The assassin didn't fight.
He lay beneath Mira, still breathing hard, blood streaked across his temple where his mask had torn but his eyes were wide open. Gold and grey, mirroring hers.
"Get off me," he rasped.
Mira didn't move.
"Who are you?" she demanded, her claws still pressed to his throat.
He smirked. "Guess."
Liam stepped closer, still pale. "This isn't possible. I would've known if I had a twin."
"Not if you were never supposed to," the assassin said bitterly. "Not if one of us was hidden… built… for something else."
Grey growled. "Enough riddles."
Mira slowly eased off him, but didn't let her claws drop. "You were one of them. A Ghost Howler."
He pushed up on his elbows. "Was."
"Why?" Liam asked. "Why betray your blood?"
The assassin looked at him, not with hatred, but with something colder. Indifference.
"I wasn't raised to be your brother," he said. "I was raised to destroy her."
Mira's stomach flipped. "You were made for me."
He nodded. "Not as a mate. As a mirror. A balance. In case you became too strong."
"Like a… failsafe," Grey said.
The assassin gave a hollow laugh. "Exactly."
Silence hung thick around them.
Mira's voice came out as a whisper. "Who gave the order?"
"Valda," he said. "But she wasn't the architect. She just played her part. There's someone else. Older. Hidden even from the packs. They call her the Midwife of Moons."
Liam frowned. "That's just a myth."
"No," Mira murmured. "It's not."
She remembered something. A name whispered during her first shift. A dream. A woman's voice laced with power and pain. A promise that one would rise… and one would fall.
She looked down at the man again. "What's your name?"
He hesitated.
Then, "Ash."
Her heart stuttered. "Like ashes of a burned future."
"No," Ash said. "Like what's left when everything else is gone."
Grey shifted beside her. "Why didn't you kill her tonight?"
Ash looked at Mira, and for the first time… something flickered across his face. Not hatred.
Regret.
"Because I saw her shift. And something inside me cracked. I wasn't made to feel. But I felt that."
"You felt the bond," Mira said slowly.
"I don't want it," Ash said. "But it's there."
Liam's jaw clenched. "We should kill him now."
"No," Mira said sharply.
Both men turned to her in shock.
"He knows too much. And if he defected, he can lead us back to Valda's source. To this… Midwife."
"You trust him?" Grey asked.
"No," Mira said. "But I believe him."
Ash tilted his head. "Smart Luna."
She turned away. "Don't call me that."
They marched him back to the cabin, Grey tying his hands with silver thread, Liam keeping a blade at his spine. Ash didn't resist.
Once inside, Mira stood over him again.
"One question," she said. "Answer it right, and you stay alive."
Ash raised an eyebrow. "Only one?"
"Who else knows about me? About the bond between us?"
He went still.
Then whispered, "Everyone in the Circle."
Grey tensed. "The inner Ghost Howler council?"
"No," Ash said. "The one above it. The one that breeds wolves like weapons and burns the rest. The ones who made her."
Mira's blood ran cold.
"There's a list," he said. "Names. Coordinates. Birthtimes. Powers. You're number thirteen."
"And you?" Grey asked.
Ash looked up, his voice colder than before.
"Fourteen."
Mira stared.
Not the last.
Not even close.
Before she could speak, a howl pierced the air.
Close.
Maddened. Familiar.
Liam paled. "That's Dad."
Mira bolted for the door.
But what she found outside stopped her cold.
Her father was no longer resting.
He was gone.
And in his place…
Were claw marks burned into the trees.
Letters carved with blood.
"Luna must ascend. Or die."
End of Chapter Fifteen
...….
Ash is Mira's twin, created to counter her. But how many others were born under the same dark star? And now that her father has vanished… is he still an ally or the next enemy waiting in the shadows?