Semua Bab The Banished Luna: She Was Meant To Rule: Bab 71 - Bab 80

The Covenant Alpha’s jaws close on empty air where I was a second ago and I’m already rolling away but he’s on me again before I can recover, centuries of combat experience reading my movements before I make them.His teeth catch my shoulder and tear through fur and flesh and I yelp because it’s been so long since I fought without cosmic power dulling the pain, so long since I was just a wolf who could actually get hurt and bleed and die.I twist and snap at his throat but he’s already moved, using my own momentum against me to throw me across the circle where I hit the starlight barrier hard enough to see spots.“You fight like a wolf who forgot how to be a wolf,” the Covenant Alpha growls while circling for another attack. “Too used to cosmic power doing the work for you. This is what happens when you rely on entities instead of training.”He’s right and that makes it worse, I’ve spent months channeling Void fragments and anchoring cosmic forces and being Prime Wolf through instinct

The thing wearing Anna’s face is walking toward me through the Covenant forces and they’re parting for her like she has authority over them even though she shouldn’t be here at all because Anna died giving me her life force to survive the Border.My hybrid Void-Wolf nature is snarling because I can sense what she really is now that she’s dropped the disguise, she’s not werewolf and not human and not even an entity but something older that’s been pretending to be my sister for my entire life.“You’re not Anna,” I say, my voice coming out strange through this new form that’s both wolf and Void.“No,” she agrees with that wrong smile. “Anna died when you were both children, actually. Drowned in the river behind your house when she was seven. I took her place before anyone noticed she was gone and I’ve been wearing her face for twenty-three years.”Alistair shifts to his black wolf even though our mate bond is gone, positioning himself protectively between me and the thing that pretended

I’m losing my mind to feral hunger and I can feel thousands of other wolves losing theirs at the same time, our consciousness drowning under genetic triggers that are forcing us back to pure animal instinct.My hybrid Void-Wolf nature makes it worse because I’m not just going feral as a wolf, I’m going feral as something that combines wolf hunger with cosmic appetite, and that combination is screaming to consume everything in reach.Through the fragmenting awareness I can feel my sons going feral around me, can hear Alistair’s black wolf howling as he loses himself to instinct, can sense the Progenitor itself struggling against triggers that somehow affect even the first wolf.Not-Anna is laughing as thousands of werewolves descend into mindless violence.“This is better anyway,” she says. “Complete reset, we start fresh with new bloodlines that don’t carry Prime Wolf complications.”The feral wolves are attacking everything, no distinction between pack or enemy or family, just teeth

The Witness’s appendages wrap around me and they don’t hurt exactly but they feel wrong, like being seen from every angle simultaneously by something that’s never stopped watching since before reality existed.Alistair tries to pull me away but his hands pass through the observation-made-tangible like it’s not fully present in normal space.“Let her go!” he commands with Prime Wolf authority and the Witness actually pauses.“Interesting,” it says. “You attempt to use dominance hierarchy against a being that predates hierarchies. This suggests you don’t understand what I am.”“I understand you’re trying to take my—” Alistair stops because what am I to him now without a mate bond, “—you’re trying to take someone under my protection.”“Protection is a temporary state,” the Witness observes. “All things I observe eventually cease being protected by anything. I simply accelerate the timeline to serve my purpose.”It starts pulling me toward whatever space it exists in and I can feel myself

Marcus and Adrian are charging at me with Shepherd-twisted eyes and I have maybe two seconds to decide if I fight back against my own sons or let them tear me apart.My hybrid Void-Wolf nature surges forward ready to defend itself but my human consciousness is screaming that these are my children, I can’t hurt them even if they’re being manipulated.I shift to my Void-Wolf form and dodge instead of attacking, Marcus’s claws missing me by inches while Adrian tries to catch me from the other side.They’re moving with coordination that’s not natural, the Shepherd controlling them like puppets, using their bodies to test my family bonds while the Witness observes everything.“Fight back!” Alistair shouts, still frozen by Shepherd power. “They’re not in control, it’s not really them attacking!”But they’re wearing my sons’ faces and using my sons’ bodies and I can’t make myself hurt them even knowing they’re being controlled.Adrian catches my shoulder with his claws and tears through fur