The Last Blue Lycan

The Night Before

It was the night before Blue Moon, and the whole Black Wolf pack was drunk.

From the courtyard where Kael scrubbed, he could hear the feast hall; drums, Alpha Moros laughing too loud, warriors betting who would pull the dagger tomorrow, Zara's voice cutting through all of it like a whip. They were celebrating a funeral that hadn't happened yet. His.

The Stone King knelt above him, 20 feet of black stone, dagger in his heart still pulsing slow. Blue. Only Kael could see it. Everyone else saw a rock.

Nine tolls from the temple bell. Tomorrow the moon would be full. Tomorrow his hands would touch that heart.

"You're scrubbing the same spot," a voice whispered behind him.

Elara.

She wasn't supposed to be here. Seers were locked in temple the night before Contest to pray. She was barefoot, cloak over her sleeping dress, white streak glowing in moonlight.

Kael didn't turn. If guards saw him looking at the High Seer's daughter, he'd be in stocks again.

"You shouldn't be here. Zara has eyes everywhere."

"Zara is busy trying on her wedding dress. She thinks tomorrow she marries the Crown Alpha." Elara knelt behind the statue with him, so close her knees pressed his back. The stone hid them both. "You didn't eat. I saw your bowl still full."

How did she see that? Omega slums were far.

"I'm not hungry."

"Liar." She pushed bread into his hands. Still warm from temple kitchen. "Eat. You need blood."

He ate because she watched. For 8 nights she had trained him behind old temple; how to breathe, how to pull with blood, how to let ice come without fearing it. Tonight was goodbye, maybe.

Elara pulled a cloth bundle from under her cloak and unwrapped it on the stone between them.

Kael's breath stopped.

A dagger. An Ice that didn't melt, blue-white, carved with old Lycan runes, humming low like a sleeping heart.

"Seraphine's," Elara whispered. "My grandmother. High Seer Theron gave it to me an hour ago. He told me everything tonight."

Kael didn't touch it. "Elara.... that's royal... "

"Only Blue Lycans can hold it without it melting. Touch it."

He hesitated, then curled his dirty fingers around the hilt.

It pulsed. It warmed. It recognized him. The runes lit blue.

In the feasting hall, someone dropped a plate. No one noticed the blue light behind the statue.

Elara stared at his hand, then at his eyes. In the dark, with no one to hide from, his eyes were not brown anymore. They were ice-blue, glowing faint, tears in them he refused to let fall.

"Kael Vael," she whispered the name Theron had whispered to her. "Your real name is Kael Vael. Son of Caelum Vael and Lira. Grandson of King Vael."

"Don't," he said, voice rough. "Don't call me that tonight. Tomorrow I die as Kael. Let me die as a janitor. It's easier."

"My mother was Lyanna," Elara said, and now her voice broke. "Theron told me. She wasn't his daughter. She was Seraphine's secret daughter with Prince Rhyen. Half Blue Lycan. She died holding a temple door with a candlestick against six Black Wolves including Moros so you and I could live. I was three days old. You were two years old."

Kael's head snapped up.

Lyanna.

The name he screamed in his dream last night. The name that got him put in stocks.

"I dreamed her," he choked out. "Lira... your mother... she was shouting 'Run, Lyanna, run!' and Lyanna was... "

"Holding the door," Elara finished, tears now. "With a candlestick. She knew she would die. She did it anyway."

For 19 years Kael never cried. Omega boys didn't cry or they got beaten. Now he broke, silent, shoulders shaking, forehead slamming against the Stone King's stone knee, fists bloody from scrubbing.

Elara moved around, sat in front of him, and pulled his head into her lap like she used to when they were 10 and 12 and she found him bleeding behind kennels.

"My father Theron isn't my father," she whispered into his black hair, stroking it. "He raised me to hide me. He cut my white streak every month so it wouldn't show. He told everyone I was a failed Seer so no one would test my blood. He did it to keep me alive."

"Why are you telling me this now?" Kael whispered into her dress.

"Because tomorrow we both die. And I don't want to die with you thinking you're trash."

She lifted his face. Her brown eyes were full. Then they flickered. Gold, then blue. Solid blue. First the time he saw it fully.

"Theron said you're the last male Blue Lycan. I'm the last female. Quarter, but still. That means... "

"That means Zara's Bet kills you if I fail," Kael said, remembering. The Moon Goddess Bet witnessed by the pack - if Kael fails to pull the dagger, Elara becomes Zara's personal slave. Branded.

"And if you succeed, she washes your feet," Elara tried to smile. "I want to see that. Princess Zara washing an Omega's feet."

He didn't laugh.

"Elara, tomorrow when I touch the stone, it will weep. Moros knows. The old Seer Malach told him - The statue weeps only for Blue Lycan blood. Archers will be on the roofs. Theron is supposed to signal. He drops a white cloth and they shoot."

"I know."

"So you have to signal. If you don't, Moros will kill you."

Elara placed her hand over his heart. Her palm glowed gold, then the gold bled blue, ice-blue frost spreading over his ragged shirt. His heart under her hand beat too fast. Hers too. They synced.

"I've been lying for 8 years, Kael," she whispered. "I'm not failed. I See. I Saw two futures tonight when father told me the truth. In first, I signal with white cloth like a good Seer. You get ten arrows in your back while pulling the dagger. You will die looking at me."

Kael gripped her wrist hard.

"In second," she continued, not pulling away, "I jump off the Seer balcony before I signal. I fall 20 feet. I freeze the bows with ice. I don't know how, but I do. In that future, you live. You pull the dagger. In that future, I might live too. I might not."

"Don't you dare jump," he said, voice low and dangerous in a way she had never heard. It was something older. Like a Lycan voice.

"I've had a crush on you since I was 10," Elara blurted, all in one breath, as if she needed to say it before courage left. "Since you cleaned the statue while Zara threw mud and you didn't cry. Since you gave your bread to Omega pups when you were starving. I have always seen you, Kael. Everyone sees trash. I see... you."

The Blue Moon was rising behind the temple, huge, not yet full but so bright the courtyard turned silver. Her white streak shone.

Kael had loved her since age 12 when she healed his split lip after Zara made him to be a horse and rode him around the courtyard with Jorn. He healed in one night what should take weeks. He never told because an Omega can't love a Seer's daughter.

He told now.

"I loved you since I was 12," he said. "I cleaned this statue because when I touched it, I feel less alone. He's a stone, but he's my grandfather. But when you touch me, Elara, I feel... I feel like I don't have to be a stone."

She cried then, fully.

He kissed her. Or she kissed him. It was clumsy, desperate, salty from tears, from 8 years of looking across the courtyard and pretending not to. His lips were chapped, hers soft. He tasted bread and fear.

Above them, the Stone King cracked.

Not loud. Small. At the left eye. A crack like ice.

A single blue tear, bright as star, slipped down 20 feet of stone face and landed on their joined hands - his holding Seraphine's ice dagger, hers over his heart.

Both daggers pulsed at once. The real dagger in the stone heart and the ice dagger in their hands - same pulse. Same rhythm as their hearts.

Mate pulse. Blue Lycan mate bond.

From feasting hall, Zara's laugh. "Tomorrow Omega dies!"

From the temple above, Theron watched from the window. He saw the blue light. He saw his daughter kissing an Omega. He didn't stop them. He closed the shutter, knelt, and began writing with shaking hand: If I die tomorrow, tell Elara...

Behind the statue, Kael pulled back, forehead against Elara's.

"Promise me," he whispered. "If I pull it and live, you become my Luna. I don't want Zara. Even if I'm Omega. Even if I'm nothing."

Elara smiled through tears, eyes solid blue now, glowing in dark, frost forming on her eyelashes.

"And if you fail, I become Zara's slave anyway. So you better not fail, my King. My last Blue Lycan."

She stood, hid Seraphine's ice dagger in her cloak. "Midnight. Old temple. Last training?"

"Midnight," Kael said. "If guards don't catch us."

"They won't. I Saw that we have until midnight safe."

She left barefoot, quick as shadow, her white streak disappearing around the stone's knee.

Kael stayed alone. above him, the stone King wept one more tear for his grandson, for tomorrow.

The night before was almost over, and the day was beginning.