Moonbound Vows: The Alpha's Secret Bride

Rain hammered like furied fists against the stained-glass windows of The Grand Anselmo Cathedral as Lyra Valente's heart furiously raced in symphony with the detonation somewhere within her chest. Meanwhile, thunder continued to rip apart the sky. Candlelight swayed and flickered across the polished marble floors of the cathedral as the guests fidgeted in their lavish golden chairs and eagerly awaited the commencement of the ceremony. Valente and Moretti's merging in matrimony was, without a doubt, an intricate wedding masquerading as an epitome of unification. Alliance of sorts. A ceasefire.

A calculated business deal signed in the blood inked between two of the country's leading mafia families.

Lyra...she was the commodity.

Trapped within a gilded cage, the gown encased her body like a shroud marking the grave of her freedom. Burning golden spokes of furiously bright candle flames reminded her of prison and Lilith Shaw.

With slathered crimson, like a corpse dressed in their favorite color, her lips were smirked onto and adorned. "Do close your mouth darling, a bug might fly into that beautiful scone of a jaw of yours and..." the glare on her father's face fiercely burning like the purest blaze, was plastered sideways above a grinning monstrosity whose intel rang sanctified words as her mother did hundred times over.

A shuffling of servile footsteps interrupted her crude still suddenly morphing mortal illusion. "You look splendidly... Heolyohaph?" The speaker attempted to say "glamorous," though those weren't real words anymore. Either Lyra was feeling far too over-polished for a wedding of any variety but it was haphazardly piloted into her necrotic subconscious.

"Perfect, methinks," she mumbled, shaking her head out of distractions like dealing blades of rusted daggers.

And with a skeletal click, her world illumined seamlessly.

Soon obnoxiously blaring funny words like they stepped foot on a sarcastic sitcom sprang into her ears. "Power*u n n...of words liberty," she squirted before nearly crumbling,

compelling her skull beat with deformed tennis ball wrapping eerily like unicorns around still screaming racquets within. Lyra quickly before fainting reached for the delicate silver wreath adorning a parlous neck, once belonging to lilac bleached overcast skies illuminating to cascade down dioramas of her mother.

"It was a chain well spent, might I add," her father's stubborn frown became vertical reconota across pinched waisted silhouettes quakes blaring no shattering along her tune-set back with the cross of abandonded birth pillars to the temple wide open over][.]

"My apologies milady, try dying."

Even if they describe it as love.

This has nothing to do with love.

The words of her father from that very morning gnawed at the centers of her mind: "Do not bring shame to this family. Luca Moretti is your future. You are lucky he even agreed to marry you after what transpired."

What transpired. Like it hadn't been a bloodbath. Like she hadn't died and resurrected in this new form, a new name, a body, within the same wretched world. She no longer was that defenseless omega girl who got stalked for what she possessed up in her mind. She had been trained-to survive, in secrecy. She had allies now-ones she whom mortgaged their existence.

Including the man who she was about to sprint towards.

The organ started to play. Guests stood. The doors to the Cathedral started to creak open.

Lyra ran.

Without any second thoughts. With her skirts in her hands and slipped out the servant's corridor behind the altar to blend with the blizzard. By the time anyone realized she is not there, she will at the very least be halfway across the city. Not towards safety, but danger- the kind she trusts.

Across town: Damon's kade's safehouse.

Lightning flickered through the cracked blinds of Damon Kade's apartment.The muted television buzzed with news while he cleaned his weapons with surgical precision.

"...the wedding between Lyra Valente and Luca Moretti is set to be the most historic mafia union in decades..."

Damon chortled, "Guess again."

He knew the shift was coming. It was a feeling he'd had for days. Something deep within was grasping at him, pulling at his instincts – his wolf was anxious. Famished.

A knock rattled the door.

Quiet as a phantom, and armed with a gun, he rose to open the door a crack.

Wild-eyed and soaking wet, she stood there in her wedding dress.

"Lyra?"

"No time," she exclaimed. "If they catch me, they'll kill us both."

"Thought you were dead," he said.

Damon opened the door wider, allowing her into the room.

"I was," she whispered. "But I okay back. This time, I'm not running alone."

Outside, the a storm raged over Damon's apartment. Lyra couldn't help but feel the pounding of her heart was synchronized with the persistent rumble of thunder. The image in the mirror was not one of pristine elegance as expected, instead, she stood on the leaden floor in a wedding gown with eyeliner smeared on her face.

"Be the last person to leave the room, and claim that divorce is not sweet," Damon remarked sarcastically, locking the door without taking a single glance at her, determined to distance himself. However, a soft tremor that we seldom pay attention to would keep surging in her head forevery in doubt.

"Damon, do you still keep that gun?"

He turned and locked his gaze onto her. The faint light made her appear ghostlike and ethereal. "Don't start. You were supposed to stay incognito for goodness sake."

"I thought you were planning on sightseeng not contemplating self inflicted mutilation."

"Now, before boredom makes me insane, could you possibly explain why there happens to be a dozen hand painted star postcards of places like London and New York around here?"

"You did say letting go of the past is healthy for the body an mind last time I checked."

"Right, but juxtaposition doesn't mean turning the globe upside down," she says taking a step towards him.

"I got a name, a story, and most importantly, a serum that activated my blood."

"You were a latent?"

"Not anymore."

She didn't move, but the energy flowing from her was powerful. Definitively alpha, though barely harnessed. Her scent had shifted too; she was no longer the mafia princess sweetly scented with powder. Instead, she was an intoxicating blend of jasmine and storm drenched pine.

Damon ran his hand through his dark locks. "If the Morettis figure out that you survived, they'll raze this city to the ground."

"They will," Lyra agreed, "which is why I need your help. Again."

He turned to her. "No. The last time I assisted you, you suitable vanished and let me believe you were dead. I buried you, Lyra."

"I did not have a choice. They were monitoring everyone. If they knew I had made contact with you, they would have killed you too."

"I'm not that easy to kill."

"That's what doesn't scare me." Voice trembling, she added, "Losing you again is."

Silence. Expectation. Things not spoken wrapped around them like thunderclouds brewed above-for a storm waiting to be summoned outside.

"On your wedding day?" exhaled Damon, still breathless, "You really fled from Luca Moretti?"

She nodded. "The wedding was never about love. It was about the contract-claiming the Valente empire."

"But Luca doesn't know who I am-or what I have become. He thinks he's marrying a lamb. To him, I am still a mediocre version of myself-an unaccomplished boy, who lacks agency-and the fortitude to face the world rallying against him. He has no clue that I've transformed, and evolved beyond into something more sinister-a man with fangs."

Damon's expression softened a bit as he looked at her. "Now, what do you wish for, Lyra? Are you looking for Revenge?"

"No," she whispered. "Power. Freedom. A life where I dictate my choices."

"He asked again, "and me?"

"She moved in closer, capturing Damon's full attention. "I need you beside me. Not as my protector. But as my partner, claiming the title of mate, if you'll have me."

Damon could feel his wolf stir under the surface. A primal growl simmered deep in his chest, responding automatically to her.

"After we accomplish this," Damon said, "we prepare for war."

"Let's go make the monster caged for so long pay, will we?" Lyra lit up like a firefly in the night sky: dazzling and intricate all at once. "Let's ensure they regret to the fullest trying to capture a wolf."

With Damon's jacket draped over her shoulders, Lyra crouched on the rooftop, cold biting through the soaking silk of her ruined dress. The gown was severely damaged. With this perspective, she caught sight of the SUV parked below. The doors were closed now, and the alley seemed quiet. It was too quiet.

She knew better than to trust silence. The quiet is where the real monsters hide.

Lyra heard footsteps coming. "Damon," she thought, crouching low and ready to pounce, breath bated. Before stricking, she caught a whiff of comfort, earth, and electricity. Smoke and antonyms. Striding towards the rooftop hatch without a sound, Damon emerged with his gun at the ready.

"They're not Valente. They're not Moretti either. Cassian's men."

The blood froze within Lyra. "What? The Blood Howlers? Where?"

Damon stared down his nose at her to acheiev gaiunter. "Cassian doesn't usually leave his mountain stronghold. For him to be here...." Their collective gaze was enough. "It means he knows."

The room shifted yet felt static. "Knows what?" she whispered.

"That you're alive. Don't burn. And, in fact..." Were these curses? "You're the last heir of the Blood Pact."

This landed like an arrow piercing her.

Lyra lost depth perception.

A secret oath between coin (without you) claiming territory above all, which was thought to be broken and buried over time. Legends told tales of creaters, though.

Legends spoke of a sinister boy was born on the blood moon -half wolf, half mafia- claiming he would wield the ability to bring together or annihilate every pack across the continent.

A shrug of my shoulders and that was what Lyra thought it was; a tale that was fabricated in order to intimidate or charm children around a fire's warmth.

The seriousness in Damons face attested otherwise. "It's you Lyra. The only one left. The last female of that bloodline. You just stepped out of a mafia wedding into werewolf war hot spot. Everyone will want their slice of you-Moretti, Cassian... even your father."

"That's not what I wanted," Lyra said backing off. "This was not what I asked for. I wanted off the hook. I wanted to be boundless."

"No more hooks," Damon remarked. "Not when blood flows through your veins, not when the future of two worlds lies intertwined in your bloodstream."

Even though her breaths became staggered she stood taller, "Then I am never gonna hide."

At this point Damon resorted to blinking.

She stated whole heartedly, "I have ran once before, this time is not the same. Boundaries only change the meaning of freedom. If they desire for a queen, then on my conditions, that's what I shall be."

Unreadable pace still made him move toward, his eyes glued to avoid flashing consequence of what questioning her decision entailed. "A queen doesn't just rule. She controls kingdoms. She fights "kill or be killed" And survives with no one left standing if needed to."

"I do already," vocals subdued.

"Might be too late for that."

The crack of thunder heralded a flash of lighting, and this seemed no different-truly, it felt like an omen, but rather than destruction, it bore a much more forlorn sense.

The buzz brought focus back to the present, and Damon clicked the button that turned the screen to his phone. One glimmering word caught his attention:

MORETTI.

"Lyra, shrunk herself into a box, they know you're here," he said, turning the screen towards her.

She bit her lips, fists clenched as tight. "Then let them come."

A hidden chamber in Rome.

A man in a black suit walked forward and as he reached Luca, he announced, "She ran to Damon Kade."

"Well..." Luca smirked with a hint of bloodlust. "Then let the blood games begin."