Beyond The Empty Altar, My Reign

I stood alone at the marble altar, the silence of the temple pressing against my eardrums.

It was my Mating Ceremony, but the groom was missing.

My phone buzzed with a notification: a livestream of my mate, Alpha Cain, skipping our union to welcome my sister, Eris, home.

In the video, he held her like she was fragile glass, captioning it: "True power recognizes true power."

When I returned to the Pack House, humiliated, I wasn't met with an apology.

I was met with a slap from my mother.

Eris, feigning a powerful "Alpha Aura," claimed my mere scent was poisoning her.

To "save" her, my family locked me in my room.

But the true betrayal came when I overheard their hushed whispers through the door.

"Use Vera," my mother said, her voice chillingly practical.

"She recovers fast. We can drain her blood weekly for Eris. She can stay as a servant to raise Cain and Eris's pups."

My blood ran cold.

They didn't just neglect me; they planned to harvest me like livestock.

They thought I was the weak Omega they exiled to the North years ago to peel potatoes.

They had no idea that in the North, I wasn't a servant.

I was Commander V, a warrior forged in ice and blood.

I reached under my bed and pulled out my black tactical duffel.

"Screw the meatloaf," I whispered.

I wasn't just leaving. I was going to war.

Chapter 1

The Empty Altar

Vera POV:

The Moon Temple was silent. Not the peaceful kind of silence, but the heavy, suffocating kind that presses against your eardrums.

I stood alone in the center of the marble altar. Moonlight streamed through the high glass dome, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. They were the only company I had.

Today was the Mating Ceremony. No big deal, just the moment my soul was supposed to be irrevocably tied to another for eternity. The ceremony is a formality, a public declaration before the pack that the Alpha has accepted his Luna.

But the Alpha was missing in action.

I looked down at my hands. They were trembling. I was wearing the ceremonial robe, a heavy garment embroidered with silver threads depicting the Asheville Pack's history. Three seamstresses, one month of labor.

Now, it felt like a shroud.

My phone buzzed against my hip like an angry hornet.

I shouldn't have checked it. A Luna should be poised. Patient. But I was done with patience.

I pulled the screen out. A notification from the pack's official social media account popped up.

"LIVE: Alpha Cain welcomes Eris Darkthorne home! #PowerCouple"

My thumb hovered over the screen. I pressed play.

The video was shaky, filmed at the private airfield. But the betrayal was in 4K.

There was my father, beaming with a pride he'd never wasted on me. There was my mother, wiping tears of joy. There was Dax, my brother, holding a bouquet of white lilies.

And there was Cain.

Cain Blackfang. My