The storm over Crescent Creek territory had not stopped for three days. Wolves whispered that it was an omen, a sign that the Moon Goddess herself walked the skies in warning. Alpha Richard dismissed such superstition, but even he could not ignore how the thunder trembled like a heartbeat-slow, persistent, disapproving.
The war room was steeped in dim light, lanterns flickering against runic stone walls. Maps lay scattered across the long table, marked with red ink and sharp slashes of strategy. Richard stood at the center, arms folded, impatience simmering through his aura as he waited for the returning scouts.
At last, the doors opened.
Three wolves entered-mud stained, shaking, and wide-eyed with fear. They dropped to one knew simultaneously, not out of ritual, but instinct. Richard's presence pressed on them like a weight.
"Report" he demanded.
The lead scout swallowed. "Alpha...the rumors were true. Olivia-she was taken."
Richard's eyes narrowed. "Taken by whom?"
The scout's throat bobbed. "Not by wolves. Not by fae. She was taken by the Moon Goddess."
A thread of silence snapped in the air.
The second scout spoke quickly, as if fearing Richard wouldn't let him finish. "The Goddess descended in a column of moonfire, Alpha. Witnesses said she appeared in full form-radiant, binding. The earth shook, and when she vanished, Olivia vanished with her. We tracked the energy-it led straight into Thunder Heart territory"
Richard's finger twitched.
To the council, it was nothing. To Richard, it was the first crack in his sanity.
He laughed once- sharp, humorless. "The Moon Goddess herself interfered in mortal affairs?"
The third scout looked away. "Not just interfered, Alpha...she intervened. Directly."
Richard's laughter cut off like a blade. The air shifted. His aura thickened, spilling into the room in waves-crushing, choking, heavy with fury older than reason. He slammed both hands onto the war table, splitting the stone clean down the center. Maps fluttered like dying birds. The lantern flames sputtered, bowing away from him in fear.
"She dared" Richard whispered. "The Goddess dared to move my piece from the board." His Beta stepped forward cautiously. "Alpha, if the Goddess took the girl-"
"Say she belongs to the Goddess" Richard warned "and I will rip your tongue out."
The Beta fell silent.
Richard paced, fingers dragging across the cracked table. Each step mirrored the thunder outside. His thoughts raced- not with grief, but with rage at being thwarted. Olivia had been the centerpiece of his plans. The girl born with shadow magic in her blood. The rare power that could bend illusions, twist reality, cut through enemy wards like silk. A living weapon. HIS living weapon.
He had waited nineteen years. Nineteen years of subtle manipulation, misdirection and silent shaping of fate. Only to have her stolen in a burst of divine moonlight. He snarled and turned on the scouts. "Send shadow trackers. Three squads-no more. The best we have. They will approach Thunder Heart's borders and they will watch. Nothing more. No killing, no capturing. I want eyes, not corpses."
He stepped into the center of the room. "Olivia is not lost" he said softly. "She is simply misplaced." No one dared speak. "Her magic was meant for us" Richard continued. "Her training was meant to shape her into something the world has never seen. A shadow-weapon that answers to our call." He smiled-slow, unhinged, a predator savoring the taste of violence.
"And I do not care if the Goddess herself shields her. Every deity blinks eventually. Every diving flame flickers. When her guard drops, when the moonfire dims..." He lowered his voice to a whisper dripping with promise "we will take back what is ours."
The scouts bowed, trembling. As the backed toward the doors, Richard added: "Watch Olivia. Record everything she learns. Everyone she trusts. Every ounce of power she unleashes. I want her entire awakening documented and delivered to me." He paused "And if Thunder Heart senses you..." His eyes gleamed with murderous amusement. "...run. I need observers, not martyrs."
When the scouts disappeared, the room remained silent. Richard stood before the cracked table, staring at the jagged line running through its center-a mirror of the fracture now splitting his carefully crafted future. The storm outside intensified. Light flashed white against the windows. Richard stared at it, hatred burning beneath his skin.
"You cannot hide forever, Goddess" he murmured to the storm "You can strike me. Shield her. Move heaven and earth." He leaned forward, voice low and feral. "But understand this-I will burn every sanctuary to ash before I let Olivia become anything but mine."
The Fae Commander
The shadows recoiled. They slithered away from the Dark Fae Commander as a pulse of silver light rippled through the realm- an echo of a bond he had no part in, a bond he had tried to prevent since before Olivia was born.
His claws dug into the obsidian railing overlooking the Void as the truth struck him like a blade.
The Moon Goddess had awakened the Twin Soul bond.
Not mates, not lovers, something far older...and infinitely more dangerous. Two souls forged from the same celestial spark.
Stacy and Oliva. Twin Souls, Moon-Chosen, Prophecy-breakers.
His breath hissed between his teeth, the air trembling around him. "No" he growled. "It was supposed to be one. One child of the veil. One weapon. One heir to my darkness." But now there were two.
Two girls, one wolf born under a blood moon, the other a wolf-fae hybrid created with his violence and manipulation. Two souls who mirrored each other's instincts, thoughts, and magic. Two halves of a single celestial force. And the Moon Goddess had bound them together with light strong enough to burn through every shadow he had woven into Olivia's life.
He felt the moment the bond sealed-the moment Olivia reached out, trembling and terrified, and Stacy answered her with strength. A surge of light had ripped through the dark sigils he had carved into Olivia's spirit. They shattered like glass. The Commander slammed his fist into the stone wall. Cracks speared outward, dust failing like ash.
"She was mine. Her power was mine. Her bloodline was crafted for me." But the Twin Soul bond was older than his realm, older than the curse he wielded, older even than the prophecy he had twisted. The Moon Goddess's voice brushed against his mind-soft, infuriating, full of certainty.
You never owned what was never yours. She belongs to her light, to her other half. To her twin soul.
His body seized in rage. "Stacy" he spat "That girl was meant to die. She was supposed to be nothing- nothing but a sacrificial piece in my design." And now the girl he dismissed as weak had become Olivia's anchor...and Olivia had become hers. A bond of souls, not hearts. A bond no darkness could sever. He slammed both palms against the cracked alter, shadows writhing frantically around him.
"If their bond completes" he whispered " they will unlock the full prophecy. They will break the veil. They will awaken powers even I cannot command." Worse-
They would overturn the destiny he had written in blood and fear. He had spent decades trying to prevent the connection from ever forming, and the Moon Goddess had five it to them in a heartbeat. For the first time in centuries, ice slithered down his spine. He hadn't just lost Olivia. He had lost control of the prophecy itself.
"No.." his voice cracked " I won't allow it. I won't let the destroy centuries of work."
The Moon Goddess's presence sharped like steel. You do not have a choice.
A blast of silver light erupted from the altar, throwing him across the chamber. Stone shattered, runes burned out, and shadows shrieked as though thrown into fire.
The light faded. Her presence withdrew, but her last whisper lingered like a dagger pressed to his throat: They were created to finish what you began. And this time, they will finish it without you.
Silence swallowed the chamber. The Fae Commander rose slowly, trembling with a raged that bordered on panic. He wiped the blood from his jaw and smiled, though it shook at the edges. "Then let the prophecy play" he whispered, voice like poisoned honey. "Let the twins rise". His eyes burned with dark fire.
Alpha Richard jolted upright, gasping like someone had slammed a fist into his lungs. His office was quiet- only the crackle of the fireplace and scratching of tree branches against the window. But the air felt wrong. Heavy and electric. Then it hit him.
A surge of fury that was not his own. White-hot, ancient, all consuming rage tore through his veins, so violent he nearly collapsed. "No...not again. Not like this-" But the blast came harder.
A roar tore through his mind- not from any wolf, not from any mortal realm- but from the shadow where the Dark Fae Commander waited. She was MINE.
Richard screamed, dropping to one knee as his vision blurred red. His wolf whimpered inside him, tail tucked, cowering. The Commander's presence was a hurricane in his skull, ripping through thoughts, instincts, memories.
A chair toppled behind him. Papers scattered. His chest heaved.
"Stop- STOP!" Richard's voice cracked as he forced himself upright. "What happened? What did she do now?!" Another shockwave slammed into him.
But the Commander's voice was no longer screaming. Now it hissed with something far mor terrifying-fear. The Moon Goddess claimed Olivia.
Something inside him snapped-not guilt, not anger. A sickening dread. "What does that mean? I have sent scouts to Thunder Heart. The prophecy is still ours. She's still-"
A wave of agony ripped him to the floor.
You fool, the Commander snarled, shadow fingers unfurling in he mined. Her bond has awakened.
Richard blinked "Bond? She hasn't found a mate-"
YOU DARE TO DECIEVE ME?!
Cold seeped into Richard's bones. The Commander's fury sharpened like a blade. Twin souls.
The words echoed like thunder through Richard's skull, shattering the remnants of his composure.
You were given a task the Commander hissed A simple task. When her powers awaken, keep her alone, keep her weak, make Olivia broken.
Another pulse of rage slammed into Richard's skull, making blood drip from his nose. A final pulse of raw fury exploded in Richard's skull, knocking him unconscious. He hit the floor hard enough that the sound echoed through the silent office.
Smoke curled from his fingertips. His heart beat in ragged, uneven thuds. The shadows in the room trembled, drawn to him like hungry creatures. Richard woke into darkness knowing he wasn't a partner anymore. He was a pawn. A disposable one.