Chapter 3 THE INVITATION IN RED

# ALPHATED!

## CHAPTER THREE ### The Invitation in Red

Rose Luna had never believed in fate.

Fate was the excuse people used when they wanted to make sense of things they could not control. It was what people blamed when their plans fell apart, when someone they loved walked away, or when life handed them something they had never asked for.

Rose preferred explanations she could understand.

Unfortunately, the strange letter lying beneath her bedroom door had none.

It was made of thick, ivory-colored paper, sealed with a red wax emblem depicting a crescent moon surrounded by seven sharp points. Her name was written across the front in elegant black handwriting.

**Rose Luna.**

Not Rose L. Luna, the name printed on her school records. Not Miss Luna, the way her teachers addressed her when she was in trouble.

Just Rose Luna.

As though whoever had sent it knew her better than she knew herself.

She crouched beside the door and picked it up, turning it over in her hands. There was no return address, no stamp, and no indication of how it had reached her bedroom in the first place.

Her mother had gone to bed hours ago. The front door was locked, the windows were shut, and their little house sat quietly beneath the pale glow of the moon.

Yet someone had delivered a letter directly to her room.

Rose frowned.

"Okay," she whispered to herself. "Either someone is being dramatic, or I need to start locking more than one door."

She broke the seal.

Inside was a single sheet of paper.

*To Rose Luna,*

*You are formally invited to the Blood Moon Gathering at the Sanguinara Estate, to be held on the night of the coming full moon.*

*Your presence is expected.*

*Some doors were closed before you were old enough to remember them. Some truths were buried before you were old enough to ask questions.*

*It is time to return what was hidden.*

*Come alone.*

*-The Keepers of the Blood Moon*

Rose read it twice.

Then a third time.

By the end of the third reading, she had developed several questions, none of which the letter seemed interested in answering.

Who were the Keepers of the Blood Moon?

What was the Sanguinara Estate?

And, most importantly, why did a group of mysterious people she had never heard of believe they could order her to attend their gathering?

She turned the letter over, searching for more information.

Nothing.

"Absolutely not."

She dropped it onto her desk and walked away.

For approximately twelve seconds.

Then she returned, picked it up, and examined the seal again.

The crescent moon looked strangely familiar.

Not because she had seen the emblem before, but because something about it stirred a feeling she could not explain. It was like hearing a song from childhood and recognizing the melody without remembering the words.

A dull ache settled behind her eyes.

Rose blinked, and the sensation disappeared.

She shook her head.

She was tired. That was all.

Still, when she finally climbed into bed, she placed the letter inside the drawer of her bedside table rather than throwing it away.

She told herself it was because she might need evidence if someone tried to pull another ridiculous stunt.

She did not tell herself the truth.

Somewhere deep inside, she was afraid that the letter had been looking for her long before she was born.

***

The following morning, Rose discovered that secrets were apparently contagious.

Her mother was acting strangely.

It started with breakfast. Usually, Elena Luna was the sort of woman who could discuss three different things before Rose had finished one sentence. That morning, she sat across from her daughter with a cup of untouched tea, staring at the table as though it contained the answer to a question she had been asking for years.

Rose noticed immediately.

"Mum?"

Elena looked up too quickly. "Yes, sweetheart?"

"Are you okay?"

"Of course."

"You've been stirring the same cup of tea for five minutes."

Elena glanced at the spoon in her hand and stopped moving it.

"Oh." She gave a small, unconvincing laugh. "I suppose I haven't slept very well."

Rose studied her.

"Did something happen?"

"No."

The answer came too fast.

Rose leaned back in her chair.

"That's interesting."

Elena's fingers tightened around the spoon.

"What is?"

"Yesterday, I found a mysterious letter beneath my bedroom door. Today, you're acting like you've seen a ghost. So either the universe has decided to ruin my week, or you know something you're not telling me."

For a moment, her mother did not move.

Then she stood.

"Where is the letter?"

Rose's stomach tightened.

She had not mentioned the invitation.

Not a single word.

Slowly, she rose from her chair.

"How do you know there's a letter?"

Elena looked at her, and the expression on her face frightened Rose more than any mysterious invitation could have.

It was not confusion.

It was recognition.

"You opened it?" her mother whispered.

Rose stared at her.

"Mum, what is going on?"

Elena pressed a hand to her mouth. For one brief moment, she looked as though she might tell Rose everything.

Instead, she turned away.

"You must stay away from that estate."

Rose's heart began to pound.

"Why?"

"Because you don't understand what those people are capable of."

"What people?"

Elena closed her eyes.

"The Sanguinaras."

The name hung between them.

Rose remembered the letter.

The Sanguinara Estate.

A cold feeling crept down her spine.

"You know them."

Her mother did not answer.

"Mum."

"Promise me you won't go."

Rose's confusion gave way to frustration.

"You cannot drop a mysterious family name into a conversation, look terrified, and expect me to promise something without explaining why!"

"Rose, please."

"No. You've spent my entire life telling me that honesty matters. So why are you suddenly asking me to trust you when you won't even tell me what I'm supposed to be afraid of?"

Elena's eyes filled with tears.

That silenced Rose.

Her mother rarely cried. Even during the hardest years of Rose's childhood, Elena had always found a way to remain steady in front of her.

Seeing her like this made Rose's anger falter.

"I am trying to protect you," Elena said quietly.

"From what?"

Elena looked toward the window.

Outside, the morning sunlight fell across the garden, illuminating the ordinary world Rose had always known.

"From a past that should have remained buried."

Before Rose could ask another question, someone knocked at the front door.

Three sharp knocks.

Elena went completely still.

Rose turned toward the hallway.

"Are you expecting someone?"

"No," her mother whispered.

The knock came again.

This time, Elena grabbed Rose's wrist.

"Listen to me carefully. Whatever happens, do not tell them anything about your dreams. Do not show them anything that belongs to your grandmother, and whatever they say about fate-"

She stopped abruptly.

Rose stared at her.

"My dreams? Grandma's things? What does fate have to do with any of this?"

The knocking stopped.

A voice came through the door.

"Mrs. Luna? We know you're home."

Elena released Rose's wrist as if she had been burned.

Then she whispered a name Rose had never heard before.

"Xander."

***

The man standing outside wore a black suit and an expression that suggested he had never once been inconvenienced by the world.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and impeccably dressed. His dark hair was brushed away from his forehead, and a silver pin shaped like a crescent moon rested against his lapel.

He looked too young to be frightening.

And yet, the moment Elena opened the door, she stepped backward.

"Xander Sanguinara."

He inclined his head politely.

"Mrs. Luna."

His gaze shifted past her shoulder.

It found Rose.

For one strange second, the air seemed to disappear from the hallway.

Xander's expression changed.

Not dramatically. He did not gasp or stumble. But something in his eyes sharpened, and the hand resting beside his thigh curled into a fist.

Rose noticed.

She also noticed that he was staring at her as though she were someone he had spent years searching for.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

Xander did not answer immediately.

Instead, he looked at Elena.

"You received the notice."

"I received nothing."

His gaze dropped briefly to the red wax seal visible through the open drawer of the bedside table behind Rose.

A faint, humorless smile touched his lips.

"Then someone has been careless."

Elena moved between them.

"You have no right to come here."

"On the contrary, I have every right to ask why a name recorded in the sacred register has been concealed for eighteen years."

Rose's attention snapped to him.

"A name recorded where?"

Xander looked at her again.

This time, he seemed to make a decision.

"The Blood Moon Gathering is not merely a celebration, Rose Luna. It is a gathering of the great werewolf families, and this year, the Sanguinara dynasty will announce a discovery that could change everything we know about our bloodlines."

Rose stared at him.

Then she laughed once, sharply.

"Did you just say werewolf families?"

"Yes."

"Actual werewolves?"

"That is generally what the term means."

She looked at her mother.

"Mum?"

Elena's silence was worse than any answer.

Rose turned back to Xander.

"You expect me to believe that werewolves exist, that your family has some sacred register, and that I'm somehow involved because someone sent me an invitation?"

"I expect nothing from you," he replied. "I came to deliver a message."

He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a narrow black envelope.

The same crescent moon emblem had been stamped into its surface.

"Your attendance is requested at the estate on the night of the full moon."

"Requested?" Rose folded her arms. "Your letter said expected."

"Then the person who wrote it has a poor understanding of manners."

Despite herself, Rose almost smiled.

Almost.

"Well, here's my response. I'm not going."

Xander studied her for a moment.

"That may be more difficult than you think."

"Is that a threat?"

"No. It is a warning."

He placed the envelope on the small table beside the door.

Then he stepped back.

"Ask your mother about the night you were born, Rose. Ask her why your grandmother insisted that your name be entered into no public record beyond your birth certificate. And ask her what happened to the family that disappeared before you were old enough to remember them."

Elena's face had gone white.

Rose felt the floor shift beneath her feet.

"What family?"

Xander's expression became unreadable.

"Your family."

He turned to leave.

"Wait!"

Rose moved toward the doorway, but he had already reached the gate.

She watched him walk toward a black car parked outside their house.

Before entering it, he looked back at her.

For a heartbeat, his eyes seemed almost troubled.

Then he disappeared inside the vehicle, and the car drove away.

Rose stood in the doorway long after it was gone.

When she finally turned around, her mother was crying.

"Mum," she whispered. "What haven't you told me?"

Elena sank onto the sofa.

"I wanted you to have a normal life."

Rose's chest tightened.

"Was that ever possible?"

Her mother looked up.

"No," she admitted. "But I wanted you to have the chance to believe it was."

***

That afternoon, Rose searched her grandmother's old belongings.

She had not visited the storage room at the back of the house in years. It smelled of dust, cedarwood, and forgotten memories. Old photographs sat in cardboard boxes, and folded blankets occupied the shelves beside a collection of books Elena had never allowed her to throw away.

Rose searched for anything bearing the crescent moon emblem.

She found it inside a wooden box beneath a stack of faded photographs.

A silver pendant.

It was shaped like a crescent moon, but unlike the emblem on the letters, this one had a tiny circle engraved at its center. Delicate markings ran along its curved edge, so fine that Rose had to hold it close to the window to see them clearly.

Beneath the pendant lay a bundle of letters tied together with a red ribbon.

The first letter was addressed to Elena.

The second was addressed to Rose.

Her hands trembled as she unfolded it.

*My dearest Rose,*

*If you are reading this, then the seal has weakened, and the world has begun to remember what we worked so hard to hide.*

*You may have been told that you are ordinary. You may have been raised to believe that your life belongs entirely to you.*

*Hold on to that belief for as long as you can.*

*But understand this: your blood remembers what your mind does not.*

*When the moon turns red, someone will come looking for you.*

*Do not trust the first person who claims to know your destiny.*

*And whatever happens, never let the Sanguinara family see the mark.*

Rose stopped reading.

A mark?

She looked down at her hands, then at her arms.

Nothing.

Confused, she turned the letter over.

At the bottom of the page was a final sentence, written in a different hand.

*The Lunar line was never destroyed. It was hidden.*

Rose read the words until they blurred.

The Lunar line.

Her grandmother had never spoken about a Lunar line. Elena had never mentioned one, either.

And yet the letter made it sound as though Rose had inherited a secret older than her own existence.

She reached for the pendant.

The moment her fingers closed around the silver, warmth spread through her palm.

Rose gasped and dropped it.

It struck the wooden floor with a soft metallic sound.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the room grew cold.

A whisper slipped through the silence.

Not from the hallway.

Not from outside the window.

From somewhere inside her mind.

*At last.*

Rose stumbled backward.

The pendant lay on the floor, its engraved markings glowing faintly beneath the afternoon light.

And on the inside of Rose's left wrist, a pale crescent began to appear.

She stared at it in disbelief.

Then, somewhere far beyond the ordinary world she had known all her life, a bell rang inside the Sanguinara Estate.

Xander Sanguinara stood before an ancient stone chamber as the sound echoed through the corridors.

A silver register rested on a pedestal at its center.

Its pages had remained unchanged for eighteen years.

Until now.

A new line of writing appeared beneath the name of the heir to the Blood Moon dynasty.

**XANDER SANGUINARA - DESTINED MATE: ROSE LUNA.**

Xander stared at the words.

For the first time in his life, the future he had been trained to accept had become something he could not control.

"No," he whispered.

Behind him, an elderly guardian bowed his head.

"The sacred register has spoken, my lord."

Xander's jaw tightened.

"The register is wrong."

"It has never been wrong."

"Then perhaps it's time someone taught it how."

The guardian lifted his eyes.

"You cannot challenge a bond written into the blood."

Xander turned toward him, his expression cold.

"Watch me."

But before the guardian could respond, a second line began forming beneath the first.

The ink was not silver this time.

It was black.

And the ancient words that emerged had not appeared in the register for centuries.

**THE SEALED LUNAR HEIR HAS AWAKENED.**

The chamber doors slammed shut.

Every candle went out.

And deep beneath the estate, behind a door that had remained locked since the fall of the ancient Lunar kingdom, something began to move.