I am the head warrior of the Nightshade pack, and I know what my Luna was like—she was everything a pack could want in a leader.
Maybe we were all searching in the wrong direction...
I stood among the warriors, wondering if I had lost my mind or simply found a new way to torture myself. We were deep in the thick of searching for Moraiella—my Luna, the woman who'd been missing for far too long. A part of me suspected the truth was slipping through our fingers like water. Maybe, just maybe, we were all searching in the wrong direction. The thought had crept in and lodged itself there, nagging like an itch I couldn't scratch. And then came the next one: What if Moraiella wasn't her real name? Or worse, what if she was so crafty she hid not only her identity but her wolf too?
The idea had a certain ring of madness to it, but, hey, we'd all been running on the fumes of half-baked theories and conjecture for weeks. Maybe she had just skipped town, decided that hiding in plain sight was more fun than being a Luna. The notion stung, sharp and raw, but I couldn't shake it. It was a game of "what ifs" that had us all crisscrossing the land with nothing but false leads and bruised egos.
"Ah, no more thinking," I muttered to myself, pinching the bridge of my nose as I tried to push the doubt aside. My wolf, ever the vigilant buddy, growled in agreement—or maybe he was just hungry; we hadn't had a proper meal in hours. Who knew?
It was then that Samuel said, "If we want to find her, we need to think outside the box." Or maybe it was outside the cave. I didn't know anymore. My brain had become a maze, twisting in on itself.
I was ready to retreat to the nearest pub when, in the distance, I caught sight of her.
There, sitting at a table like she had all the time in the world, was a woman who looked like she'd walked straight out of a fairytale. Her aura crackled with a confidence that could make even the most battle-hardened warrior second guess his life choices. But it wasn't just her presence—it was her mask. It hid half of her face, but her curls danced like mischievous sprites, and her eyes? They were stars made into flesh.
"Uh-oh," Edward, my partner in crime and fellow warrior, whispered, his eyes wide. He looked ready to bolt. I, on the other hand, found myself bowing like some medieval knight who had lost all sense of decorum. "She's—"
"A Luna," I said, feeling like an idiot as I straightened.
Before we could plot our next move, she caught our attention with a casual, "Hey there," as if we weren't on edge with our lives hanging in the balance.
The young masters, Rowan and Riven, looked startled, their expressions flipping from confusion to awe. I was all set to protect them like an overprotective big brother, but there was something so disarmingly warm about her that it made my instincts stutter. The wolf inside me went from a growl to a confused whine, and I swore I heard it mutter, "What now?"
Riven's POV:
We were about to leave when she appeared—like a vision straight out of one of those fairytales Rowan always scoffed at. There was something captivating about her, something that made the world seem less gray, like a sudden splash of color in a black-and-white movie. Her presence was so commanding it made me wonder if I was in a dream. I couldn't quite place why, but she seemed... familiar. Maybe it was her voice, soft and gentle, or the way she smelled like something I couldn't quite name but was achingly close to Mom.
Rowan's rage, which had been blazing like a firestorm just moments ago, fizzled out the second she reached out and patted his head. If that wasn't proof of her supernatural powers, I don't know what was. I half-expected her to wink at me and say, "Gotcha."
She locked eyes with us, and I swear, it was like she saw straight through to my soul. "I will find your mother," she said, her voice like a solemn promise, deep and serious.
A "Why?" escaped my mouth before I could stop it, weak and uncertain, as if questioning the impossible was somehow my specialty.
Her smile was one of those rare ones that seemed to hold a thousand secrets. "Because if I don't, I'll probably go feral," she said, so casually that it was almost funny. The room seemed to pause, like even the air was trying to catch its breath.
Rowan didn't speak. He didn't even blink. We stood there, wide-eyed, torn between joy and disbelief. I didn't know why she felt like Mom, even though I knew she wasn't. But there was something between us, a bond so strong and familiar that it ached.
We'd come to this place because, as usual, our fathers had been too busy to be present, hiding behind their work as if it could erase the sadness of Mom's absence. They were off visiting a neighboring pack, leaving us to fend for ourselves with a feigned interest in the sights. But standing here, with this woman, I felt something I hadn't in a long time—a longing for something that might finally, finally fill the hole inside.
Just then, Rowan's ring slipped off his finger and clattered to the floor, unnoticed. The air crackled, the silence stretching thin as she stepped forward, eyes glowing with an eerie light. And then, her voice, soft and trembling, echoed in the stillness: "Child. My child."
The room felt electric as realization washed over us, leaving me with a heart full of hope and confusion.