LOGINTHELMA'S POV"Grandmother," Xavier said warily. "I thought you were leaving.""I was," Meridith agreed. "But then I felt the dimensional tear. Felt reality break when you rejected prophecy. And I realized something important. You're not the first Silver Wolf to try to change destiny, Xavier. You're the third. The first two failed. I watched them fail. Watched them die because they tried to fight alone. I won't make that mistake again."She gestured to her companions."This is Anastasia, Alpha of the Forgotten Pack, wolves who rejected the Council decades ago and have been surviving independently ever since. This is Kael, a ritual scarifier who can mark flesh with protective wards against dimensional intrusions. And this is Vera, who's young but happens to be the most talented hunter I've trained in seventy years.""Why are you helping us?" I asked."Because," Meridith said, "I spent seventy years serving prophecy, and all it did was make me a monster. Maybe it's time I served people i
THELMA'S POVThree days after Meridith's revelation, I woke up screaming.Xavier was beside me instantly, silver eyes glowing in the darkness of our shared tent. "Another nightmare?""Not a nightmare," I gasped, clutching my chest. "A memory. But not mine."This had been happening since the Confession Stone shattered. Fragments of lives I hadn't lived bleeding into my consciousness. Dreams that felt like warnings. And voices, so many voices, whispering in languages I shouldn't understand but somehow did."Tell me," Xavier said gently, pulling me close."There was a woman. She looked like me but... older. Different. She was standing in a field of silver flowers, and something was hunting her. Something made of shadows and starlight. And when it caught her, it didn't kill her. It... absorbed her. Made her part of itself. And then it spoke with her voice, and it said…"I stopped, because saying it out loud felt like inviting disaster."It said what, Thelma?""It said, 'Finally, we've fou
"Are real," the Guardian confirmed. "The war is coming. But maybe, just maybe, with a Silver Wolf who values his pack over prophecy, we'll find a better way to survive it. A way that doesn't require sacrificing everyone we love."The green light from the Confession Stone faded completely. The compulsion to truth vanished. We all stood there, gasping, shattered by what we'd revealed to each other."So what now?" Clara asked quietly. "We've all heard each other's worst secrets. We know Sophie betrayed us, Elizabeth would sacrifice us, Marcus is dying, and Thelma might not actually love Xavier. How do we come back from that?""We tell more truths," I said quietly. "Not the ones forced out by magic, but the ones we choose to share. We start over. Build something real this time, not based on hiding our flaws but accepting them.""That's insane," Sophie said. "You can't build a pack on admitting weakness—""Why not?" Thelma interrupted. "The alternative is building on lies. We just saw how
Sophie's eyes widened. "I never, I didn't…""You've been reporting to Victoria for six months," Meridith said. "Every time Xavier met with potential allies. Every time he discussed his plans for after the transformation. Every detail of his strategies. You sold him out for the promise of power. For the guarantee that when Xavier united the packs, you'd be given your own territory to rule.""Sophie?" I said, and I hated how my voice broke. "Tell me she's lying."Sophie was crying now. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was angry. Angry at being young and overlooked and powerless. Victoria said she'd make me important. She said I'd be remembered. And I believed her. But then when I saw what she was really doing, what she was willing to sacrifice, I tried to stop her. That's why I helped during the trials! I was trying to make up for it!""By lying to us?" Clara demanded. "By pretending to be on our side while feeding information to our enemy?""I WAS on your side! I am on your side! I made a m
THELMA'S POVWe'd barely made it fifty feet down the mountain when Xavier stopped abruptly."Someone's following us," he said, his silver eyes scanning the treeline."Victoria's wolves?" I asked, though I knew better. Through the mate bond, I could feel Xavier's certainty, this was something different. Something worse."No." His voice was tight. "This presence is... familiar. But I can't place it.""Perhaps I can help with that," a woman's voice called out.We all spun to see a figure emerging from the morning mist. She was tall, elegant, with silver-streaked black hair and eyes that held the weight of centuries. She looked about fifty, but something in the way she moved suggested she was far, far older."Who are you?" Xavier demanded, stepping protectively in front of me."My name is Meridith," the woman said with a slight smile. "And I'm your grandmother, Xavier. Your father's mother. Though I suppose Marcus never mentioned me, did he?"The silence that followed was deafening.Marcu
XAVIER'S POVThelma gasped and collapsed.I moved without thinking, catching her before she hit the ground. Her skin was ice-cold, her heartbeat stuttering."Thelma! Thelma, wake up!"Her eyes opened slowly. "I saw it," she whispered. "I saw what we could become. What we have to do.""What? What did you see?""Everything. And nothing. And..." She smiled, and it was the most beautiful and terrible thing I'd ever seen. "And I have the answer. I know how to complete the trial."The Guardian's voice filled the cavern. "Thelma has answered the question. The Trial of Unity is complete. Xavier, the transformation is now sanctioned and blessed by the Moon Goddess herself. You are the Silver Wolf, whole and true."Power slammed into me. Not the violent, chaotic power of before, but something refined. Controlled. I felt my consciousness expand, touching every wolf in a hundred-mile radius. I could feel their emotions, their thoughts, their fears and hopes and dreams. I could sense the pack bond







