by Kamryn Hart
The king and I moved to the center of the courtyard, orange-red rocks all around. I thought of the Moon Mirror back in Howling Sky and how this paled in comparison. It didn’t matter that the lunalite was broken and turned to dust, it amplified moonlight. It might have been too much on a full moon night, but I found myself wondering what it would have felt like all the same.
“I want to talk to my team before we begin,” I said.
“I’ll permit it,” the king answered.
That was part of the Alpha Challenge’s rules. The challenger could make one last request, and the alpha was required to oblige. Everything was going according to plan.
I walked over to the pond filled with pink waterlilies to meet Sorissa and Phantom Fangs. We didn’t exchange words. They stepped forward and placed a hand on me somewhere, shoulders, arms. Then they shot power into my system all at the same time. It was a lot to take at first. I almost recoiled. I doubted anyone else could see the exchange because moonlight was moving through us so quickly. This much was unnecessary. Moonlight from anyone but Sorissa was unnecessary because she held more moonlight than all four of us combined. But that wasn’t the point. They were giving me everything. It meant we were united, all for one, like in Sorissa’s claim. And one for all. In this moment, we truly were five becoming one.
I opened my eyes when I was buzzing with energy, barely able to contain it all. My eyesight was ridiculous. I saw colors I never knew existed. I could see the details of a leaf on the trees across the courtyard down to its intricate network of veins. My body wasn’t built to hold this much moonlight, but Sorissa’s claim, this bond we had created, made up for that. I blinked and willed my active moonlight to still. I didn’t want to use it quite yet.
“You’re ready,” Sorissa said.
I offered a smile I wasn’t feeling, and she wrapped her arms around me. Rodrick punched my arm. Todd pinched the fabric of my robe a lot like how I had held on to the skirt of my mother’s dress when I was a kid. When Sorissa moved back, Aerre hugged me too—which I wasn’t prepared for.
“Don’t die,” he ordered and squeezed me so hard I could hardly breathe.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I wheezed, arms tied to my sides. His eyes were blazing with something, and I couldn’t hold his gaze. I looked back at the orange-red rocks where the king waited patiently with his arms folded. It was time for the fight to begin. “Doesn’t this kind of feel like cheating, me taking all of your moonlight?” I asked.
Aerre growled. “You’re worried about fairness? We planned this almost from the beginning. Now, get your ass out there and shut up. It’s perfectly fair.”
He released me, shoved my chest, and turned away. It was impossible not to feel his worry, though I could tell he was trying to keep his insecurities to himself. Maybe it was an inappropriate reaction, but it made me smile. All those years I spent trying to win him over, to win his friendship, and I had done it. I really had. I won more.
“Go out there and make us proud,” Rodrick said.
“I will.” I offered my pack a playful bow and stepped away. My feet didn’t want to move. Turning my back on them was the hardest thing I had ever done. I told myself it would be fine. I would do my best. There was no way I could lose. If it was a matter of power, I was the clear victor. But if Rodrick taught me anything, it was that fighting was about a lot more than the physical aspect, and that made me nervous.
I met the king, standing across from him in the empty space of the courtyard reserved for the Alpha Challenge. The king’s expression remained cold and steady.
Don’t buckle like you did in the clearing. The time for talk is long over, I told myself.
My brother Dominic stepped out of the crowd and joined us. “Disrobe.”
The king and I locked eyes, already wary of each other’s moves as we untied our sashes and let our robes fall from our shoulders to a small pile of fabric on the ground.
“Start,” said Dominic.
He retreated as blue moonlight erupted from me and the king in a single blazing fire. We called on our moonlight forms simultaneously and shifted. My bones reshaped. My skin and organs molded into new shapes and sizes. White fur speckled in grays and blacks sprouted from my dark skin, followed by a fluffy tail. My face elongated, and my canines buzzed, ready to bite down and shatter bone.
The shift happened in the span of a few seconds. I was shocked when I looked at the king. Like our base forms, our moonlight forms looked very similar. But there was a major difference this time. Usually, the king’s wolf was unrivaled in his size, but size was often relative to the amount of moonlight coursing through our veins mixed with whatever size we wished to be, and I had much more. I hadn’t suddenly become a giant or anything, but it might have been possible with this much moonlight. I was much larger than the king right now.
I heard several gasps from the crowd, surprised at my newfound strength, probably wondering how holding so much moonlight was possible, but the king wasn’t fazed. He began to circle me as I stayed planted where I was. He reined in the blue flames of his moonlight. Even though it was active under the surface, it was hardly visible. His eyes were a bright yellow, pure wolf. He was conserving energy. He would find my weak spot and end this quickly.
I knew I wanted to end this quickly too, but I wasn’t sure how to. I was paralyzed with what ending this quickly meant.
“Remember, Caspian, the choice is yours.” Sorissa’s voice filled me with warmth, like she was speaking directly inside of my heart. “Show them what kind of king you’ll be.”
That was right. I had a choice. With all of this power, I had a choice. I didn’t have to kill the king. All I had to do was make him submit. With this munch moonlight, I could. Couldn’t I?
The king growled and leaped for me. He had an extra spring in his step due to the moonlight he must have concentrated into his back legs. I should have seen it coming, I did in hindsight, but I barely dodged his attack. Why was everything so blue? I shook my head, but it wouldn’t go away. Moonlight was leaking out of me from every hair follicle. I needed to hold it in, to stop wasting so much. It was like I had sprung a leak.
What am I doing?
The king wasted no time rebounding and hit me head-on. He dug razor-sharp teeth into my flank. His jaw locked, and when I reflexively jerked away from the pain, he tore off a chunk of fur, flesh, and muscle when he yanked his head back at the same time with moonlight-infused teeth. We had just started, and he already gave me a limp. Gods, it hurt like hell. Blood was spilling out of the wound. He sliced me as easily as a damn flower petal.
I called on my excessive amounts of moonlight to heal the wound. But the king was expecting as much and charged again. This time, he got my shoulder, teeth digging in deep. He yanked his head back violently. Pain exploded in my shoulder, and I yelped as he took off another chunk of flesh effortlessly. He retreated in the same motion, avoiding any retaliation on my part.
More blood spilled from my body. It felt like gallons. The ground was slick underneath my paws, and my vision was spotted in black. I called on my moonlight once again to heal. The king was waiting for this, waiting for me to focus my attention on healing once again. This time, he came for my throat.
“Caspian!” Rodrick roared through our link. “Stop shutting us out!”
It was as if I had suddenly become a marionette. I was yanked away safely by invisible strings just before the king could reach my throat and bleed me out. If I had been in my base form, I would have been sweating buckets. Instead, I was left panting from the exertion. I was fighting poorly and wearing myself out by doing nothing, as seemed to be the case.
I growled and waited for the king to come again. He darted like a bullet, aimed for my throat again. I dodged without having to rely on Rodrick to save my ass. The king circled me, changing his pace. I doubted he would use the same tactic again.
“That’s more like it,” Rodrick said.
I followed the king in his predatory circle, keeping myse
lf directly across from him so I’d have plenty of time to maneuver. We growled and snarled, resorting to a fight of intimidation.
“Show him you’re no phantom,” Aerre said. “Show him just how real you are by digging your teeth into him.”
I’m not a phantom. I had taken the name with pride—or I tried to. Phantom Prince. The king tossing me away. I was wanted only if he could use me, and even then, he didn’t want to acknowledge me. All of the pain I had been carrying around bubbled to the surface.
I am more.
It was my turn to attack. I kept low to the ground as I darted forward. I anticipated the king’s attempt to retreat to the left and altered my course with deft paws and moonlight. My jaws opened wide and clamped down onto the back of his neck. I wasted no time powering up with more moonlight. It enhanced my strength tenfold, and I threw the king down onto the orange-red rocks, shattering them with the impact of his body. Bones snapped even with his moonlight shield. The king yelped as bloody spittle flew from his mouth. Red leaked from his body from where my teeth and probably jutting bits of rock below had cut into him.
And I hesitated.
“Caspian,” Todd murmured, “don’t let this chance slip by.”
I was frozen in place. I knew Todd was right. The king would be down for good if I just moved forward, but all I could do was stare at him lying there in a messy, bloody heap. I did that with a single attack. Memories flashed through my head of when my mother had been killed by vampires. I hadn’t been there to witness her death, but I saw the crumpled state of the carriage when the king returned. I saw the aftermath, the traces of blood. My mother’s blood. And my mother’s mangled body when my distraught father dutifully brought her home where she could be sent off properly, so her soul could rest. When my father’s eyes were filled with tears I feared would never stop.
“Caspian,” Sorissa said.
My hesitation cost me again. The king had healed himself and stood before me. He was still in his moonlight form even though it must have taken a lot of moonlight to heal those wounds, to mend the bones I heard snap.
That was it.
Maybe that was all it would take.
If I could get him to run out of moonlight, he would be forced back into his base form. He would know there was no way he could beat me if that happened, right?
This was the answer I had been searching for. I had an end goal. The king would see I was real. He would have no power left to fight me, and he’d be forced to submit. It had to work. Dominic would have no choice but to call the match at my demands if the king could no longer fight me.
“It’s like you said, Sorissa. I’ll show them,” I thought.
“We’re all behind you.”
CHAPTER 32
CASPIAN
THE KING PUT AS large of a distance between us as he could manage without leaving the boundaries set for the fight—since that would have been seen as an act of cowardice. I darted for him again, using moonlight to achieve speeds even he couldn’t. He anticipated my move, but he didn’t anticipate how I could turn in less than a moment’s notice, altering my trajectory. I padded my back legs with extra moonlight to add an extra spring to my step. He successfully dodged me again, but he was too slow to do it a third time.
I barreled into him, knocking him onto his back and pinning him there. With the amount of moonlight I had, he couldn’t make me budge an inch. I could have easily lowered my head, bitten down on his throat and tore it open, but I didn’t. I jumped off him and paced back and forth, waiting for him to regain his breath. I saw a flash of blue in his eyes as he snarled, getting back on all four paws. I was making him mad.
Moonlight suddenly erupted from him in a shower of sparks that were white-hot. He ran for me with incredible speed—when not compared to my own. I could see the desperation. I knew this was his last chance. He was putting everything into this attack. Whether it hit or missed, his moonlight would be depleted. It was unusually reckless of him. Or he was throwing the fight…
I matched him but used a lot more moonlight for good measure, and I let him hit me. Our moonlight reacted in a similar way to when I fought Babaga for the last time. Our bodies never touched, but our moonlight bounced back against each other and set off an explosive reaction. The air popped, lightning flashed between us, and a sudden gale-force wind whipped around us, picking up anything close and throwing it across the garden. Like last time with Babaga, I hardly moved from my position, grounded by an extra dose of moonlight, while the king was blown back far out of the fight area and into some rose bushes.
This was how outmatched the king was when compared to the five of us. It was the ultimate humiliation. He had to give all he had to defeat the Phantom Prince, and he still failed.
Or is he playing you? I wondered.
I waited until I saw the signs. I waited until the king couldn’t hold on to his regal wolf any longer and reverted to his base form. Gray-speckled white fur receded in place of dark skin. Paws became hands and feet. The wolf was gone from him entirely. He tumbled unceremoniously out of the rose bushes, leaving fresh cuts on his skin that he wouldn’t be able to heal with moonlight because it was all gone until the next full moon. I shifted back, too.
The crowd was silent, eyes darting back and forth, anxious to see what would happen next.
“What the hell are you playing at?!” the king demanded. His fists were in the grass. Blood trickled down his lips. His eyes were burning. “Finish it!” Blood sprayed from his mouth, and he spat an extra globule of it onto the grass. Had he always looked so pitiful?
“I’m changing things,” I said.
The king growled, “No. You will kill me.”
I acknowledged the subtle brush of his dominance, his attempt to bend me to his will. It was nothing but his rage when he didn’t have any moonlight to back it up. I, on the other hand, had plenty of moonlight to reinforce my own dominance.
I went to meet him, calling on my moonlight at the same moment. Flames slowly drifted out of my body and grew and grew until they reached up to ten times my height. The king couldn’t hold my gaze. He was about to crumble under the weight of this immense power. I had never felt bigger.
“Submit,” I said. There was no room for doubt in my words. My voice was calm, cool as ice and steady like I had heard the king speak many times over.
I was vaguely aware of the gasps and horror passing through everyone who wasn’t my pack, everyone who had no idea how I had come to wield this power.
The king gritted his teeth and asked the question. “How is this possible?” He glanced over at my pack, trying to piece it all together.
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said. “Now submit.” The moonlight flames blazed brighter, almost white.
The king’s head bobbled as he struggled to look at me. He tried and tried, but he couldn’t meet my eyes. And I got worried. What if he never submitted? What if I kept demanding his surrender, but he was too proud to? Where would that leave me? What had he hoped to accomplish with such a reckless attack? Maybe he had used it before in an Alpha Challenge and had so much more moonlight than his opponent that it assured him victory? That was possible. But hadn’t he sensed and seen that I had much more moonlight than him tonight? I just knew I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t—
“I submit,” he said.
The growing tightness in my chest faded along with the king’s resistance. I deactivated my moonlight and let it drift directly back into my reserves, a still liquid pool sitting gray and quiet in my core.
“She has changed everything,” the king said, staring somewhere below my eyes. So, he did realize this was thanks to Sorissa.
“Yes, she has,” I replied.
The king trembled but raised his head just slightly. I caught his eyes with my own, no moonlight involved, and invited him to look at me as an equal.
“Protect her with your life, Caspian,” he said. “Don’t fail like I did.”
I tried to see the father I had known when I was
young, the king that existed when his mate lived and supported him, always standing by his side. But I couldn’t see him. He wasn’t there anymore. I wanted to bring him back. That was all I had ever wanted from him: for him to smile again, for him to love me again.
Dominic hesitated before saying, “Caspian wins.”
Then another brother, Alexander, stepped up, his dark-blue coat disheveled from the fight and anger in his eyes. His tone was mocking when he said, “Where did you get all that power, Caspian? You must have cheated somehow.”
“Enough of your insolence!” the king growled. “The strongest, the best able to protect this kingdom, is the alpha, the king.” He dropped down farther, face kissing the earth, prostrating himself before me, passing down his title and offering submission. I had never seen the king submit to anyone.
“Caspian!” Sorissa shouted and waved. “You did it!” I was relieved to see Phantom Fangs reacting similarly, to feel the support, warmth, happiness, and relief all melded together. We did it.
“You did it,” Aerre projected through our link. For some reason, that made me smile. It made the situation sink in a little more, like maybe this wasn’t a fluke. Maybe it only seemed too easy because it couldn’t have been anything but that when so much moonlight sat inside of me just waiting to be activated again.
My brother Julius came forward with the king’s jewel-encrusted silver crown and dark-blue robes, handing them off to Dominic who then came to me and placed the crown on my head. His hands were shaking, and his lips were pressed into a straight line. Then he wrapped the robe around me, hiding my naked ass from the denizens of the kingdom.
“Our new king.” He held out his arm to the large crowd gathered here, witnesses to everything that had transpired, the first to acknowledge… their new king. “Caspian.”
The crowd was hesitant at first, but then cheers broke out, started by my pack, and then Koren along with some other guards. Soon, cheers filled the night, and I couldn’t hear anything else.
