Chapter 18
The pain wasn’t just in my body.
It came from somewhere deeper–from bone, from blood, from memory.
I stood in a dream made of moonlight and ash.
All around me, silver wolf bones jutted from the earth, buried in fields of broken collars and rusted wedding rings. In the wind, I heard voices–echoing, whispering, overlapping.
“Emily.”
“Alpha Evelyn.”
“Mine.”
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“Mistake.”
“Weapon.”
“Wife.”
I looked down at my hands. In one, a red thread. In the other, a silver flame.
Then the memories came.
The orphanage. I was ten, peeking through the bushes as a boy with dirt on his face crouched beside a tree. He folded a note and slipped it into a hollow, whispering, “Emily, when I become an Alpha… I’ll come back and marry you.”
And another memory–darker.
Lucien, strapped inside a cryogenic pod,
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screaming silently through frosted glass. Jason Harrison stood outside, clipboard in hand, unmoved. Beside him, Luna Chloe, smiling.
“She’ll say yes,” Luna Chloe said. “She’s always been stupid like that.”
I staggered back, head splitting.
“Who are you?” a voice hissed from the sky.
“Whose life are you living?”
Before I could answer, the sky cracked open. The silver moon split, and down stepped a woman cloaked in pale light.
Lunaria.
The Moon Goddess. The Watcher. The soul who speaks when no one else dares.
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“You are the fusion of broken selves,” she said softly. “You are not Emily. You are not Alpha Evelyn. You are their choice.”
I shook. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Answer” she said.
“Answer what?”
She stepped closer, her silver eyes glowing.
“Answer the one who died for you.”
I woke gasping.
Lucien stood in the doorway of the healing wing, dressed in a white robe, still pale but alive.
“You’re awake,” he said quietly. “Sister.”
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I froze.
“What… did you call me?”
“Sister,‘ he repeated. “My mother… was the eldest daughter of the Marcus bloodline. You are her firstborn. Her twin.”
My throat closed.
“You’re saying I… we…”
“You were taken,” Lucien said gently. “To protect the bloodline. They wanted only one heir. And I was the controllable one.”
“You’re the one they kept.” I looked down. “I was the one they broke.”
“You were the one they feared,” he said.
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The Council Hall burned with murmurs as Jason was brought to trial. Luna Chloe sat hunched in the corner, silent and trembling.
I walked forward, past rows of robed elders, and placed a data tablet on the table.
“Jason Harrison,” I said, voice sharp. “You used your medical license to conduct illegal hybrid power implantation, using me as your first success.”
Jason didn’t flinch.
“You lived,” he said coolly. “That’s more than the others can say.”
I stared at him.
“And that’s your defense? That I survived?”
Luna Chloe finally looked up. Her face was
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pale, but her eyes held venom.
“You win,” she said. “I lost.”
I tilted my head. “No. You didn’t lose. You were never playing fair.”
“I wanted to live,” she said, voice cracking. “I wanted something of my own.”
“You wanted a heart,” I replied, “so you stole mine.”
She looked down. “He loved me.”
I stepped closer, eyes burning. “Then tell him. Tell Alpha Ethan the love he gave you was stolen from a corpse.”
Luna Chloe broke.
The room turned to silence.
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Lucien stepped forward, raising a silver drive. A hologram flared to life above us.
Emily. On an operating table. Luna Chloe whispering to Alpha Ethan before surgery:
“Do it for me. She’ll forgive you. She always does.”
The silence exploded.
Alpha Ethan dropped to his knees.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “Gods–I didn’t know.”
“You knew,” I whispered. “You just didn’t look.”
Suddenly, the lights dimmed.
“Her power frequencies are peaking!”
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someone shouted.
“She’s entering destabilization!”
The pain returned. My skin felt like fire. My vision blurred.
Lucien rushed to my side, grabbing my shoulders.
“She’s entering power ic rejection! We need a fusion chamber now!”
A medic screamed, “Whose source factor do we use?!”
Lucien turned to me. “Choose.”
I looked up.
Outside the chamber glass stood Alpha Ethan, Alpha Daniel, Omega Silas.
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All three watching.
Waiting.
“I choose no one,” I whispered.
I ripped the last suppressor from my chest and threw it into the chamber.
“I choose myself.”
The procedure began.
Blood flooded the scanner. My vision went dark again.
And Lunaria’s voice returned.
“This time,” she whispered, “you are not living
for survival.”
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“This time, you live for truth.”
Memory fusion initiated.
A wave of fire through my spine.
I saw Jason’s hidden lab, the failed experiments. Other Omegas strapped down, crying, begging.
I saw Alpha Daniel–kneeling as a boy before the orphanage director, being told I was
gone.
I saw Alpha Ethan in the rain, clawing at Emily’s grave.
I saw Omega Silas–quietly placing white roses at my door, every full moon, even when no one answered.
I woke up screaming.
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Not because of pain.
But because I remembered everything.
And I couldn’t unremember any of it.
Afterward.
Alpha Ethan sat in the hallway, head in his hands.
Alpha Daniel stood at the window, watching the wolves roam..
Omega Silas held a steaming cup of tea that had gone cold hours ago.
I walked out, dressed in a new robe, a bandage over my chest.
All three looked up.
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None of them spoke.
So I did.
“To Alpha Ethan,” I said. “You buried me once. Don’t expect to be the one who digs me up.”
He flinched.
“To Alpha Daniel,” I said, “you loved me before I knew I existed. But I’m not a promise you need to keep.”
His eyes softened. “You were never a
promise. You were a hope.”
To Omega Silas, I stepped closer.
“I don’t know what we are,” I whispered. “But for the first time… I’d like to find out.”
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His lips parted. But he didn’t speak.
He just reached out.
And took my hand.
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