Semua Bab The Phoenix Wolf's Awakening : Bab 91 - Bab 100

Mona's POV The woman wearing my dead mother's face dissolved into smoke as Derek dragged me behind a collapsed wall, her laughter echoing wrong—like glass breaking in reverse."That's not possible," I gasped, watching the dozens of figures emerge from the shattered stone circle. Each wore a face I knew. Rhea. Marcus. Alaric. Catherine. Even Emily, perfectly preserved in death's mockery. "The Original Council can't—""They're not resurrections," Derek growled, his partial shift rippling through muscle and bone. "They're constructs. Flesh puppets."The thing that had worn my mother's face reformed beside us, that crystallized fire heart pulsing visible through transparent skin. "Close, wolf. We're memories given form. Every person of power who died near an Original Council member gets... recorded. Saved. For moments like this.""Why warn us then?" My phoenix fire raged, wanting to burn everything, but I held it back. These weren't my dead. Just their shadows."Because I still have frag

Mona's POV The thing wearing Ashley's face stood up with movements that belonged to neither human nor wolf—something older, angular, wrong like broken bird bones trying to remember flight."Don't touch her," I warned as Derek stepped forward. "That's not Ashley anymore.""Ashley never existed," the thing said, examining its borrowed hands with detached curiosity. "She was a vessel, shaped from birth for this moment. Amaya understood what the Original Council refused to see—some consciousness transcends flesh. We are the Pure. The first attempt at phoenix immortality, before the Council's failure."Little Mona's cries intensified, her marks now burning actual holes in Lyra's shirt. The baby was reacting to something we couldn't see, some wrongness beyond the obvious possession. The twins moved closer to Ashley—no, to the Pure—their hollow eyes reflecting nothing."You're spirits," Cassian said slowly, his tactical mind processing. "Ghosts of the first experiments.""Not ghosts. Patter

Mona's POV The mountain village clung to the clifface like it was afraid of falling, and maybe it was—everything about this place felt precarious, balanced on the edge of something darker than the drop below.Six days we'd ridden to get here. Six days of Ashley growing stronger but quieter, of Rose flinching every time she accidentally brushed against someone and felt their emotions, of little Mona's marks spreading up her arms like veins of light. The baby didn't cry anymore. She just watched everything with those ancient eyes, as if she understood what we were hunting and why.The tavern squatted at the village edge like a toad, ugly and somehow wrong. The wood was too dark, stained with more than age. Rose grabbed my arm before we entered, her empathic gift screaming warnings."There's pain in there, Mom. Old pain. The kind that rots into something else.""We still have to go in."She nodded, my brave daughter, though her hands shook. Derek, Nova, and the Nightshade escorts waited

Mona's POV The horses died under us on the second day, their hearts bursting from the pace I demanded, foam pink with blood coating their mouths as they collapsed.We ran the rest on foot, Derek in wolf form carrying Rose, Nova matching my phoenix-fueled sprint, Ashley clinging to my back despite her weakness. Four days of running while my grandson was missing. Four days of imagining what Vesna was doing to him. Four days of knowing I should have seen this coming.The witch-message from Sophie at Silver Moon had been brief but reassuring—Leon safe, family secured, wards tripled. But Nightshade's silence was a scream that followed us across every mile. Marcus had tried to respond, then nothing. Lyra had sent half a message before it cut off. Even the emergency beacons—the ones we'd established after Alaric's war—had gone dark.When we finally crested the hill overlooking Nightshade territory, the packhouse looked normal. Too normal. No smoke. No bodies. No signs of battle except for t

Mona's POVThe lock of hair was still warm when I opened the package, as if it had just been cut from Cassian's head moments before appearing on our doorstep.My phoenix fire erupted without warning, consuming the letter before I could finish reading it, but the words were already branded into my mind: "Every week you don't come to me, I take something else from someone you love." Derek's arms wrapped around me from behind, his wolf's strength the only thing keeping me from burning down the entire packhouse in my rage."Breathe," he whispered against my neck. "She wants you to lose control. Don't give her what she wants."But I could smell Cassian on that lock of hair—pine and smoke, wolf and phoenix, my grandson who'd trusted me to keep him safe. Four days of silence, and now this calculated cruelty. The handwriting matched perfectly with the Bloodrose letter Marin had given us weeks ago. Vesna had been planning this before we even knew she existed. Five years, she said. Five years o