Chapter 5: Lunar Anomaly

We ran east.

All night. Through fields, the forests and back roads that twisted into nothing. Ryker carried me when my legs gave out, which was often. Kael ran beside us, shadows flickering, his wound screaming, his jaw set in that stubborn way I was starting to recognize.

The pull in my chest never faded. East. Always east. Like a string tied to my heart, tugging me forward. Dawn broke. Gray and cold. And finally, finally, we found it.

A farmhouse.

It sat at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by dead crops and silence. The roof sagged. The windows were dark. Even the ghosts looked like they had moved on.

But the pull stopped. Right here.

"This is it," I breathed.

Kael's eyes scanned the tree line. "It's a trap."

"Probably," Ryker agreed, shifting me in his arms. "But we are out of options."

We approached slowly. The door hung open, creaking in the wind. Inside, dust covered everything. The floorboards groaned. The air smelled like rot and abandonment.

Ryker set me down against a wall. I slid to the floor, too tired to care about the dirt.

Kael took the window. Ryker took the door.

Silence.

Then the pain hit.

Not the usual burn. This was different. Deeper. Like something was clawing its way out of my chest from the inside.

I gasped, my hand flying to my heart.

"Elara?" Ryker was there in an instant, his cold hands gripping my shoulders. "Look at me. Look at me."

I couldn't. My eyes were locked on my hands that were starting to glow.

Faint silver light. Pulsing under my skin like a second heartbeat.

Kael dropped to his knees beside me, his shadows flickering wildly. "What's happening? Ryker, what's happening to her?"

"I don’t know, I haven’t seen anything like that before. " Ryker said, his ice-blue eyes wide.

Then the voice came from the doorway.

"Her body is finally waking up."

We all turned.

A woman stood there. Ancient. Wrinkled. Dressed in grey robes that seemed to drink the light. Her eyes were milky white—blind, maybe, or seeing something none of us could see.

Kael moved faster than I could track. One second he was beside me, the next he had the woman pinned against the wall, shadows coiling around her throat, his claws pressing into her skin.

"Council witch," he snarled. "You tracked us. You found us. Tell me who else is coming, and I will make your death quick."

The woman didn't struggle. She didn't scream but just smiled.

Ryker was there a second later, ice blade pressed to her ribs. "She's seer-born. If the Council sent her, they know exactly where we are. We need to move. Now."

"Wait."

The word was barely a whisper, but it stopped them both.

The woman's milky eyes found mine through the darkness. "Wait," she repeated, louder now. "I am not here to hurt you. Any of you."

Kael's grip tightened. "Liar."

"If I wanted you dead, Alpha of Bloodhounds, I would have brought the entire Council with me. I came alone. At great risk to myself." Her voice was calm. Ancient but certain. "Now take your hands off me before your mate dies on this filthy floor."

Kael froze.

He looked back at me. At my glowing hands. At the sweat on my brow. At the black veins still crawling up my neck.

His grip loosened.

Ryker's blade didn't lower, but he stepped back just enough to let her breathe.

The woman smoothed her robes and walked toward me. Slowly. Deliberately.  She stopped when she stood over me, looking down at my glowing hands with those milky, terrifying eyes.

"You're not a defect, child. You never were."

My heart stopped.

"What?"

She knelt down, her ancient face inches from mine. I could smell herbs on her breath. I could see every wrinkle, every line of a century of living.

"You're a Lunar Anomaly." She said softly. "A vessel of the Moon Goddess herself. The first born in a thousand years."

Silence.

Absolute, suffocating silence.

"That's impossible." The words came out as a whisper. "I am nothing. I'm a half-breed. An unshifted Omega. They told me—"

"They lied." The seer's voice was gentle but firm. "They had to. If the Council had known what you were, they would have taken you as a child, used you and drained you until nothing remained."

Kael's voice was rough behind me. "If she's a Lunar Anomaly, why is the bond poisoning her?"

The seer looked at him. Then at Ryker. Then back at me.

"Because she's not just bonding with you. She's awakening." She reached out, her papery fingers hovering over my glowing hand. "The power inside her has slept for eighteen years. The dual mate bond is the key that's finally turning the lock. But her human body can't contain what's waking up."

"That means she needs to shift," Ryker said quietly.

"You have said it all" the seer confirmed. "Or she will die."

The glow pulsed brighter. Hotter. I gasped.

"How?" I demanded. "How do I shift? I have tried my whole life. Nothing ever happened."

"Because you were alone." The seer's milky eyes found mine. "A Lunar Anomaly doesn't shift like a normal wolf. She shifts through the bond. Through her mates. You have been trying to do it all by yourself child. That's never going to work."

I looked at Kael. At Ryker. Both of them watching me with something I didn't dare name.

"Then how?"

The seer's eyes shifted to Kael's shoulder. To the wound still festering there.

"But first," she said, "that tracker needs to come out."

Kael stiffened. "You know about the tracker?"

"I know everything." She moved toward him, her robes whispering against the floor. "The Council's mark; it’s bonded to your blood. That's how they have been finding you."

"Can you remove it?" Kael growled.

The seer's milky eyes fixed on his shoulder. "Yes, but it will hurt."

Kael's jaw tightened. "I have survived worse, rip it out."

She smiled. It wasn't warm. It was the smile of someone who had seen a thousand years of pain and recognized a kindred spirit.

"I know. That's why you're still alive."

She pressed her hand to his wound. Kael gritted his teeth. His shadows flared—then died. Ryker moved closer, ready to intervene, but I caught his eye and shook my head.

Silver light pulsed from the seer's palm.

Kael screamed.

I had never heard him scream before. Not when the silver dagger hit him. Not when the tracker was planted. But now, now he screamed.

And then it was over.

The seer lifted her hand. In her palm, a tiny black thing writhed and smoked—alive, somehow, even outside his body.

"The tracker," she said. She crushed it. It dissolved into ash.

Kael gasped, his hand going to his shoulder. The wound was still there, but something was different. Cleaner, like a weight had been lifted.

"Now," the seer said, "they can't find you. Not through magic. You're finally free."

Kael's crimson eyes met hers. For once, there was no threat in them. Just something that looked almost like gratitude.

"Thank you," he said. The words clearly cost him.

The seer nodded. Then she turned back to me.

"Now, little anomaly. Where were we?"

"How?" I repeated. "How do I accept them?"

She sighed, like the answer was obvious. "You have been fighting the bond. Stop fighting it. Stop fighting yourself." She looked at Kael, then at Ryker. "And they should stop fighting each other. The three of you are connected now. Not just by fate but by magic. You three are connected by the Goddess herself. Until you act like it, the poison will keep spreading."

Accept them both. Fully.

The one thing neither of them wanted. The one thing I wasn't sure I knew how to do.

The seer was already walking away.

"Wait." I tried to stand, but my legs gave out. Ryker caught me. "Why? Why are you helping us? You are part of the Council. You should want me dead."

The seer turned. For a moment, her milky eyes cleared. For a moment, I saw something ancient, terrible and beautiful looking out at me.

"Yes, the Council wants you dead or controlled but I stopped serving the Council the day they murdered my granddaughter for being born with seer eyes she couldn't control." Her voice hardened. "I serve the Goddess now. And the Goddess has a plan for you, little anomaly. All of you."

She stepped through the door and vanished. Like she had never existed at all.

I stared at the empty doorway. At my still-glowing hands. At Kael and Ryker.

The tracker was gone. They couldn't find us anymore.

But the poison was still there. Still ticking.

And the only cure was something none of us knew how to give.