The ground beneath me pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat matching my own. I could feel the earth, the air, the life pulsing through every root, every tree, every soul within reach.

"What am I?" I whispered.  “What is happening to me?"

Della stepped closer, her expression gentler now. "That’s a question only you can answer, Mira. But you’re not just a wolf. And you’re not just your mother’s daughter."

"What does that mean?" My voice rose, but she only gave me that same unreadable smile.

The clearing was silent, save for the soft crackling of the torches placed around the perimeter and the rustle of leaves dancing in the evening breeze. Through the corner of my eyes, I saw creatures gather, their eyes and undivided attention all on me, and it only made me want to disappear even more.

Della was hovering above me, her voice echoing in my head, probing and intense. “Tell me what you feel, Mira."

It—whatever it was—was starting to overwhelm me. It kept swirling like an over-agigated turnado, threatening to take everything in it's hurl.

"Tell me how you feel, Mirabel.” She pressed.

My nails dug into my palm. "I can't explain. Make it stop. Make it stop, please."

“If we stop now, you'll never discover what's inside you. You have to push, it's not meant to be easy, but you can't give up. Tell me. Tell me how you feel, Mira."

Is this woman listening to me?

“I said make it stop!" I growled angrily, my eyes snapping open.

She took a step back, her expression changing from shock to collected in the twinkle of an eye.

I heard another voice. “Mother, I think we should stop. We don't know what she's capable of. It's dangerous.”

He appeared before me, my vision blurry. Della said, "I'm not in control. She is.”

"Make it stop!” I yelled again, as voices began to echo in my head. I was clearly in pain.

"That's it. I'm putting her to sleep." I heard a voice say, and the next minute, I saw darkness settle.

The shadows shifted at the edge of the clearing, a low whisper curling through the trees, and for a fleeting second, it felt like the forest itself was calling my name.

Mira.

Whatever I was, it was waking up.

***

“Mira!"

The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. Not until I opened my eyes, and I saw him.

A sharp glint flashed through his eyes, as they met mine. “You're awake. Finally!"

I blinked, trying to adjust to all the light. My head was spinning, doing very little to stop the reeling room.

He walked closer to me, waving a palm over my eyes. “Can you recognize me? It's Luca."

I took him in. He was handsome, his eyes were brown and held this calm, yet tempting gaze. His jaws were fixed, and his body was properly masculine, with chest sculpted to perfection.

He reminded me so much of him.

“Say something, Mira." He tried again.

I sat up, taking in the room. “How long have I been unconscious?" I asked, my voice coming out in a tiny whisper.

“About 24 hours, you gave us quite a scare." Luca said. “How do you feel?"

My mind drifted back to the scene right before I passed out. I had never felt that way before, like I was someone else entirely—someone I couldn't recognize.

“What is happening to me?" I asked again.

Luca heaved. I watched him pull a chair, and sit beside me. “I’ll tell you the little I know.” He paused slightly, fixing his eyes on me. "Your mother, and mine built this village. A safe place where creatures like us—who people felt were too much for them—could call home. My mum trusted so much in your mother, they were best friends, yes, but my mum looked up to yours more.”

He paused again. "Like I heard, yours was more powerful, and when she died, she made mine promise that you would cross the lengths she couldn't. So it might seem like my mum was doing too much, but I promise she was just trying to fulfill her promise.”

I swallowed, trying to piece everything I just heard.

"You'll get a more reasonable explanation form Mother, or maybe you can get them for yourself, but first you need to figure out who you really are. Are you ready to do that?”

A deep breath escaped as he added, “It's what your mother would have wanted."

I hesitated, feeling the same feeling from earlier rise all over again. “Fine! Let's try again."

He took me to the same field where Della was waiting. She looked briefly at me, then turned to her son. “Is she ready?"

Luca looked at me. "Are you?”

I nodded. "Let's do this!”

They led me to the center, my feet bare against the cool dirt, eyes closed, sweat glistening on my brow. The air felt heavier here, charged with a kind of energy I couldn’t fully understand—like something ancient was watching.

“Again,” Della’s calm voice carried from the edge of the circle. “Feel, don’t force.”

I exhaled sharply, clenching my fists at my sides. My skin tingled with raw, unstable power, just beneath the surface, too wild to grasp. “I’m trying,” I muttered through gritted teeth. “It’s—there, and then it’s not.”

Beside Della, Cara stood with her hands clasped, watching me with an odd mixture of awe and unease. Even the young hybrid could sense it—the shifting energy inside me wasn’t normal. It wasn’t just my wolf.

“You’re not trying to call your wolf,” Della said softly, stepping closer. “You’re trying to call yourself. Every part of you.”

My eyes snapped open. “What does that even mean?” Frustration bled into my voice. “I know who I am.”

“No,” Della said gently. “You know who you were told you were.”

My breath caught in my throat. I wanted to argue, to reject the implication, but some part of me knew Della was right. There had always been something—an undercurrent of difference I couldn’t name, even as a pup. My connection to the land, the way I  sometimes sensed things before they happened, the strange dreams I dismissed as fantasy. It was all connected, and I'd been too blind to see.

“Try again,” Della instructed. “This time, don’t just look for your wolf. Look for the piece of yourself you’ve been told to forget.”

I swallowed hard, closing my eyes once more. I inhaled, pulling the cool night air into my lungs, letting it settle. This time, I didn’t reach for the silver thread of my wolf’s spirit, the familiar connection I'd always leaned on. Instead, I let go—opening myself to everything.

The earth hummed beneath my feet, the air shifted, and a faint pulse thrummed through my chest.

And then the visions began.

I didn't know what I was expecting, but this was way beyond it.

The first vision came in flashes—fragments of sound and color, the way memory distorts with time.

A woman stood at the edge of a darkened clearing, her silhouette backlit by a dying fire. Her hands clutched a leather-bound book—the same book I had stolen. Her fingers trembled, not with fear, but with urgency. It was my mother.

“Take it,” her voice said, though her face was blurred in the vision. “Take the book, and take this.”

A glint of silver caught the firelight—a ring, intricately carved with ancient runes I couldn’t read. My mother pressed it into the hands of a shadowed figure. “You must hide it. Both of them. They can never find it.”

“Who?” the figure whispered.

“The Council. The Darkborn. Even the Alphas. They’ll all want it. They’ll all want her.” Her mother’s voice shook. “Please—keep her safe.”

The scene shifted. Blood. So much blood. The book lay open, pages fluttering in the wind, stained crimson. My childlike scream echoed through the trees, messing with my head.

The vision shattered.

I stumbled back into reality with a sharp cry, falling to my knees in the dirt. My hands braced the ground, fingers digging into the earth as my breath came in ragged gasps.

“Mira!” Della was at my side in seconds, her hands firm on my shoulders. “What did you see?”

I couldn’t speak right away. My heart pounded so loudly I could barely hear anything else. The image of the ring—silver, ancient, powerful—burned behind my eyelids. “My mother…” my voice cracked. “She gave the book and a ring to someone. She begged them to hide it.”

Della’s face paled slightly, but she hid it well. “What kind of ring?”

I closed my eyes, trying to recall every detail. “Silver… engraved with symbols, ancient ones. I don’t know what they mean.”

Della’s hand trembled against my shoulder. “It’s the Aurora's Seal.”

My gaze snapped to her. “What?”

“The ring isn’t just jewelry,” Della explained, her voice low with reverence. “It’s part of your birthright. Your mother was a Bloodline Guardian, Mira—a wolf born with the ability to awaken and command dormant magic within her bloodline. That ring is the key to unlocking every piece of power sealed within you.”

It took a while for me to process what she had just said, but when I did, all I could ask was, “Why would she hide it?” my voice a whisper.

“Because if the wrong hands got hold of it, they could use you—or your bloodline—for terrible things,” Della said. “Power like that isn’t just rare. It’s dangerous.”

My stomach churned with a mixture of fear and fury. My mother had died for that secret. And all this time, I had been walking around blind to who I really was.

“But if I don’t have it,” I began slowly, piecing it together, “I can’t fully unlock my power.”

Della nodded. “Not safely.”

My throat tightened. “Well, where is it?”

Della’s brow furrowed. “I can try to find it.”

She stepped back, raising her hands. Pale blue light formed between her fingers, swirling like liquid starlight. The spell took only a few moments—a whisper of ancient words, a flicker of intent. Then her eyes flew open, wide with disbelief.

“No,” she whispered.

My stomach clenched. “What?”

Della looked at me, her expression livid. With her next words, the air seemed to leave the clearing all at once.

“It’s in Thane’s pack.”

What?" I blurted out.

Luca appeared behind me, his movements so stealthy that I didn't notice him, until he spoke. “Try again, Mother."

She glanced at him. “My spell cannot be wrong. But I will nevertheless."

She began again, twirling her hands as a blue glowing back formed again. Her concentration was unbreakable, and her lips moving as she muttered inaudible words. After what felt like ages, she stopped, the glow disappearing into thin air.

“What did you see?" I asked hurriedly.

“It's the same thing." She held my eyes. "The Aurora's seal is in Alpha Thane's territory.”

Wow! 

“That's strange. Don't they know that the seal is there?" Luca asked.

His mother shook her head. “I'm guessing they don't. It was hidden very well, I can tell. She must have given it to a very trusted person, because it wasn't me." Something flashed in her voice, but I was too engulfed in my thoughts to fathom what it was.

“We have to get the ring before they figure it out!" Della said.

I turned to her, feeling the heat of her stare, and Luca's on me. No way! 

“I am not going back there." I snapped.

Della spoke up immediately, like she was waiting for me to refuse. “Mira, we don't have much choice. You've lived there for years, you know your way around the pack more than anybody else here. You're our only chance of getting that ring."

“No… " I began, but she cut me short..

“Mira, do you have any idea what will happen if that ring lands in the wrong hands? We are running out of time…”

It was my turn to cut her short. "Well, do you have any idea what I am going through right now? Do you even care? I was exiled, banished like a common criminal, all my years of hard work and search for knowledge tossed away, and now I'm here, with responsibilities I never planned for. And yet, you expect me to go back there.”

“Mira, we…”

"I won't go back. You can find another way to get the jewelry, but my decision is final.”

I stormed away from the clearing immediately afterwards, my boots crunching against dry leaves and twigs, every step fueled by frustration. My breath came in sharp bursts, my chest tight with a mixture of anger, fear, and something I couldn’t name.

Go back to Thane’s territory? The very place that tore me apart? No. Absolutely not.

I didn’t realize I was trembling until I reached a clearing by a small stream. My hands were clenched into fists so tight my nails bit into my palms. I forced myself to take a deep breath, the cool air doing little to settle the storm inside me.

The memory of that council chamber flashed in my mind—Thane’s silence, Alexa’s smug smirk, the way they stripped me of my identity in front of everyone. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it only made the memories sharper.

The betrayal. The humiliation. The heartbreak.

I leaned against a tree, its bark rough against my skin, grounding me for just a moment.

“Stubborn, aren’t you?”

I jumped, spinning around to find Luca standing at the edge of the clearing, hands in his pockets, watching me. His expression wasn’t mocking like I expected—it was calm, curious, even a little concerned.

“What do you want?” My voice was hoarse from the emotions clogging my throat.

“To make sure you don’t disappear into the woods and get eaten by something.” He took a few casual steps closer. “Though, you could probably handle it.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Don’t be so sure.”

Silence stretched between us, broken only by the faint gurgling of the stream and the rustling of the wind through the trees. Luca didn’t push, didn’t demand answers. He just stood there, steady, present.

It was oddly comforting.

“Why does she want me to go back there?” I asked, my voice cracking despite my best effort to sound strong.

Luca tilted his head slightly. “Because you’re the only one who can. That place broke you, true—but you know it better than anyone. If the ring’s there, you’ll find it.”

“I can’t.” My voice was barely a whisper. “I… I can’t go back.”

Luca didn’t argue right away. He just walked over and leaned against the same tree, his shoulder brushing mine lightly. “Tell me why.”

I bit my lip hard, trying to hold it all in. But for some reason, standing here with him, in this quiet pocket of the world, it didn’t feel so impossible to let it out.

I turned to face him, arms folded tightly across my chest like armor. “Thane rejected me,” I said bluntly. “He was my mate, my fated mate, and he denied it—denied me—in front of the entire council. Like I was nothing. He called me obsessed.”

Luca’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.

“And Alexa,” I spat the name like poison. “She made sure I was banished. She convinced the council I was dangerous, that I’d stolen something sacred. They all turned on me. All the wolves I’d spent my life protecting, studying for… they cast me out like a criminal.”

Luca’s gaze was steady, but his hands curled into fists at his sides. “They’re fools,” he said quietly. “All of them.”

My throat thickened with emotion. “You don’t even know me.”

He shook his head. “Don’t have to. I’ve seen enough. You didn’t break when they threw you out. You’re still standing. That’s all I need to know.”

His words slipped under my skin, warming something cold inside me. I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t.

Instead, I took a shaky breath and changed the subject. “I haven’t shifted in days,” I admitted. “Since they did… whatever they did to me.”

Luca raised an eyebrow. “Let me see her, then.”

“What?”

“Your wolf,” he said simply. “Let me see her.”

I hesitated. My wolf had been silent for so long, cut off by whatever dark spell had wrapped around me back at the pack. But Della and Cara had worked to break that barrier, and I could feel her now—faint, but present.

“Okay.” I stepped back a few paces, closing my eyes. I reached inside myself, feeling for the familiar spark that was my other half. She stirred hesitantly, as though waking from a long sleep.

The shift came slower than usual, my body protesting at first, but then the change flowed over me—bones realigning, muscles reshaping. When I opened my eyes again, the world was sharper, brighter, more alive.

I stood on all fours, my dark silver fur shimmering faintly under the moonlight.

Luca grinned, stepping back to shift himself. His wolf was sleek and dark, larger than mine but not by much. 

I gasped slightly. “You're a wolf too?"

“Yes." His voice echoed in my head. “Father was one, mother is a sorceress." 

He gave a playful wag of his tail, then took off into the trees.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I ran—really ran. The wind tore past my face, my paws hitting the earth in a rhythm that felt like freedom. Luca kept pace beside me, occasionally bumping my side, encouraging me to run faster, push harder.

I had almost forgotten how good this felt.

But then Luca skidded to a sudden halt, his ears pricked forward, his body tense.

I followed his gaze, my heart racing for an entirely different reason. Through the trees, two figures moved—wolves, but not from Thane’s pack. Their scents were wrong—metallic, tainted with something unnatural.

We shifted immediately. I ducked low, shifting behind a fallen log, Luca following suit.

The strange wolves were talking, their voices low but clear enough in the stillness.

“She has to be close,” one said.

“Alpha wants the book,” the other growled. “He says the girl stole it—the librarian.”

My stomach clenched. They were looking for me.

“What is it with that book anyway that the Alpha wants it back so badly. It’s just an ordinary book!” the other said sounding a little cowardly and ignorant.

I turned and spared Luca a glance, he was listening to them intently and I figured that’s what I must do too.

“Shhh!” the wolf paused, “You don’t spill words like that.” He warned. “That book is a a very important book and contains all the magic spells used in the ancient history of magic. It contains one of the most powerful spell chants and Alexa needs that book as well.” He explained gritting.

I wanted to reposition myself and didn’t know when I stepped on a twig. It cracked sound was like a trumpet through the quiet forest. The two wolves stopped talking immediately and listened, their ears straightening and inclining to the direction of the sound 

One sniffed the air. “I smell her.” He said sniffing some more taking steady but calculative strides towards me.

My heart skipped a bit as I was afraid of being caught. I didn’t know what to do and how to react. I tried hiding myself behind the fallen log plainly so he wouldn’t see me but then something came at it and threw him off to the ground.

I looked up and saw a familiar sleek dark fur… it was Luca.

While pinning the one he attacked under his feet, he commanded me to run.

“Run Mira! Run!!!” he yelled turning to me.

My adrenaline was already spiked. I hesitated a bit because everything was happening so fast and I couldn’t deal with the shock so quickly.

The other wolf started coming at me then he gritted his teeth and yelled even louder.

“Run, Mira!!”

His words finally echoed in my mind and I don’t know when I got up, placing my claws on the earth, I ran as fast as my wolvie strength could carry me.

I looked back and saw the other one coming at me but Luca knocked him down and as I fled into the distance I watched Luca battle the two wolves. In the midst of the battle he turned to me with a reassuring eye, like he was trying to say that he was alright and would see me later on the safe side.

My eyes started to water. Was I about loosing the only person that was on my side? But my legs wouldn’t stop running, was I a coward for running away? Leaving him to face those unnatural wolves all alone?

I stopped running when I felt I had finally ran my way to safety. I stood on a small hill and stretched forward, I could see the small village under the moonlight. Lanterns and torches were lighted all over the place to live direction and illumination.

I got down from the hill and ran down there, through a paved lane. 

I got to the small village and held my breath, immediately switching form, I shifted into my human skin again and as I walked into the room, I met Della. 

I was quite surprised how quickly I turned back form.

Upon seeing her, I tried to say more than one word in a sentence but I ended up speaking gibberish.

“Take a deep breath Mira.” Della said realizing how tense and unorganized I was, emphasized on the “deep”. She helped me inhale and exhale properly until my breathe was even.

I did as she directed, inhaling and exhaling sharply—controlling my breath and heart beat. Just as I was ready to speak because I felt I have had enough breathing and probably my breathing pattern should be balanced by now. 

As I opened my mouth to speak, she picked up something from my shoulders and showed it to me.

It was a silver fur—mine.

“You’ve  reconnected to your wolf!” she said calmly but the excitement inside her was lighting up her face with brightness and smiles as she looked at me so fondly— she looked so proud of me.

“When did you turn?” she asked, the smile not leaving her face.

“Today in the woods.” I replied. “I and Luca were practicing some stunts when we came across two wolves, their scent was something I couldn’t lay my fingers on, and it felt so strange and unnatural, and they were discussing about capturing me back to the Alpha and the spell book I took—I finally learned of its importance. They weren’t Thane’s men, they scented differently as if deported from a spiritual portal, I could sense this dark energy within them and I… I mistakenly stepped on a dry twig and they caught my scent and tried to capture me but Luca got in the way and stopped them, I could only run.” I explained, feeling disappointed in myself, the weight of leaving Luca behind fell on my conscience more strongly than ever.

Della smiled and went to sit peacefully.

“What?” I exclaimed, I didn’t understand her sudden calmness.

“I just explained to you that Luca could be in danger even now as we speak and you’re not even bothered?” I slammed.

What kind of mother are you?

“If you know Luca like I do then you would know that fighting two stray wolves isn’t something he can’t handle.” She said with such a calm like the ocean.

“Luca is fine.” She guaranteed. “Come sit with me.” She patted the space next to her. “I’m glad you could finally wield your wolf without fear.” She noted. A smile staying on her face.

I watched her with so much confusion. I didn’t understand anything.

“I’m going back to save him.” I said turning my back on her. “I shouldn’t have left him behind.” I closed my eyes, guilt surging through me as I had a recall of how brutal he fought the two wolves while I ran away.

“You can’t. You’re not strong enough.” Della tried to discourage me.

“Well, I can’t sit around doing nothing.” I spread my arms. “It’s my fault he is in trouble in the first place, he was trying to protect me.” I argued.

“And you would be walking into a death trap if you go back.” She countered. “Don’t let your heart over ride your head and your rightful judgement. Trust me, Luca is fine.”

“I can’t trust your judgement either, what’s the difference between helping him stay alive and going back to Thane for the cursed blood ring?” I questioned and for the first time the look on her face was completely blank, she had no answer for me.

I wasn’t going to let him die on my account. It was foolish of me to have run away in the first place.