POV - James
The rest of the day felt like an eternity.
I signed documents, led meetings, approved budgets — all on autopilot. None of it mattered.
Every second that ticked by was filled with the same haunting thought: the prophecy.
My parents hadn't spoken it aloud — they didn't need to. I could see it in their faces the moment they heard her name. Dorne.
By noon, I was in my office again, the blinds half-drawn, the air thick with silence. I sat behind my desk with an old, leather-bound tome spread open in front of me — one of the few artifacts left from the earliest archives of our kind.
Most Lycans dismissed these records as myth, but my family had always known better. The Ashfords were keepers of truth — the kind that burned too bright for ordinary eyes.
The pages smelled of smoke and time. Symbols etched in ink that shimmered faintly in the light. The script was Old Tongue, but I knew it well.
My eyes caught on a familiar passage, one I'd half-forgotten — until now.
When moon and flame are born in one blood,
the line of beasts and the line of spells shall meet again.
Two shall rise — wolf and witch — bound by soul, divided by fate.
Their union will awaken the Veil, and with it, the reckoning of realms.
I exhaled slowly. Wolf and witch.
The last hybrid line had vanished centuries ago — hunted, purged, erased.
Until her.
Elena wasn't just a hybrid. She was the convergence.
The living key between our world and theirs.
And the Council — the Circle of Elders who governed our kind — would do anything to control that power.
I leaned back in my chair, the old leather creaking beneath me. The Council had been restless for years. Rumors of imbalance between packs, stray magic flaring through the Veil, witches resurfacing in secret. If they learned who Elena was, they wouldn't see her as a woman.
They'd see her as a weapon.
A knock interrupted my thoughts. "Come in," I said.
Lucian stepped in, silent as ever, closing the door behind him. He took one look at my desk and sighed. "You've been reading the old texts again."
"Tell me I'm wrong," I said, tapping the open page.
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he walked closer, scanning the script. "You're not wrong. But if this prophecy is real… then she's more than the sum of her blood."
"She's the Moonfire," I said softly.
Lucian's head snapped up. "You believe that?"
I nodded. "It fits. The lost child of two lines — one Lycan, one Arcanum — born under the Blood Moon eclipse twenty-six years ago. That's her, Lucian. It has to be."
He exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "Then we're in more danger than I thought."
"I know."
"Does she?"
"No."
"Does your mother?"
I hesitated. "She suspects. But she won't move against her."
Lucian's expression hardened. "The Council will. Once they sense the awakening, they'll come for her — and for you."
I closed the book gently, feeling the old energy hum beneath my palms. "Then we prepare before they do."
Lucian nodded. "I'll summon the others tonight. The pack's inner circle — those we can trust."
"Not here," I said immediately. "They'll be watching the office. At the estate."
Lucian tilted his head. "I'll handle it."
Before he left, I added quietly, "She can't know yet."
He paused at the door, his gaze steady. "You'll have to tell her soon, Alpha. Secrets have weight. And that one's heavier than most."
When he was gone, I sat there for a long time, the ticking of the clock the only sound.
At five, I finally reached for my phone and typed a message:
James: I wish I could take you to dinner tonight. But something's come up that I can't postpone. I'll explain soon. I promise.
Her reply came minutes later:
Elena: That's okay. You work too hard anyway. See you tomorrow?
I smiled faintly, even as a knot formed in my chest. Tomorrow.
If only she knew how fragile that promise was.
The drive home was quiet. Too quiet.
My family's estate lay beyond the city, where the skyline gave way to forest — old trees that had stood since before humans learned to build walls.
By the time I reached the gates, night had fallen, and the crescent moon hung low above the hills.
Lucian's car was already there. Inside, the long dining table had been cleared, replaced with maps, scrolls, and half-drained glasses of whiskey.
My Beta stood at one end, and at the other — waiting — were two more of my oldest allies:
Marcus — our strategist, broad-shouldered, scarred, loyal to the bone.
And Rowena, our historian and empath, the only one who could read the threads of fate as though they were written in ink.
Rowena's eyes met mine as I entered. "So," she said softly. "It's true."
"It's true," Lucian answered for me. "He's found her."
Marcus leaned forward, his expression grim. "Then we're running out of time."
Rowena unrolled a parchment across the table. The symbols were old — lunar sigils, bloodlines, names that hadn't been spoken aloud in generations.
"This," she said, pointing to a spiral at the center, "is the Veil. The boundary between realms. When the two bloodlines meet again — wolf and witch — the Veil begins to thin. Power flows freely. That's the gift."
She looked up, her eyes sharp as glass. "But the curse… is that the one who carries it becomes the key to both worlds. And every faction will want to claim them."
Marcus grunted. "Meaning if the Council doesn't get her, the witch clans will."
Lucian nodded. "Or worse — the Hunters."
My jaw tightened. The word Hunters always brought back old scars — both mine and my family's. The humans who had once hunted our kind under the guise of holy order had never fully vanished. They'd gone underground. Adapted. Waited.
Rowena's voice softened. "James, if she's truly the Moonfire, she won't just be powerful. She'll be sought after. The Veil will call to her — and she won't understand why."
"She's already changing," I said quietly. "She feels things she can't explain."
"Then the awakening has begun," Rowena whispered.
Silence settled over the room.
Finally, Lucian spoke. "We can protect her. But only if we know what we're dealing with."
Rowena's gaze turned to me. "You'll have to anchor her through it. The bond between you will be her tether. But you'll also be the one who feels her power first. If she breaks, you break."
I met her eyes steadily. "Then I'll make sure she doesn't."
Rowena studied me for a moment, then nodded once. "Then it's time."
"Time for what?" Marcus asked.
She smiled faintly — not in amusement, but in knowing. "For destiny to start moving again."
I looked down at the parchment, tracing the old markings that connected the names of our ancestors — Ashford and Dorne — bound by ink, blood, and moonlight.
"Prepare everything," I said quietly. "We'll need to be ready before the next full moon."
Lucian inclined his head. "And what about her?"
I hesitated, my voice barely above a whisper. "She'll start to see what she is soon enough. But when she does… she'll need to trust me completely."
Rowena smiled, sad and wise. "Then make her heart your truth, Alpha. Because once the Veil begins to open, love will be the only thing strong enough to hold it closed."
The fire cracked softly in the hearth.
Outside, a distant howl rose from the forest — not threat, not warning, but promise.
The Moonfire had awakened.
And destiny was coming for us all
…
The prophecy.
It's haunted my family for centuries — inked into walls, whispered between generations, buried beneath caution and denial.
Most called it myth. I never had that luxury.
When moon and flame are born in one blood,
wolf and witch shall meet again.
Two bound by soul will thin the Veil;
their union mends—or sunders—realms.
Four lines. Just four.
But they've shaped everything.
Moon and flame.
The Moonfire. The merging of two ancient lines — wolf and witch — into one heartbeat. Instinct and will, body and spirit.
Not balance. Collision.
And when that blood wakes, the world bends around it.
Elena.
It's her. I can feel it. My soul knows it, the same way my wolf does. She's what the prophecy was warning — or promising.
Maybe both.
The Veil.
People think it's a curtain. It isn't. It's more like skin — stretched thin between the world humans see and the one that remembers them.
It keeps magic in check. Keeps monsters half-asleep. Keeps the hunters forgetful.
But when two bloodlines like ours come together…
the skin thins.
Reality breathes.
And sometimes, it breaks.
That's what they mean by thinning the Veil.
It's not a metaphor. It's physics. Spiritual gravity. The air changes where we stand — coincidence turns to certainty, fate starts listening.
And if the bond between us holds, that change brings peace.
If it doesn't… it brings collapse.
The Council knows this. That's why they'll come.
They'll see her as leverage. As weapon. As something to own.
Not Elena — the Moonfire.
A vessel.
A tool.
I won't let that happen.
They've forgotten that prophecies aren't blueprints — they're warnings.
And they always leave room for choice.
The bond…
Fated mates. Humans romanticize it, but for us it's not poetry — it's architecture.
Two souls anchoring one another so neither burns too bright.
When I met her, my wolf fell silent.
Not in fear. In reverence.
Like finding a home he'd been dreaming about for lifetimes.
She doesn't know what she is.
She doesn't know what I am.
And I can't just tell her — because truth that big can shatter someone if they're not ready to hold it.
Lucian's ritual… that's our path.
Old magic. Not witchcraft, not dominance — recognition.
Salt. Iron. Moonlight. Trust.
Her blood remembering itself in my presence.
If she accepts it, the awakening begins. If she rejects it, it sleeps.
But once it starts, there's no going back.
She'll feel it first — heat under her skin, the world whispering too loud, senses sharpened to unbearable clarity.
Then dreams.
Old symbols.
Maybe even the sound of my name in places where sound doesn't belong.
It's already happening. I've seen it in her eyes — that flicker of confusion when she senses something beyond logic.
Her blood's remembering the language of the moon.
And when it's awake, she'll be more than Lycan or witch.
She'll be the balance itself. The tether between realms.
The Council will panic. The hunters will stir.
The Veil will shift.
And me?
I'll stand between her and the world.
Because the prophecy doesn't decide what happens next — we do.
And maybe… just maybe, this isn't a curse at all.
Maybe this is what all of us have been waiting for.
To stop living divided.
To stop fearing what we are.
Maybe we're not here to break the Veil.
Maybe we're here to teach it how to hold.
And if that's true…
then loving her isn't just destiny.
It's salvation.