Page 80 of Full Moon
"It's a lot to take in," Easton murmurs, his voice a soothing balm as he rests a warm hand on my lower back, his touch groundingme amidst the swirling chaos of emotions threatening to pull me under.
"There's no shame in crying over all that you've lost," Khal says softly, placing a gentle hand on my elbow, his dark eyes filled with an empathy that speaks to his own losses over the centuries. "Grief isn't weakness—it's love with nowhere left to go."
"We're here in any capacity you need us to be," Diaval offers, his fingers tracing over my hand in a gesture of unwavering support. "Whatever you need, if we can do it, we will."
"Whatever you need," Torben echoes, his touch on my other hand a solid promise of their collective strength.
Their kindness breaks my resolve like a dam giving way to floodwaters. The tears spill over, flowing freely down my cheeks as the weight of everything I've been holding in finally releases. I sink to the floor, overwhelmed by the flood of emotions I've been suppressing for so long, and bury my face in my hands as ragged sobs tear through my chest.
The sound of footsteps running down the hallway cuts through my grief, and I lift my head to see three of the pack's betas standing at the entrance to the wing, watching me with wide, concerned eyes. They felt my grief through the bond—of course they did. Every spike of emotion I have now ripples through hundreds of wolves like a stone dropped in still water.
"I'm sorry," I manage to say, my voice thick with tears but steadier than I expected. "I'm having a moment. Everything is okay—I promise." They bow deeply in understanding, a gesture of respect for my privacy, before moving back down the hall to give us space. I watch their shadows linger at the end of the wingwhere the black drapes hang open, standing guard to ensure no one else disturbs us.
To my surprise, it's Diaval who gets down onto the floor with me, his expensive suit pressing against the dusty carpet without a moment's hesitation. Gently, he pulls me into his lap and rests my head against his shoulder, his arms wrapping around me with a tenderness I've rarely seen from the usually reserved dragon. The steady thump of his heartbeat against my ear is grounding, an anchor in the storm of my emotions.
"They were a wonderful match for each other, your parents," he says softly, his deep voice rumbling through his chest and into mine. "From the moment of their meeting on this very patio, they were inseparable. You would think your mother hung the moon itself the way your father watched her—like she was the most precious thing in all the realms."
A small laugh escapes me despite the tears, and I blot my eyes with the back of my hand. "You would think I hung the Dragon Star the way you watch me sometimes." I reach up and playfully tug on his silk tie, enjoying the way his breath catches at the unexpected contact.
"It's true," he admits, his hazel-green eyes softening as they meet mine. "In my opinion, you hung the great Dragon Star on the night of the Dragon Moon. I have been blessed beyond measure with such a wondrous mate—one who challenges me, surprises me, and makes nine hundred years of waiting seem like nothing at all." He presses his lips to my temple with infinite gentleness, and I feel his smile against my skin.
After a moment, he looks up at Khal, who hovers nearby with his hands extended toward me. "We only have about an hour before dinner, so let's look around a little before we have to go eat." Itake Khal's offered hands, feeling the warmth and strength in his grip, and Diaval lifts me by my hips to help me stand—his fingers finding the ticklish spots at my waist with unerring accuracy.
"Stop that, I'm ticklish!" I squeal, squirming out of his grasp and practically leaping into Khal's arms to escape the dragon's wandering hands.
"Hmm, I'll remember that for later," Diaval says with a wicked gleam in his eye as he rises and dusts off his suit. He winks at me before wandering off to examine the far side of the room, leaving me flushed and breathless in Khal's steadying embrace.
Khal leads me over to the different dressers that Torben and Easton have been uncovering, pulling the white sheets away to reveal beautiful antique furniture carved with intricate forest scenes—wolves running through snow-laden pines, moons in various phases, stars scattered across drawer fronts like diamonds.
Dozens of family pictures line the top of each dresser, faces preserved in time within silver and gold frames, unknown yet strangely familiar—each one sharing some feature with my own reflection. I reach out to touch a heavy silver frame, my fingers tracing the image within of a stern-looking woman with white hair and piercing ice-blue eyes standing beside a tall man with kind features.
"That's your grandmother Hilda and her husband Dyri," Easton says, pointing to the picture I'm touching. "They ruled here for almost three hundred years. Winter wolves live significantly longer than regular wolves—some of the oldest have been known to reach five or six hundred years." He picks up another frame, this one smaller and more ornate with intricate scrollwork around the edges. "Here's your great-grandparents on Hilda'sside—I believe their names were Nyri and Anson. They were also husband and wife, not mates, oddly enough."
"I didn't know wolves had such a hard time finding their mates until now," he muses, his golden eyes scanning the line of images, each one a story waiting to be told. "It seems like chosen marriages were more common than fated bonds in your family's history."
The evidence is right in front of me, laid out in the pictures on the ledge like pieces of a puzzle I'm only beginning to understand. Husband and wife. Not mates. Generation after generation, wolves settling for chosen partners instead of waiting for the one the gods intended for them. Something cold settles in my stomach, spreading outward like frost creeping across a windowpane.
I glance over at my mates, my eyes darting from the sepia-toned images to their living faces and back again. Easton stands with his arms crossed, his expression thoughtful as he studies the photographs. Diaval leans casually against the wall by the window, his dragon eyes sharp and attentive despite his relaxed posture. Khal remains close beside me, a contemplative look furrowing his brow, while Torben stands tall near the door, a hint of suspicious unease in the set of his jaw.
"Do you think the council is working closely with the witches and warlocks?" I ask, tilting my head as the question that's been rolling around in my thoughts finally finds voice. "Could they have done something—cast some kind of spell or curse—to make it harder for shifters to find their mates?"
The question hangs in the air like smoke, heavy with terrible implications.
If the witches and warlocks are willing to poison students just to identify and out shifters from their precious school—what else might they be willing to do? How far would they go to weaken the shifter population? To keep us divided and diminished? The room goes so silent you could hear a pin drop on the thick carpet.
Torben steps forward, his boots barely making a sound despite his size. "It seems very on brand for them. If you don't have magic, you don't matter—that's been the witch philosophy for as long as anyone can remember." His fingers brush through his thick beard thoughtfully, amber eyes distant as he connects pieces of a puzzle none of us fully see yet. "Didn't they use wolfsbane in your coming-of-age ceremony? That's what made your skin itch and burn. And something in their ritual broke your amulet."
I nod slowly, a deeper chill running down my spine as the implications settle over me like a shroud. My amulet. The magical binding that kept my wolf suppressed and small and silent for my entire life. The witches broke it during their ceremony. But was that truly an accident—or were they trying to expose what I really was?
"Do you think they suspected what she was but couldn't get the result they initially wanted, so they tried something else?" Torben continues, his steady gaze holding mine with an intensity that makes me want to look away. "Let's face it—she grew up in an all-witch household surrounded by magic users and never presented with a single power. That had to raise some flags, especially if they were watching for hidden shifters all along." He looks back at Diaval, waiting for the ancient's input, and the room seems to hold its breath around us.
I notice a subtle shift in the air, a silent understanding passing between the two ancients as they turn to face each other acrossthe dusty room. Their eyes meet, and something unspoken passes between them—the kind of communication that comes from centuries of knowing how the world really works.
"Do you think?" Diaval's voice is low, almost hesitant in a way I've never heard from him before.
"I would hope not," Easton replies, his phoenix eyes flickering with barely suppressed fire. "But it wouldn't shock me. Nothing they do shocks me anymore."
"What am I missing?" I whisper, the words barely audible as I lean into Torben's solid warmth, bracing myself for whatever blow is about to land. "What aren't you telling me?"
