[Daphne’s POV]
I need to get away from the pack house. Away from Connor's loaded comments and Hector's increasingly possessive touches and the suffocating weight of pretending everything is normal when my entire world is fracturing.
The forest calls to me—the same way it has since childhood, when hiding among the trees was the only escape from cruelty. I tell the guards I'm gathering medicinal herbs for the pack healer. They let me pass without question. Who would stop the Luna?
The irony tastes bitter.
I've been walking for maybe twenty minutes when I hear footsteps behind me. Light. Careful. Trying to be quiet.
I turn, and Talia emerges from the tree line. Her perfect face is twisted with something ugly—hatred so pure it makes the air feel poisonous.
"Luna," she says, the title dripping with venom. "How convenient. I was hoping to find you alone."
My wolf—the one I've never met, never felt—stirs uneasily inside my chest. Warning. Danger.
"Talia." I keep my voice steady, though my heart races. "I'm just gathering herbs. I don't want any trouble."
"Of course you don't." She moves closer, circling me like a predator. "You never want trouble. You just want to spread your legs for every Blackthorn male and call it fate."
The crude words make me flinch. "I don't know what you—"
"Don't lie." Her eyes flash. "I've seen how Xander looks at you. How you look at him. You're fucking him too, aren't you? Not content with stealing the Alpha, you had to have his son as well."
"I haven't stolen anyone." My hands clench into fists. "Hector chose—"
"Hector chose wrong." She lunges forward, shoving me hard.
I stumble backward, my foot catching on a root. The world tilts as I realize too late where we are—the cliff edge overlooking the rapids. The place pack members are warned to avoid because the rocks below are jagged and the current deadly.
"Talia, wait—"
But she shoves again, harder this time, and suddenly there's nothing beneath my feet but air.
I fall.
The scream tears from my throat as I plummet toward the river below. Wind whips past my face, my dress billowing uselessly. Time stretches—seconds feeling like hours as I watch the cliff face blur past, as I see Talia's face above me, shocked and satisfied and terrified all at once.
I hit the water like hitting concrete.
The impact drives the air from my lungs. Icy cold envelops me, and the current immediately drags me under, spinning me disoriented through darkness. My dress tangles around my legs. Rocks scrape my skin. I can't tell which way is up.
My lungs burn. I need air. Need to surface. But the current is too strong, pulling me deeper, slamming me against submerged boulders that bruise ribs and split skin.
I'm going to die.
The thought comes with strange clarity. I survived Connor's rejection, Hector's manipulation, the impossible situation with Xander—only to drown because Talia finally got brave enough to kill me.
My vision starts to dim. My struggles weaken. Water fills my nose, my throat—
And then something inside me roars.
Something big. Old. More powerful than anything I've felt before.
Heat explodes through my body—not the drugged heat from Hector's tea, but something primal and wild. Magic surges through my veins like lightning, and suddenly my bones are breaking, reshaping, reforming.
The shift happens in seconds but feels like eternity.
My body elongates, muscles rippling into new configurations. My face pushes forward into a muzzle. Fur erupts across my skin—pure white, gleaming even in the murky water. My hands become massive paws tipped with claws that could rend steel.
I am wolf.
My wolf breaks the surface with powerful strokes, swimming against the current that tried to kill my human form. The bank is close—I reach it in moments, hauling myself onto the rocks with strength I've never possessed.
I shake water from my fur and feel everything. The forest is alive with scents—prey, predators, pack members in the distance. I can hear heartbeats, smell fear, sense the subtle shifts in air pressure that signal movement.
And above me, on the cliff, Talia stares down with her face frozen in horror.
I crouch and leap.
The jump should be impossible—thirty feet straight up jagged cliff face. But my wolf makes it look easy, claws finding purchase in stone, muscles bunching and releasing until I'm standing on the cliff edge, water dripping from my white fur.
Talia staggers back, eyes wild. “No—you can’t—”
I advance, slow and deliberate.
She drops to her knees, head bowed. “It was an accident! I tried to catch you—please, Luna, I swear—”
Liar.
A growl rolls out of me—low, deciding.
“I’m sorry!” she sobs. “I was jealous and stupid—please don’t kill me!”
Rage flares. Years of her taunts, spilled wine, sneers. And now this—murder.
I launch.
Paws crash into her shoulders, slamming her down. She screams as my weight pins her, my muzzle inches from her throat. One bite and it’s over. Pack law would bless it—she tried to kill the Luna.
“I’ll never cross you again!” Talia gasps, shaking. “I swear on the Moon Goddess—I’ll bow—please, Daphne—”
My jaws open. Fangs gleam.
"Daphne!"
The voice cuts through my rage like a blade.
Xander.
My head snaps toward the sound, and there he is—bursting through the tree line, his eyes wild, his clothes torn like he's been running. When our gazes lock, the entire world goes quiet.
The bond between us—the incomplete pull I've felt for weeks—suddenly flares. Not just attraction or want or even love. Recognition. The kind that goes soul-deep, that transcends pack law and forced bonds and everything keeping us apart.
Fated mates.
The truth slams into me with the force of destiny itself. This is what I've been feeling. What's been clawing inside my chest, trying to break free. Not just a bond forming despite pack law—but the true mate bond the Moon Goddess herself designed.
Xander is mine. Has always been mine. Will always be mine.
He rushes forward, frantically talking. "I felt it—something was wrong, something was off—and then this surge of power, this magic that nearly drove me to my knees—" He stops a few feet away, taking in my wolf form with wonder and fear. "Your wolf. Gods, Daphne, your wolf is—"
Massive. I know without seeing myself. Larger than any she-wolf should be. My fur pure white and gleaming. My eyes—I can feel them—glowing with power that has nothing to do with being wolfless all these years and everything to do with something I don't understand yet.
Talia whimpers beneath me, and I remember she's there. My attention shifts back to her, growling low.
"Let her go," Xander says quietly. "She's not worth it. Not worth what killing her would do to you."
He's right. I know he's right. But the rage still burns hot.
Talia seems to sense my hesitation. "I swear," she gasps out. "I swear I'll never hurt you again. Never speak against you. Never—please, just let me go—"
I hold her gaze for a long moment. Let her see the predator I've become. The Luna she tried to murder. The wolf who could end her with one snap of powerful jaws.
Then I step back.
She scrambles away immediately, bowing repeatedly as she retreats. "Thank you, Luna. Thank you—" She flees into the forest, leaving us alone.
The adrenaline starts to fade, and suddenly I'm aware of how much energy the shift took. How my body—new, powerful, unfamiliar—is already trembling with exhaustion.
Xander moves closer, his hands raised like he's approaching a spooked animal. "Easy, little wolf. You're safe now. You're—"
I try to shift back. Try to find my human form through instinct alone. My bones crack, reshaping, fur receding. The world blurs as I change, and when I'm finally human again—naked, shivering, covered in blood and river water—my legs give out.
Xander catches me before I hit the ground.
"I've got you," he murmurs, shrugging out of his jacket to wrap around my shoulders. "I've got you. You're safe."
My last conscious thought is of white fur and fated bonds and the impossible choice between duty and destiny.
Then nothing.