CHAPTER TWELVE: shattered Glass, Shifting Shadows

The moonlight sliced through the penthouse windows like silver blades, turning the glass floor into a shimmering illusion beneath Zara’s heels. She stood in the middle of Maxim’s private chamber—part sanctum, part battlefield—heart rattling like it knew the walls had teeth.

Maxim hadn't spoken since they returned from the gala. He paced like a caged storm, his jaw locked, hands twitching at his sides as if suppressing claws.

"Maxim..." she said finally, her voice a tremble wrapped in silk. "You're scaring me."

That stopped him. His golden eyes lifted to hers, and they softened—just a fraction—but it was enough to ground her.

"You shouldn’t have seen that," he said hoarsely, voice dragging like velvet over broken glass.

“You mean the Council’s little stunt? Or the part where someone tried to slip wolfsbane into your champagne?” Her brow lifted. “You think I haven’t seen shadows move before, Maxim?”

He looked away, his gaze falling to the shattered glass sculpture on the floor. A relic once standing proud behind his desk—now broken in sharp, glinting pieces. The sculpture had been a gift from his late father. A mark of inheritance.

“I can’t protect you from everything,” he muttered. “Not from them. Not from what’s coming.”

Zara stepped over the glass like it was nothing. She reached for him—not the Alpha, not the heir—but the man beneath the rage. Her fingers brushed his. Warm. Anchoring.

“Then stop trying to do it alone.”

He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring. The bond between them—it pulsed like a second heartbeat, louder now. Closer. She was no longer just a human intern lost in a world of claws and claws-in-suits. She was his mate.

And the world would punish them both for it.

“There’s something I need to show you,” he said. “But once I do, there’s no going back.”

“I already chose you,” she whispered. “Isn’t that what the mark meant?”

His hand slid around hers, pulling her gently toward the obsidian bookshelf near the chamber’s far wall. He pressed his palm to the wood, and a hidden sigil glowed briefly—ancient, blood-bound. The shelf shifted, revealing a narrow hallway bathed in violet flame.

The air grew cooler as they descended, scentless and strange, until they reached a circular chamber carved into the earth itself. Moonlight filtered in from above through enchanted quartz, illuminating the murals on the stone walls—stories told in wolf-shapes and crimson swirls.

In the center stood a mirror. Seven feet tall. Frame forged from ironwood, inlaid with veins of silver and howlite. But the glass itself… it rippled like a liquid dream.

Zara stared at it, something primal in her blood waking.

“This isn’t just a mirror,” she breathed.

“No,” Maxim said. “It’s called the Umbraglass. One of the last magical relics from the Age of the Thirteen Clans. It shows truth… and threat.”

As she watched, her reflection flickered. Not one Zara—but many. In one, she wore a crown of moonlight. In another, she bled from a wound she couldn't see. One version burned in violet fire. One stood alone.

“Why are you showing me this now?” she asked, her voice catching.

“Because the Council knows you’re the variable I can’t control. They’ll try to use you against me,” he said. “But I won’t let them. And this—this mirror? It shows what they’re too afraid to admit: you’re part of the prophecy.”

Zara blinked. “What prophecy?”

Maxim turned to face her fully, the shadows dancing around his silhouette.

“My birth was prophesied by the Moonmother’s last Seer. Said the Vale heir would rise under blood eclipse, take a mate not of the Pack, and together they’d either save or destroy the Balance.”

“And that’s why the Council hates me.”

“That’s why they fear you.”

A crack split the air like lightning. The mirror trembled—and then spiderwebbed with black veins.

Zara stumbled back. “What just happened?”

Maxim’s eyes darkened. “Someone is trying to scry us. That shouldn’t be possible—not inside the sanctuary.”

Another crack, this one louder. The surface of the Umbraglass shattered inward like it was being punched from the other side. Shadows poured from the fissures, writhing like serpents, then coalesced into a form.

A cloaked figure stepped through, cloaked in midnight mist, face hidden beneath a porcelain mask.

Zara grabbed Maxim’s arm. “What the hell is that?”

“A Council Summoner,” Maxim growled. “And it means they’ve declared open war.”

The masked figure raised a single hand. Runes ignited in the air—ancient, binding. Maxim lunged forward, shifting partially mid-air, claws meeting spell-light in a burst of silver sparks.

Zara backed away, but the shadows followed. One coiled around her ankle—cold, sentient, wrong.

She reached instinctively into her blazer. The charm necklace—the one Karl Bloodwood had given her weeks ago—glowed hot against her skin. She yanked it free and slammed it against the shadow binding her.

A blast of moonlight erupted, sending the thing shrieking back into the ether.

Maxim tore through the sigils, his Alpha power roaring like a furnace. With a final growl, he slashed through the summoner’s chest. The mask cracked, then shattered.

But there was no face beneath it. Just smoke. Just curse.

Then silence.

Zara exhaled, chest heaving. “Did… did we just get attacked through a magic mirror?”

Maxim, still half-shifted, turned to her, his expression both feral and protective. “They’ve never dared breach the sanctuary before. They’re getting desperate.”

She looked at the broken glass, at the runes still smoldering in the air. “And what happens when desperate men wear suits and call themselves elders?”

He stepped closer. “Then we stop playing by their rules.”

Suddenly, the walls pulsed with red light. A hidden alarm.

Maxim swore under his breath. “The Wardens are breaching the upper floors. We need to move.”

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere they’ll never expect—back into the Council’s territory. It’s time we took the war to their doorstep.”

Zara’s breath caught. “You mean… Silver Hollow?”

He gave a sharp nod. “And we’ll need allies. The kind who owe me favors. The kind who think the Council’s time is long overdue.”

Zara didn’t look away. Not from the broken Umbraglass. Not from the blood on the chamber floor. Not from the Alpha who had just chosen war in her name.

Whatever came next, she would face it.

With him.

With claws out and heart bared.