Page 95 of Full Moon
Feray lets out a soft chuckle, a sound like warm honey despite the ice radiating from her body. She steps away to give me a playful smile, and I watch the frost fade from her skin as quickly as it appeared. "Not sure," she replies, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "But it explains why the cold doesn't bother me. Never has, really—I used to think I was just weird. Turns out I was just... me." Her smile is radiant as she glances around the room at our bond mates, exuding a confidence that has grown stronger with every trial she's faced.
"You have literal fire in your veins, Easton," she says, gesturing to each of us in turn. "I have ice. Torben is as immovable as a boulder, steady and unshakeable. Khal's shift flows like a river when he slithers—adaptable, finding a way around every obstacle."
She steps back into Diaval's embrace, looking up at him with an affectionate grin. "And Diaval's shift beats the wind into submission when he flies. We all have our species-specific thing—elements bound into our very souls." I watch as Feray moves to the bookshelf with graceful determination, her fingers trailing along ancient spines until she finds what she's looking for. She pulls a heavy tome from its resting place and lays it on the table before us, the leather cover cracked with age. Her fingers dance over the pages, searching, until she finds what makes her breath catch in her throat. A note. Written in her mother's hand.
I can sense the weight of the moment, the tension crackling in the air as Feray reads her mother's words—suspicions about the shifter council that Lyra never lived to prove, names that make my blood run cold.
Agnar for the dragons.
Cornelius for the foxes.
Marcus for the wolves.
Three council members who served during Lyra's time. Three names that might lead us to the people responsible for destroying Feray's family. The note mentions another book, and I feel a surge of urgency as Feray rushes to retrieve it, her movements quick and purposeful. Hope and dread war in my chest—hope that we might finally have answers, dread at what those answers might reveal.
Flipping through the second book, Feray finds another note, this one detailing how the mage council forbade the arranged marriage between her parents—a marriage that would have united two of the most powerful wolf bloodlines in existence. My chest tightens with frustration as I snatch up the note, scanning it for answers, but it doesn't reveal who is behind the decision or why they were so determined to keep Lyra and Claridon apart.
"Do you think we should send the notes to the others?" I ask, holding both pieces of aged paper out to Feray. The gravity of our discovery hangs heavy between us, thick enough to taste. "Fi and her mates might be able to use this information—connect it to something they've found on their end."
Feray nods slowly, her expression resolute despite the pain lurking behind her eyes. "Ro, I need you," she calls out, her voice clear and commanding. Her eyes pulse ice blue for a brief moment, power flickering beneath her skin like lightning beneath storm clouds.
In a poof of glitter that sparkles in the fading sunlight, Rowena appears on the table. Her tiny form is adorned in miniature merchandise from Revelin's band—a tour t-shirt sized for a pixie, boots that look like they came from the world's smallest Hot Topic. "Yes, oh Queen Fluffy," she chirps, doing a half bow and fluttering her iridescent wings playfully. But then her eyes widen as she takes in Feray's face, landing on the scar that wasn't there the last time they met. "Oh my, oh my, you're hurt!"
"I'm fine," Feray assures her, shaking her head, though her focus remains on the notes in her hands. "I need you to give these to Tiernan."
She folds the papers smaller, creasing them carefully so Ro can carry them. "My mother had suspicions about the shifter council and the mages. Tiernan will know how to handle the council. Dezi or Revelin will know how to handle the mages."
"Anything to show the others?" Ro holds out her tiny hand, ready to receive whatever vision Feray wants to share. Feray smirks—a dangerous expression that makes my phoenix preen with pride—and pinches Ro's hand gently between her thumb and forefinger, transferring images directly into the pixie'smind. Ro's eyes widen with fear, her wings beating frantically, before she vanishes in another burst of glitter.
"What did you show her?" I ask, intrigued, as Feray steps close to me and rests her head on my shoulder. I wrap my arms around her automatically, feeling the steady beat of her heart against mine.
"The fight with the wendigo," she explains with a quiet laugh that holds no humor. "I want my upgrades to be a shock. The fewer people outside of the pack that know what I've become, the better."
She tilts her head up to meet my eyes, and I see the cunning that lives behind her wolf's ice-blue gaze. "Can't plan for something you know nothing about."
Her logic is sound, and I can't help but admire her foresight—the way she's thinking three steps ahead, already planning for battles that haven't been declared yet.
"I'm not sure you're a wolf sometimes," I say playfully, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of her head. "That was one hundred percent dragon logic."
Diaval speaks up from his position by the bookshelf, his tone blunt and straightforward as always. "Wolves are very strategic when they choose to be," he remarks, nodding slightly. "But my dragon agrees with the course of action. He would have done the same—never show your full hand until the moment you're ready to strike."
"The council can be rebuilt," Torben says thoughtfully, stroking his beard as he gazes out the window at the darkening sky. "Half of those shifters took their positions by power, not election. They're not legitimate leaders—they're tyrants who seizedcontrol when no one was strong enough to stop them." His words catch me off guard, sending a flicker of surprise through my chest.
"It was always supposed to be by election," I say, frowning at the thought. "That's what the council was founded on originally—representation chosen by the people, not positions taken by force or inheritance." The knowledge that the council my father helped establish could be so thoroughly corrupted makes my stomach twist with a mixture of anger and bitter disbelief.
"It hasn't been by election in about three or four generations," Khal chimes in, finally looking up from his phone. His expression is grim, his dark eyes hard with determination. "Some positions have been bought outright. I don't know who is getting the payday yet, but I'm working on it. My people are very good at following money." His fingers tap incessantly on his phone, a rhythmic reminder that information is being gathered even now—threads being pulled that will eventually unravel the entire corrupt tapestry.
Feray steps away from me, pacing the room with an intensity that makes the air feel charged, her bare feet silent on the stone floor but her energy crackling like a gathering storm. "I need to prepare my packs for war," she declares, flexing her fingers as her claws extend and retract in a hypnotic rhythm—a silent promise of what's to come. "I want to head back to Briarvale as soon as everything is set in motion here. There's too much to do, too many pieces to put in place." When she looks up, her eyes are glowing ice blue, a storm of emotions swirling within them like blizzards trapped behind glass.
She's furious.
And rightfully so.
As she leaves the room without another word, I hear her shift mid-stride, her howl echoing down the hallway like a declaration of war. Her paws hit the tiles with a determined rhythm, the clicking of her claws like a death knell counting down to the moment of reckoning. She's a woman on a mission now. Avenging her parents' deaths. Freeing her people from their self-imposed banishment. Tearing down the corrupt councils that have hunted her since before she was born.
"What should we do?" Torben asks, visibly struggling to keep his bear under control, his muscles tensing and relaxing with the effort of restraint.
"Whatever she wants," Diaval replies, his eyes following the direction Feray disappeared, his gaze intense with the flicker of his dragon's fire shining through. "Within reason. Whatever keeps her safe while she burns the world down around our enemies." The world has no idea what's coming for them. The winter wolf has finally remembered who she is.
And winter is coming for everyone who wronged her. I can only hope Fi and her mates have found what they needed as well—because when Feray finally unleashes the storm she's been building, she's going to need every ally she can get.
And her enemies are going to need a miracle.
