Rise Of The Phoenix Alpha

Lyria’s POV

The moon hung swollen over the Bloodshield courtyard, a pale, watching eye that had witnessed every lie I’d ever swallowed for the sake of love. Tonight, it watched another.

I should have turned back the moment I heard Rowan’s voice drifting from the war room low, rough, the voice that once made my wolf curl with warmth. But something in his tone stopped me cold. A sharpness. A hunger. And not for me.

I froze just outside the half-open door, breath locked in my throat.

“She still thinks I’ll choose her at the Solstice Binding,” Rowan said, a mocking laugh cutting through the room. “Poor little Lyria. So devoted. So easy.”

My heart slammed into my ribs. The voice that answered him was soft, feminine, dripping with satisfaction.

“She adores you,” Mira purred the beta-female he’d once sworn was nothing but a nuisance. “You trained her well.”

A rustle of clothing. A gasp. A muffled groan.

Rowan’s.

My stomach twisted.

“I didn’t train her,” he said between breaths. “She’s weak. Fragile. She’ll bend to whatever the Council demands. That’s why she was the perfect choice… until you.”

Mira giggled low, breathy, victorious. “Then reject her. Take me as your mate instead.”

“I will,” he said. “But not yet. Lyria’s name still wins me sympathy from the Elders. Once I claim Beta-Alpha at the Gathering, she’ll serve better as a martyr than a mate.”

The world tilted.

Martyr.

My fingers dug into the wooden frame of the door until the grain bit into my skin. My wolf pressed against my chest, snarling, wounded, confused. Our mate. Our promise. Our future.

My voice died in my throat before it could rise.

Rowan wasn’t only betraying me.

He was planning to use me my family’s name, my loyalty, my devotion as a stepping stone to power. And when he no longer needed me… he meant to discard me like ash in the wind.

Footsteps approached. I slipped back into the shadows as Rowan emerged, shirt half-open, Mira’s bite marks visible across his throat. He didn’t notice me why would he? I had always been invisible to him except when it served his ambitions.

As he passed, his scent brushed me cedar, steel, and the faint bitter tang of lies. My wolf whimpered.

I didn’t.

Something inside me went still. Not broken just silent.

Silence... is the moment before a blade is drawn.

Rowan paused at the corridor’s end, sniffing the air, frowning.

For a second I wondered if he sensed the shift in me the death of something soft and the birth of something sharp.

But he shrugged and walked away, laughing with Mira as if I had already ceased to exist.

Maybe I had.

Because the girl he loved had died tonight.

And something else was already rising in her place.