time, however, his fangs dug into my neck and I felt him rut inside of me. His cock swelling up to ten times its size, filling me full of his potent semen. The mix of pain and pleasure overwhelmed my senses as I cried out in equal measures of pain and bliss. Tears dribbled down my cheeks. I panted under him. His fingers rubbed furiously at my clit, never stopping while I came undone over and over again on his swollen cock. Each time my pussy clenched he would jerk inside of me instinctually, the movement extending the bliss of the experience. My whole body tingled and ached.
I felt so full, so whole, so spent, so complete. I had never experienced such bliss, such fulfillment.
I was in so much trouble. Because now I understood. The danger wasn't just the past—it was losing myself in it. And I was already unraveling.