It started as a dull throb beneath her skin, but the deeper she breathed, the more it clawed back into her bones. Emerald stirred with a groan, eyelids fluttering open to shadows shifting across a high ceiling.
She blinked. Everything was blurred. The scent in the air: earthy pine, herbs, and smoke from cedar was unfamiliar but hauntingly comforting.
"Viola?" she rasped weakly.
Then, a sleepy murmur from deep within her: "We’re home."
The words rang like a bell in her mind. Emerald’s fingers twitched against soft linen sheets. Her pulse picked up. Home?
She sat up with a wince. The pain was bearable now, like a caged fire instead of wildfire. Her muscles ached, but the crippling agony from the wolfsbane had dulled.
Her vision cleared just enough to catch the shape of a silver wolf insignia, wrapped in shadow vines, mounted on the far wall, with clawed fangs over a crescent moon.
She knew that crest. She’d seen it her whole childhood, carved into shields, etched into floors, engraved into her father’s ring.
The Western Shadow Fang crest.
"Shit," she whispered. "I’m really home."
A shuffle came from across the room. Someone yanked earbuds from their ears and bolted upright.
Emerald’s head turned—too fast, making her wince—and she found herself face-to-face with a blur of tangled brown curls, freckles, and wide amber eyes.
Nessa squealed and flew across the room. "You’re awake! You’re actually awake!" She launched herself onto the bed and wrapped Emerald in a tight hug before she could brace herself. "Moon above, I thought we lost you. You scared the hell out of me... out of everyone!"
"Okay—ow—gentle," Emerald mumbled, trying not to groan. "Still kinda feel like roadkill."
"Right, right, sorry!" Nessa pulled back, brushing tears off her cheeks. "But seriously, you looked like a corpse when they brought you in. You’ve been out for, like, three days!"
"Three days?" Emerald blinked. "What happened to me? Who found me?"
"We did," Nessa said, grabbing a water bottle from the nightstand and unscrewing the cap. "Uncle Darius caught your howl, the Alpha’s cry. He and a few sentinels were already searching the old border trails. When they heard that sound... we knew."
Emerald drank slowly. "I don’t remember much."
Nessa dropped onto the edge of the bed. "Want to tell me what you remember? What happened? I mean, you did this to you?"
Silence stretched between them.
Emerald hesitated. Her gaze dropped to the worn quilt covering her legs. She wasn’t sure she could say it out loud without falling apart.
But Nessa had always been her shadow—her cousin, her best friend, her sister in all but blood. She deserved the truth.
So Emerald told her everything.
The ambush. The fall. The false accusations. Alia’s lies. Rick’s betrayal. The whip. The rejection. The banishment.
Nessa didn’t interrupt once. But with every word, her face twisted from shock to rage.
"That—bastard," Nessa hissed when Emerald finally stopped speaking. "That no-good, half-brained, dickless excuse for an Alpha—he did that to you?"
Emerald nodded slowly.
"He whipped you? Rejected you? Banished you?!"
"I swear to the Goddess—" Nessa sprang off the bed. "I’m telling Uncle Darius. We’re raiding that piece-of-shit pack, burning the whole damn place to the ground, and dragging Rick’s ass back here in chains—"
"Ness," Emerald cut in gently.
"No! You don’t get to stop me this time—"
"I’ll get him back," Emerald said, her voice low but certain. "But not like that. Not yet. Let him think I’m broken. Let him think he’s won."
Emerald’s eyes gleamed with a cold, clear fire. "I don’t want him dead. Not yet. I want him to regret."
Nessa stared at her for a long moment. "Damn," she whispered finally. "You sound like Aunt Calista when she was ready to skin those boys who stood us up for our eleventh moon ceremony."
Emerald almost smiled. Almost.
She looked around again. "Where’s my father?"
Nessa’s face faltered. She opened her mouth, but the creak of the door stopped her.
A tall, broad-shouldered man walked in. He had a neatly trimmed grey beard and stormy grey eyes that seemed to hold a lot. He filled the room with his presence effortlessly.
"Uncle," Emerald breathed.
Darius’s gaze swept over her. He didn’t speak right away. His throat worked once, and then again. "Emerald."
He stepped closer, slowly. His hands curled into fists by his sides. "You’re awake."
She studied his face, usually unreadable, always composed, but now, the tension behind his eyes was impossible to miss.
He crossed the room in three strides and sat beside her. His hand hovered near hers, not quite touching, as if afraid she’d shatter under his fingers.
"You’re alive," he said gruffly. "By the Goddess... I thought we’d lost you."
She held his gaze. "I’m fine. Nessa said you and others rescued me."
"I wasn’t a part of the search team, but when I heard your howl, I followed it immediately. You were lucky we got there when we did."
I swallowed, trying not to think back to what I had endured. "Where’s my father?"
Darius was silent for a beat too long.
Then, he exhaled, gaze softening.
"You’ve just woken, and you’re still weak. Come—clean up. I’ll take you to him."
Emerald’s lips parted. "But—"
"Please," he said, more gently than she’d ever heard from him. "Wash up. He would want you... to stand tall when you visit him."
Emerald stood in front of the marble tub, the steamy water lapping at her legs. Her body was sore but no longer bleeding. Someone had treated her back, applying healing salves and packing the wounds.
All that remained were scars.
She slid into the bath slowly, wincing as the hot water stung at first, then soothed her. The warmth wrapped around her like a long-lost embrace.
Viola stirred weakly.
"I can’t feel anything," she muttered. "But it’s better than that bastard’s whip."
Emerald sank deeper into the water. She let the silence hold her; let the pain and all coil in her chest. She touched the ridged scars on her side and let her fingers trail the ones across her spine.
Then, she met her own reflection in the silver hand mirror left on the edge of the tub. Her emerald eyes were rimmed with red, but there was something else now.
A flicker. A flare. Her Alpha aura simmered to life, no longer caged by rejection or submission.
"Now I’m back home," she whispered to her reflection. "I don’t have to pretend or subdue my aura anymore."
The Land Cruiser bumped along the rocky path as they approached the northern ridge. Emerald sat quietly next to Darius, the sound of the engine filling the air around them.
The sun had just begun to rise, casting pale gold over the misty hills.
She wanted to ask what they were doing here as it was the sacred burial grounds for the rulers of the Western Shadow Pack, but she chose silence, thinking her father had come to visit her mom, as he usually did back then.
When they stopped, Darius got out first and opened her door.
She stepped down, bare feet touching the dew-soaked grass. The burial ground was a sacred circle, walled in by tall standing stones etched with pack runes.
At the centre, she noticed a stone, a new one standing taller than the rest.
"I’m so sorry, Emerald," her uncle called from behind, "but... your father... has joined our ancestors."
She paused, turned to look at him and saw the seriousness in his eyes. She returned her gaze to the new stone, and her breath hitched as she slowly approached it.
"Once a King, Always a King."
Rest in Peace (1976 - 2025)
Emerald stepped forward, legs trembling but steady enough. She knelt beside the stone, her hand tracing the engraving.
"I should’ve never left," she whispered. "I went looking for love, and I left everything that mattered behind. I thought he was my mate. I thought I was doing the right thing."
Darius stood behind her, silent but close.
"I missed your final days. I missed you."
"I wasn’t there when the pack needed me. I wasn’t there when you—" Her voice broke entirely. "Please forgive me."
Tears welled in her eyes, spilling freely. "I wanted to be Luna. To prove I was more than a title. I gave him everything... and he left me in the dirt."
She dropped to her knees. "You never would have."
Darius placed a hand on her shoulder. "You were always meant to be Queen, Emerald. Not someone’s Luna. Your father knew that. So do I."
She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "I just... I wish I had said goodbye."
"You did," Darius said. "If he had heard your cry that night, he would’ve been proud."
For a long time, the only sound was wind moving through the trees.
Then Darius said, "He never blamed you. Not once."
Emerald closed her eyes, letting the words settle into the hollow space in her chest.
He stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Come. We should head back."
The drive home was quiet. But not uncomfortable.
When they returned, Darius parked by the main hall and turned to her.
"There’s something else," he said.
Emerald looked at him, sensing the weight in his tone.
"The Council has called for your coronation. Immediately."
"The pack has kept your father’s death secret from the other packs all this time," Darius continued. "We’re vulnerable without an Alpha. And we’ve waited long enough."
Emerald sat back, her jaw tightening.
A moment ago, she’d been a disgraced Luna, crawling through mud. Now?
Now, they wanted her to rule.
And she would never kneel again.
"When’s the coronation?" she asked.