Chapter Thirty-nine

Luna’s Secret

The moon hung high over the pack’s fortress, pale and pitiless. The halls were silent now — Derrick’s rage had burned itself to silence, and the wolves had retreated to their quarters, wary of their Alpha’s temper.

Mona moved through the darkness like it belonged to her. Her bare feet made no sound against the marble floors, her golden robe whispering softly with each step. She paused before the great doors of the Luna’s chamber — her chamber — and pushed them open.

Inside, the air was cool, perfumed faintly with jasmine and blood. The room shimmered with beauty: silken curtains, glass vials glowing faintly with potion light, an altar carved with the sigil of the Blood Moon.

But at the center of it all stood a mirror — tall, ancient, and rimmed in silver etched with runes.

Her reflection stared back: flawless, radiant, untouchable.

And utterly false.

Mona’s smile faltered. Slowly, she lifted her hand and pressed her palm to the glass. It rippled like water, revealing faint shapes beneath the surface — whispers of memory she tried every night to forget.

A different face stared back from the depths.

Younger. Softer. Her own eyes, but unscarred by bitterness. And beside that image — Kimberly’s.

The memory twisted her gut like a knife.

Two cousins, once inseparable.

She saw them laughing in the meadow as girls — Mona weaving flowers into Kimberly’s hair, Kimberly promising they’d both be Luna one day. But then came the trials. The choosing. The rejection that changed everything.

Mona had been ready. Mona had wanted him. But Derrick had looked at her — Kimberly — with that hunger in his eyes.

Even now, the memory made Mona’s blood boil.

She had watched him choose Kimberly as mate. She had smiled through it, congratulated her cousin, all while her heart shattered quietly inside her chest.

And then — fate had flipped the coin. Kimberly had been rejected.

Derrick’s pride had done what Mona’s envy never could.

A low laugh escaped her lips, bitter and beautiful. “Fate has a cruel sense of humor,” she whispered to the mirror. “But it finally remembered me.”

The glass rippled again, and a voice answered — soft, ancient, and feminine. “Has it, child? Or have you simply taken what was never meant for you?”

Mona didn’t flinch. The mirror had spoken before. It always did when the moon was full.

“I took what I deserved,” she said, her tone sharp, cold. “He was supposed to be mine. Everything — the title, the crown, the power — all of it.”

The voice sighed. “And yet he looks at her still, even in hate.”

Mona’s jaw tightened. “Let him look. Soon he’ll have no eyes left to see her with.”

The reflection shimmered, showing Kimberly — fierce and bloodied, her shadows pulsing like wings behind her. Lucien’s dark figure loomed nearby.

Mona’s chest tightened at the sight. She traced the image with one manicured nail. “You think you’re a savior,” she whispered to the ghostly reflection. “But you’re just like me. Driven by pain. Fueled by loss. You’ll burn, cousin — and when you do, I’ll be there to watch.”

The mirror’s voice lowered, almost pitying. “Be careful, Mona of the Blood Moon. Envy feeds you now, but it will devour you soon enough.”

Mona smiled faintly, though her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “Let it. I’d rather be consumed than forgotten.”

The reflection faded, leaving only her own image staring back — the beautiful Luna, the perfect consort, the woman who had everything.

Except peace.

She turned from the mirror and crossed to the altar, where a small glass vial waited — crimson liquid swirling inside. The elixir pulsed faintly in the candlelight, glowing like a living heart.

She lifted it carefully, whispering an incantation under her breath. The runes along the vial’s edge flared gold, and the liquid shimmered.

A shadow’s whisper answered in her mind — old, dark, and powerful.

You would bind darkness to blood?

“Yes,” she breathed. “If Lucien forges her with shadows, I will forge myself with something greater. Let me taste the same power. Let me rise beyond them both.”

The voice chuckled softly. Then drink, and let your soul become what it craves.

Mona’s pulse quickened. She hesitated only a moment — long enough for her reflection to waver once more, as if pleading.

Then she drank.

The liquid burned down her throat, fire and ice all at once. The room trembled. Her body arched, her veins lighting gold for a heartbeat before the light turned black.

She gasped, dropping the empty vial as power surged through her — wild, ancient, terrible. The mirror cracked down the middle, her reflection splintering into a hundred pieces.

When the shaking stopped, Mona lifted her head.

Her eyes glowed — not gold anymore, but deep, liquid crimson.

And when she smiled, it was no longer the smile of a wolf.

It was the smile of something far worse.

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