Page 93 of Full Moon
Diaval turns me to face him, his eyes shifting to the serpentine slits of his dragon as his inner beast rises to the surface. "It'sworse than that," he says, his voice dropping to a deadly quiet. "Someone on theshiftercouncil is sacrificing other shifters to create these monsters. They're working with the mages. And they're likely responsible for poisoning the wolves twice over the past two decades—killing those unborn babies to try to find and eliminateyou."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Anger surges through me, white-hot and blinding, and I tremble with its intensity. The betrayal cuts so deep I can barely breathe—the shifter council, who should have protected their own kind,murderingthem instead. Using their blood and souls to create abominations.
To hunt me.
To silence me before I could become what they feared.
And then—between what Diaval and Easton just said, between the pieces that have been floating around the edges of my consciousness for months—everything suddenly clicks into place with chilling clarity. I freeze, my body going rigid as the implications crash over me like an avalanche.
I think about all those times they drew blood from me at the magic school—the "routine tests" that happened more often than they should have. I think about the extra herbs at my ascension ceremony that burned my skin and made me scream. The words the coven spoke that shattered my amulet.
They weren't accidents.
They wereexperiments.
I stumble away from the table, my eyes wide, staring at the book and my mates as my world tilts on its axis. "They knew," I whisper, my voice cracking. "They all knew what I was. Themagic school, the shifter council—everyone knew." My breath quickens, coming in short, sharp gasps that don't seem to bring enough air into my lungs. I feel light-headed, the room spinning around me as years of confusion and pain suddenly make terrible, terrible sense.
All those years of being mistreated, of being handled like I was worthless when I was theopposite. The taunting and isolation, the cruel whispers behind my back, the tears I cried in my tiny room because I never fit in and no one would tell mewhy. "Why didn't the shifter council take me away from the magic school if they knew?" The question tears out of me, raw and bleeding. Tears flow freely down my cheeks, carving hot tracks over my new scar. "Why leave me there to suffer foryears? Why let me believe I was nothing?"
I'm spiraling, I know I'm spiraling, but I can't stop the panic attack from taking hold. My heart races. My hands shake. My vision narrows to a dark tunnel with no end. "They all feared what you would become," Diaval explains, his voice cutting through the chaos in my mind. He waves off the others as he steps into my space, his dragon crooning to me—a deep, rumbling song that speaks to something primal in my soul.
He knows what I need right now.
A bigger predator. A protector. Something ancient and powerful that makes my wolf feel safe enough to let go. Diaval opens his arms, and I dive into them without hesitation, pressing the bridge of my nose to the warm column of his throat. I breathe in his scent—smoke and sandalwood and something that smells like the heart of a mountain—trying desperately to catch my breath, to anchor myself in the comfort and safety of his presence. His arms wrap around me, strong and sure, andhis dragon continues its crooning song as I fall apart against his chest.
The council knew.
The mages knew.
Everyone who should have protected me instead conspired to destroy me—and when poison and binding and isolation didn't work, they createdmonstersto finish the job.
But I'm still here.
Still breathing.
Still standing.
And now I know exactly who my enemies are.Let them come,my wolf whispers, her voice fierce and certain despite my tears.Let them send a hundred wendigos. A thousand. We'll kill them all, and then we'll find the cowards who created them.And we'll make them wish they had succeeded in killing us before we ever learned the truth.
