Luna's POV
...One Hour Before the Exile
"Luna, come here right now." Mom's voice cut through my thoughts like a sharp blade.
I was brushing my hair, getting ready for Kael's ceremony. Tonight would change everything between us. After he shifted into his wolf, we would complete our mate bond under the Blood Moon. I had dreamed about this moment since we were kids playing in the forest together.
"Luna!" Mom's voice was sharper now. Angry.
I dropped my brush and ran downstairs. Mom stood in the kitchen, her green eyes blazing with something that made my stomach twist. She had been acting strange all week. Whispering with other pack members. Having secret meetings with Alpha Magnus.
"We need to talk," she said, grabbing my arm. Her fingers dug into my skin like claws.
"Mom, you're hurting me." I tried to pull away, but her grip was too strong.
"Sit down." She pushed me into a chair at the kitchen table. "There are things you don't understand about tonight. Things about Kael."
My heart started beating faster. "What things? What's wrong?"
Mom began pacing around the table like a caged animal. "He won't shift tonight, Luna. I know he won't."
"That's not true." I stood up, angry now. "Kael is strong. He's going to be an amazing Alpha."
"No." Mom's voice was cold as ice. "He's weak. He has no wolf inside him. He never did."
The words hit me like a slap. "You don't know that. Nobody knows that."
Mom stopped pacing and stared at me. "I know because I made sure of it."
The kitchen went silent except for the ticking clock on the wall. "What do you mean?"
"I've been suppressing his wolf since he was a child." Mom's smile was cruel and scary. "A little magic here and there. Some special herbs in his food. It was so easy."
I couldn't breathe. "Why? Why would you do that?"
"Because Kael is dangerous, Luna. More dangerous than you could ever imagine. There are prophecies about him. Ancient warnings about what he might become if his true power awakens."
"You're lying." But even as I said it, I knew she wasn't. All those times Kael got sick after eating at our house. All those times he seemed weaker after Mom's "healing" sessions. It all made horrible sense now.
"I did it to protect our pack," Mom continued. "And tonight, you're going to help me finish what I started."
"No." I backed away from her. "I won't hurt Kael. I love him."
Mom's laugh was like breaking glass. "Love? You think this is about love? This is about survival, Luna. About making sure the right wolves stay in power."
She moved closer to me, and I saw something glowing in her hand. A small crystal that pulsed with dark purple light.
"What is that?"
"Insurance," Mom said. "To make sure you do exactly what I need you to do tonight."
I tried to run, but she was faster. Her hand pressed against my forehead, and the crystal's light washed over me like cold water. Strange words poured from her lips in a language I didn't recognize.
The world went fuzzy around the edges. My thoughts felt thick and slow, like I was thinking through honey.
"There," Mom said, stepping back. "Now you'll be a good daughter and do what's best for the pack."
I wanted to scream at her, to fight back, but I couldn't. My body felt heavy and distant, like it belonged to someone else.
"What did you do to me?"
"A simple compulsion spell. When the time comes tonight, you'll reject Kael as your mate. You'll speak the words clearly and mean them completely."
"No." The word came out weak and broken. "I won't."
"You will." Mom's voice was confident now. "You won't have a choice. The spell will make you do it, and afterward, you won't even remember that you didn't want to."
Tears rolled down my cheeks, but I couldn't lift my hands to wipe them away. "Please don't make me do this. Please."
"It's already done, sweetheart." Mom patted my head like I was a little kid. "Now let's go watch your boyfriend fail spectacularly."
The ceremony felt like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. I sat next to Mom, watching Kael stand in the center of the circle. He looked so brave and scared at the same time. So hopeful.
I wanted to run to him. To warn him about what Mom had done. To tell him that I would always love him no matter what happened.
But the spell held me in my chair like invisible chains.
When Kael failed to shift, I felt his pain like it was my own. The pack's whispers cut into my heart. But the worst part was knowing that it was all my mother's fault. That she had stolen his wolf and destroyed his dreams.
Then Alpha Magnus spoke the words of exile, and I knew my part in this horrible play was coming.
"Luna?" Kael reached out to me, his brown eyes full of desperate hope.
The spell activated like a switch being flipped. I stood up without meaning to. My mouth opened without permission.
"I, Luna Ashworth, reject you as my mate." The words came out clear and strong, but they weren't really mine. "I cast you out of my heart forever."
Inside my head, I was screaming. I was fighting against the magic with everything I had. But on the outside, I just stood there saying the cruelest words in the world to the boy I loved more than life itself.
The mate bond snapped between us like a rope under too much weight. The pain was incredible. Like someone had reached into my chest and torn out my soul. I felt Kael's agony mixing with my own, doubling the hurt until I thought I might die from it.
Kael doubled over, gasping. I wanted to run to him, to hold him, to tell him this wasn't real. But the spell kept me frozen in place.
The pack started walking away. Kael stumbled toward the forest like a wounded animal. And I could only stand there and watch, trapped inside my own body.
As Kael reached the edge of the Shadowlands, something strange happened. The spell flickered for just a second, like a candle in the wind. For that tiny moment, I had control again.
"Help me," I whispered, so quietly that only supernatural hearing could catch it.
Kael stopped walking. He turned back toward me, confusion and hurt written all over his face. But then the spell slammed back into place, and I couldn't say anything else.
He stared at me for a heartbeat longer. Then he shook his head and disappeared into the dark trees.
"What did you say?" Mom hissed in my ear.
"Nothing," I lied, the spell forcing the word out. "I said nothing."
But as we walked back to the house, I held onto that moment of freedom like a lifeline. The spell was strong, but it wasn't perfect. And somewhere in the tiny crack I had found, a plan started forming.
Mom thought she had won. She thought she had destroyed Kael and controlled me completely.
She was wrong.
The spell might force my body to obey, but my heart still belonged to Kael. And hearts, I was learning, were much stronger than magic.
As I lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, I made a promise. Somehow, someway, I was going to break free. I was going to find Kael and tell him the truth.
I was going to save the boy I loved, even if it killed me.
But first, I had to figure out how to fight a spell cast by my own mother. A mother who was clearly much more dangerous than I had ever imagined.
Outside my window, something howled in the distance. The sound was lonely and heartbroken and furious all at once.
It sounded exactly like how I felt inside.
...To the Present Moment....
I pressed my face against the cold glass, watching Kael's shadow do impossible things in the moonlight. For just a second, it looked like a wolf. A magnificent, powerful wolf with eyes like stars.
"What are you, Kael Nightborne?" I whispered. "And what has my mother been so afraid of?"
Behind me, Mom's voice drifted up from downstairs. She was talking to someone on the phone, her voice excited and pleased.
"Yes, it worked perfectly," she was saying. "He's gone, and she rejected him completely. The bloodline is broken. The prophecy can never come true now."
My blood turned to ice. What prophecy? What bloodline?
But as I listened harder, Mom's voice faded away. She had finished her call and was coming upstairs.
I jumped into bed and pretended to sleep as her footsteps stopped outside my door.
"Sweet dreams, Luna," she whispered through the wood. "Tomorrow, everything will be different."
She was right about that. Tomorrow would be different.
Because tomorrow, I was going to start fighting back.