A Luna for Alpha Kieran-Chapter 301: Proud
Silence pressed in... but apparently the mother wasn’t done with the son.
So subtle it made Autumn’s stomach coil.
Karl’s spine arched in tiny jerks...
His fingers curled unnaturally tight...
His breath hitched in broken stutters that didn’t match pain alone.
Something was coiling around him.
Something invisible.
Something vile yet alive.
A faint ripple moved across the air...like heat distortion, but icy cold.
It slithered up Karl’s back... around his ribs... into his throat.
His eyes widened...slowly and he gagged on nothing.
Autumn’s breath shuddered in her chest as she watched.
Karl’s jaw clenched as if an unseen force was squeezing it shut.
Another thin line of black ichor trickled from the corner of his lip.
His mother hummed at the sight as if pleased to her core.
Hummed?!
Like this was a lullaby.
Her hand hovered lazily above him, fingers twitching ever so slightly...and every twitch made Karl jolt violently on the floor.
"Don’t..." he wheezed, voice strangled, barely audible.
"...Mother... please...I am dying anyway...it hurts..."
Her head tilted, amused.
"Oh Karl," she sighed, "you always sound the sweetest when you are terrified.But you have done something unforgivable...you must pay before this miserable second life that I blessed you with, withers..."
Her fingers curled... and Karl’s body convulsed.
" ... you brought Guardian filth right inside my den and that’s... unforgivable..."
A despicable gloom swallowed everything.
Karl’s back lifted off the ground as if pulled by hooks under his skin...
His legs kicked...
His throat strained with a choked scream that didn’t even fully escape.
Kieran lurched forward a step before stopping himself, jaw clenched so hard a vein pulsed at his temple.
Autumn felt his rage rising like a storm through the floor.
But their mother wasn’t done.
She stepped lightly around Karl, her heel tapping his knuckles as she passed, and with one gentle flick of her hand...
CRACK.
Karl’s arm snapped back against the ground, twisted wrong.
Autumn slapped a hand over her mouth, tears springing to her eyes.
There was something terribly vulnerable in seeing him sob.
Karl sobbed...not from the bone snapping—
but from the humiliation.
"Mother... stop... stop... I beg you...atleast..."
He spared Autumn a sideways glance. "At least not here... take me somewhere else... please... "
She leaned down, fingertips hovering above his chest.
" Awww... did you develop a soft corner for this tramp too? Awww... going for your brother’s girl? How mean..." She laughed out aloud. "Just like me! "
Another small pulse of darkness rolled out...
And Karl arched up with a silent scream.
The kind that ripped through a soul.
Kieran’s breath faltered.
His chest rose and fell... the more he watched...
Faster.
Harder.
He was shaking.
Their mother smiled wider. Then spoke in a poisonous whisper.
"Do you feel it, Karl?
It’s your essence unraveling.
Thread by thread.
Like pulling knots out of a dead man’s hair...still care about humiliation? Huh? Passion? All you must care about is your own despair..."
Karl’s body jerked... a horrible, twitching spasm.
His eyes rolled... then locked on Kieran again.
"Kieran...brother..." he gasped, breath tearing apart in his throat.
Kieran flinched like he had been stabbed.
Karl forced the words out through the agony crushing his lungs.
"Forgive me...I was naive...and forgive yourself...please...it wasn’t your fault..."
Autumn’s heart broke.
Kieran’s knees nearly buckled.
Their mother straightened, brushing invisible dust from her hands.
"Well. This is boring."
Her voice dripped with cold delight.
"Let’s make him... break properly...so we get a good end..."
Her hand rose again...
And the moment it did, the air began to tremble.
Karl’s scream...this time...tore out with full force.
It echoed off every stone...
...off the carved pillars...
...off Autumn’s bones.
Kieran’s eyes widened...
Then something inside him snapped.
His pupils shrank.
His breath stopped.
Every muscle in his body coiled violently, as if restrained by nothing more than his own fading restraint.
Freya whimpered in his arms...
"Kieran..." Autumn whispered desperately, reaching for him.
But Kieran was already gone.
He moved in one explosive, blurred snap of motion...
A leap
A rush
A step cutting through time...
And Autumn barely managed to catch Freya as he shoved her into her arms, hands trembling.
"Hold her tight," he rasped, voice raw...shaking.
Autumn clutched Freya to her chest, breath breaking.
"Kieran...what are you...be careful..."
But he didn’t answer.
Because Kieran...
Eyes burning...
Face twisted in anguish and fury...
Body trembling with barely suppressed rage...
...threw himself between Karl and their mother.
Taking the blow full on...
His feet skidded across the stone...
His arms spread protectively over his brother’s broken body...
His breath ripped out of him like fire...
And Kieran snarled like a beast awakened from a century long sacred slumber...
A sound Autumn had never heard from him.
"ENOUGH."
Kieran’s fingers locked around his mother’s wrist.Too firm. Iron clad.
The impact froze the entire chamber.
For a fraction of a second...
for a breath that felt like it lasted centuries...
the world held still.
His snarl rippled through the shadows.
"I SAID ENOUGH!"
The roar tore out of him like a crack in the universe, shaking dust from the stone walls.
Autumn felt the vibration travel through her bones as she clutched Freya closer.
Karl’s bleeding face twitched...maybe hope, maybe despair.
Kieran’s mother...did not flinch.
If anything...she glowed with delight.
Her lips curled, stretching into a smile far too wide, far too hungry.
She leaned in, their foreheads almost touching, her voice a venomous whisper dripping with glee.
"Finally..."
Her eyelids fluttered with manic satisfaction.
"Finally you have awakened your true self."
Her grin sharpened.
"Finally."
She pulled back, eyes glittering with triumph.
"I thought killing your brother would do that."
She chuckled softly, as if reminiscing about a fond childhood memory.
"I was wrong. I had to orchestrate so much... so much."
She paced...slow, deliberate steps backwards...her gown trailing across the floor like spilled darkness.
"Confusing your father was no easy task."
A lazy shrug.
"But I was wrong."
A laugh followed...an ugly grotesque laughter that could freeze souls...too loud, too delighted, echoing like broken bells.
She turned, hands clasped as if congratulating an experiment.
"I was so so wrong."
Then she spun towards Kieran again, eyes blazing with mad revelation.
"All you needed to do was protect him..."
Her voice softened... almost tender.
Almost loving.
Then she twirled away again, giggling like a scientist thrilled by her own creation.
Her pivot back to Karl was sharp...violent.
Karl’s breath hitched.
His blood dripped.
He stared at her like she was death itself.
She spread her arms wide.
"So here we go...let’s continue the drill..."
Her gaze flicked back to Kieran and her smile sharpened into something feral.
"Bring it on, Kieran."
Darkness around her pulsed.
"Bring. It. On."
A wicked chuckle escaped her.
"Let’s see what you have got."
Her smile stretched wider... and wider...
until it no longer looked human.
Then...she lunged.
Her hand shot past Kieran, claws flashing, and raked across Karl’s ribs.
Karl’s scream ripped through the congested air once more...
Autumn jerked forward instinctively, clutching Freya, her own breath shattering into pieces.
It was a good thing Freya was still half unconscious. She didn’t have to see these things... She had seen enough already...
Kieran moved.
In slow motion, his arm swept out, blocking the next strike.
Muscles burning.
Veins glowing.
Jaw clenched so hard it trembled.
"STOP RIGHT NOW."
His voice was low. Dangerous. A final warning.
But she didn’t stop.
She tilted her head...a predator amused.
Then she struck again.
And again.
And again.
Claws cutting the air, sparks flying as Kieran deflected each attempt with brutal precision.
Karl whimpered, shrinking against the stone, hands shaking, tears mixing with blood.
Autumn’s heart broke at the sound.
But their mother’s laughter only grew sweeter.
"Oh come now, son..."
Her tone mocked, sing-song, dripping venom.
"You can do better than this."
She slashed again...this time angling past Kieran’s guard.
Her nails sliced across Karl’s shoulder...
And that was it.
Something inside Kieran snapped.
The world bent around him.
A deep, thunderous crack burst from the ground beneath his feet as power surged through him, rippling like a shockwave.
His eyes...
once burning red...
now blazed with a blinding, ancient gold.
Autumn gasped.
Karl froze.
Even the shadows recoiled.
Their mother stepped back...not out of fear, but anticipation, her lips curling slowly upward.
"There it is..."
Her voice was breathless.
Excited.
Unhinged.
"YES."
Kieran roared...a sound that split the air, shaking the chamber.
His power exploded outward, throwing dust, tearing cracks into stone, lifting his mother off her feet for a heartbeat...
Her hair whipped violently around her face as she hovered, giggling.
Giggling.
And then...
she laughed.
A high, wild, maniacal laughter that echoed through the cavern like shards of broken glass.
"FINALLY!"
She screamed with delight.
"SHOW ME MORE, KIERRAN!"
She opened her arms wide, as if welcoming the blow.
"MAKE ME PROUD,MY SON. AT LEAST ONE OF YOU SHOULD. I AM COUNTING ON YOU KIERAN."
Her laughter kept rising...
shrill, deranged, victorious...
as the golden storm around Kieran surged higher, brighter, stronger.
