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Cast Out by My Pack, Crowned Luna of the North
Novelix
Completed
Born with a crimson Moon Mark, Lyra is hidden, abused, and replaced by a beautiful girl her pack worships as the Moon-Blessed Daughter. Seventeen years later, when Silvercrest needs a bride for the feared Northern Alpha, they cast Lyra out in Serena’s place. But the moment Lyra crosses the border, Silvercrest’s blessing begins to die—and the frozen North starts to heal. Welcomed as Luna and valued for the first time, Lyra must decide what to do when the family and pack that rejected her come begging for her return.
Chapters (3)
第1章
The night I am born, our pack's Seer tells the Alpha, “The Luna’s daughter is the Moon-Blessed Daughter.”
But my mother takes one look at the dark red mark covering half my face, turns away, and switches me with another newborn girl that very night.
From then on, the beautiful girl becomes the Alpha and Luna's precious daughter, worshiped by the entire pack, while I become the ugly girl everyone in the Second Mate's household treats like dirt.
-
Seventeen years later, I sit inside the carriage waiting to leave Silvercrest Pack.
A thin veil covers my face.
One of the servants told me it would be better if the Northern Pack did not see my mark before I reached the border.
Outside, pack members fill the road.
They are not here to see me off.
They are here for Serena.
She stands beside the Alpha and Luna in a white cloak, surrounded by people praying for her blessing.
No one asks why the Moon-Blessed Daughter is not the one being sent north.
Serena cannot leave.
So I have to.
A servant lifts the carriage curtain.
Serena steps closer.
“Lyra.”
Her voice is soft enough to sound kind.
“Don’t blame Father and Mother. The pack needs me here, and the Northern Alpha demanded a bride. Someone has to go.”
I look at her through the veil.
She is wearing the silver moon pin reserved for the Luna’s firstborn daughter.
She has worn it for three years.
I have never been allowed to touch it.
“You really think Silvercrest can’t survive without you?” I ask.
Her smile tightens for half a second.
“Of course not.”
She leans closer.
“Everyone knows what I am.”
I say nothing.
Serena lowers her voice.
“Besides, I heard the Northern Alpha hates ugly things.”
My fingers curl under my cloak.
She always expects me to react when she hurts me, and I never give her what she wants.
When Vivienne punished me, Serena liked to watch.
When servants laughed at my face, Serena always told me not to be angry with them.
Once, after I was locked in my room, she sent me a mirror.
She said I should get used to looking at myself.
Today is no different.
Instead, I lift my eyes to hers.
“Then you’d better protect them.”
Her smile fades.
“What?”
I do not answer.
The driver closes the carriage door.
A moment later, the wheels begin to move.
Behind me, voices rise from the road.
“Bless Silvercrest, Serena!”
“May the Moon Goddess keep you safe!”
“Protect us, Moon-Blessed Daughter!”
I sit still as the voices grow smaller.
No one calls my name.
No one asks me to come back.
Inside my sleeve, my fingers close around an old piece of carved stone.
The Seer left it before he was driven out of Silvercrest.
The words are worn, but I have read them so many times I no longer need to see them.
The Luna’s firstborn daughter bears the Moon Mark.
As long as she remains, the pack will prosper.
The day she leaves, Silvercrest will fall into danger.
第2章
I was born when Silvercrest was running out of food.
Game had vanished from the surrounding woods, and hunters had been returning empty-handed for weeks.
The night I was born, the howls of a successful hunt finally echoed through the pack.
Mara, the old servant who raised me, told me what happened that night before she died.
The left side of my face was covered by a dark red mark that ran from the corner of my eye to my jaw.
Celeste stared at it, her expression turning cold.
“How can she look like that?”
Outside the room, Alpha Darius asked if the Luna and the baby were well.
Celeste stayed silent for a long time.
Then she said, “We’re fine.”
The Seer arrived before dawn.
He looked at me once and bowed his head.
“The Luna’s firstborn daughter carries the blessing of the Moon Goddess.”
Darius was thrilled.
Celeste only stared at my face like it was something she wanted gone.
Vivienne had also given birth that night.
Her daughter was healthy, pale, and beautiful.
When Celeste saw her, she made her choice.
“Give me your daughter,” she told Vivienne.
Vivienne thought she had heard wrong.
Celeste pointed at me.
“You take this one.”
Vivienne hesitated.
Celeste did not.
“Everyone already knows my daughter was blessed by the Seer. If they see that mark, they’ll call her cursed.”
Vivienne looked at her own baby.
Then at me.
And agreed.
By morning, Serena Vale had become Serena Ashbourne, the precious daughter of the Alpha and Luna.
I became Lyra Vale, the unwanted daughter of the Second Mate.
No one outside those rooms knew the truth.
Vivienne never hid how much she resented having me around.
She kept me away from the main rooms of the pack house.
The servants left my food outside the door and walked away.
Sometimes it was cold. Sometimes there was barely enough to eat.
They called me ugly and cursed, and Vivienne never stopped them.
When she was angry, she had me brought to her.
She would sit there and stare at my face.
“Do you know what’s wrong with you?”
I learned early not to answer.
“You look like that.”
Sometimes she hit me.
Sometimes she let someone else do it.
But she always came back to the same thing.
“If it weren’t for you, my daughter would have grown up with me.”
I did not understand what she meant.
Until I was seven.
One winter night, I heard voices near the courtyard.
Celeste and Vivienne were arguing.
I hid behind the stone wall and listened.
“Keep her out of the Moon Ceremony,” Celeste said.
Vivienne laughed.
“Why? Afraid someone might notice?”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Everyone already worships Serena. No one is going to look twice at that ugly girl.”
Celeste went quiet.
Vivienne’s voice dropped.
“She’s still your daughter, Celeste.”
I stopped breathing.
Celeste did not deny it.
Vivienne laughed again.
“Or have you forgotten that too?”
第3章
I stayed behind that wall until my feet went numb from the cold.
Celeste never denied what Vivienne said.
That was how I learned the truth.
Celeste was my mother. Serena was Vivienne’s daughter.
Mara died that same winter.
Before she died, she called me to her room and pressed the old carved stone into my hand.
“Keep this hidden.”
I looked down at it.
“What is it?”
“Something the Seer left behind.”
My fingers tightened around it.
I asked the question I had wanted to ask for years.
“Is my face really that ugly?”
Mara’s eyes filled with tears.
“No.”
I did not believe her.
She touched the red mark carefully.
“The Seer said this was never a curse. He called it the Moon Mark.”
I stared at her.
“Then why does everyone hate it?”
Mara closed my fingers around the stone.
“Don’t tell anyone what you heard. Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because they won’t believe you.”
She was right.
Serena was already loved by the entire pack.
No one would believe me, so I stayed quiet.
By the time Serena turned ten, Silvercrest had built a Moon Temple in her honor.
Pack members came every month to pray for Serena’s blessing.
On those days, I was locked inside my room because the servants said my face would ruin the ceremony.
Everyone celebrated Serena. No one remembered me.
Two years later, Serena came to see me alone.
She carried a pretty box of candies.
I was cleaning ash from the fireplace when she walked in.
She looked around the room.
Then she looked at me.
“Do you hate me?”
I kept cleaning and asked, “For what?”
“For having everything.”
“I know I’m not Celeste’s real daughter.”
The piece of charcoal in my hand snapped.
“Relax. I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“Why not?”
She looked at me like I’d asked something stupid.
“What would I get from that?”
She stood and came closer.
Her eyes moved over the mark on my face.
“It’s kind of sad, really.”
“You’re the real one.”
She lowered her voice.
“But look at you.”
I turned my face away when she reached toward the mark.
Her expression changed.
Only for a second.
Then she smiled again.
“You think the truth matters?”
I looked at her.
“Celeste won’t claim you. Darius won’t believe you. The pack already loves me.”
She placed the candy box on the table.
“And no one wants the Moon-Blessed Daughter to look like you.”
“Anyway, it’s my birthday. The whole pack is celebrating.”
She smiled.
“I thought you should have something too.”
Then she left.
It was my birthday too.
We were born the same night.
The entire pack remembered hers, but no one remembered mine.
Vivienne came in later and saw the box.
Her face went cold.
“You touched Serena’s things?”
“She brought it.”
Vivienne kicked the box off the table.
The candies rolled across the floor.
“You don’t deserve anything from her.”
That night, she made me kneel outside in the snow.
By midnight, I could no longer feel my legs.
From the courtyard, I could still see the Moon Temple glowing in the distance.
Hundreds of lights burned for Serena while I knelt alone in the snow.
And she knew every one of them should have been mine.
