The Lost Luna: Claimed by my Alpha’s Brother and Archenemy

"You missed a spot."

Zoe's slipper tapped the marble an inch from my fingers.

I had been on my knees in the banquet hall since before sunrise. My skirt was soaked through. The brush had rubbed my palms raw.

"Where, my lady?"

"Everywhere." She sank into the high chair at the head of the long table. Adrian's chair. "Bring me my tea."

I got up and lifted the pot from the side cart. Steam curled off the spout. I poured, turned, and held out the cup.

Zoe didn't take it.

"Did I say you could stand?"

"You told me to bring your tea."

"On your knees, Jane." She smiled sweetly. "An Omega doesn't stand to serve the future Luna. Surely Adrian taught you some manners before he died."

I knelt. I held the cup up over my head.

She took it. She looked at it for a long moment.

Then she tipped it over my hands.

The heat came first, white and blinding, then the pain. I bit down so hard I tasted blood. The cup clattered on the marble and rolled away.

"Clumsy," Zoe sighed. "Now you'll have to clean that too."

I stared at my hands. Red welts were already swelling across my knuckles.

"Nothing to say?" she asked.

"No, my lady."

Her smile thinned. She'd wanted me to cry. I could see it in the tight line of her mouth.

"Guards." She snapped her fingers. "Take her to the training yard. I think the pack should see what happens to Omegas who forget their place."

---

They dragged me out by the arms. My bare heels scraped the gravel.

The training yard was full. Young warriors stopped mid-spar. Omegas hanging laundry on the far wall turned to stare.

Zoe followed us out, a fur wrap around her shoulders. One of her guards held a silver collar. It caught the light like a coiled snake.

"No," I said. "I already wear the cuffs. I'm no threat to anyone."

"Cuffs are for wrists." Zoe took the collar from the guard and turned it over in her hands. "This is for dogs."

The guard forced my chin up. Zoe locked the collar around my throat herself.

It burned. Not like the tea. Deeper. It sank through my skin and found my wolf.

*Sera.*

Inside me, Sera whimpered. A thin, broken sound. Three months of silver at my wrists had already worn her down to almost nothing. Now she curled into a tight ball in the dark and went quiet.

"Look at her," Zoe called to the crowd. "This is the woman who was going to be your Luna. Kneeling in the dirt with a leash around her neck."

Someone laughed. Then someone else.

A young warrior near the weapons rack didn't laugh. He looked away.

I kept my eyes on the practice swords hanging on the rack. Wooden blades, worn smooth at the grip.

*Again, Jane. Feet apart. Don't drop your shoulder.*

Adrian, five summers ago, standing right here with the sun on his back. He'd taught me himself, when the other warriors said an Omega-born girl had no business holding a blade.

*Blood doesn't make a wolf strong,* he'd told them. *Every wolf in this pack deserves respect. Every single one.*

And Sera had run beside his wolf that night, fast and fierce under the moon.

"Is she even listening?" Zoe crouched in front of me and gripped my jaw. "What are you smiling at?"

I hadn't known I was.

"Nothing, my lady."

Her nails dug into my cheek. "Keep smiling, widow. We'll see how long it lasts."

---

It was dark when I finally limped back toward the servants' stairs. The collar was still on. Zoe had kept the key.

I didn't hear him until he spoke.

"Jane."

Vincent stood at the bottom of the stairs. A white bandage crossed his forehead where the candlestick had split it open.

His eyes went to my throat. Then to my hands.

His face changed.

"Who did this?"

I said nothing.

He crossed the hall in three strides and grabbed my wrist. I flinched. He turned my hand over and saw the blisters.

"I asked you a question. Who put silver on your neck?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to me."

"Since when?"

His jaw worked. For one second, he looked almost like his brother. Almost.

Then the softness drained out of him, and his old smirk slid back into place.

"You see how this goes now?" He let my wrist drop. "You're alone, Jane. Nobody protects you. Not Martha. Not the guards. Certainly not Zoe." He leaned closer. "But say yes to me, and no one in this pack will ever lay a finger on you again. Not one."

"And all I have to do is get on my knees for you instead."

"That's not what I said."

"It's what you meant."

He laughed under his breath. "You're stubborn. Adrian liked that. I'm starting to see why."

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

I lifted my chin, even with the collar burning into my throat.

"Your brother never needed a woman on her knees to prove he was strong," I said. "Vincent, you sit on his throne. But you'll never be him."

The hall went silent.

Vincent's hand shot out and slammed against the wall beside my head. The stone cracked under his palm. His eyes flared gold.

I didn't move. I didn't blink.

"You think you know what I am?" His voice dropped low and rough. "You think he was some kind of saint?"

"I think he was better than you."

His nostrils flared. For a long moment, I thought he might hit me.

Instead, he stepped back and straightened his collar.

"The underground sanctuary," he said coldly. "It hasn't been cleaned since the war. You'll do it. Tonight. Alone."

"The sanctuary is sealed. Only the Alpha's bloodline is allowed—"

"Then consider it an honor." His smile was all teeth. "And Jane? Defy me one more time, and I'll sell you to the slavers on the southern border. They pay well for she-wolves with their wolves already broken."

My stomach turned to ice.

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

He walked away without looking back.

I stood there until my legs stopped shaking. Then I took a lantern from the hook and started down the long stair toward the sanctuary, where Adrian's ashes had been laid to rest.

---

I didn't know that Zoe was awake.

I didn't know that while I was going down into the dark, she was sitting at her dressing table, turning something over in her fingers.

"My lady?" Her maid, Lisette, slipped into the room. "You called for me?"

Zoe held it out. A silver hairpin, shaped like a crescent moon. It had been Adrian's gift to me on the night he proposed. I hadn't seen it since they moved my things out of the Alpha wing.

My name was engraved along the curve. *Jane.*

"Take this to the sanctuary," Zoe said. "Wait until she's gone. Then leave it beside the altar."

Lisette hesitated. "Beside the altar? But my lady, that's where the Moon Stone sits."

Zoe smiled at her reflection in the mirror.

"I know exactly where the Moon Stone sits," she said. "And by tomorrow morning, so will the entire pack."