The Cascade pack territory looked like something out of a fairy tale.
I pressed my face to the passenger window of Beta Samuel's SUV as we wound through the mountain roads, taking in the towering evergreens that seemed to scrape the cloudy sky. Everything here was bigger, wilder, more primal than the manicured landscapes of the Silver Creek estate. Mist clung to the treetops like whispered secrets, and I could hear the distant sound of rushing water echoing through the valleys.
"Different from home, isn't it?" Beta Samuel said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.
"It's beautiful." And it was, in a raw, untamed way that made something deep in my chest respond with recognition. "How long have they been established here?"
"Longer than any other pack in the region. The Cascade wolves were here when the first settlers arrived, maybe even before that." He navigated a particularly sharp turn with practiced ease. "They're... old-fashioned in their ways. Traditional. Elder Celeste especially."
"What's she like?"
"Intimidating." Beta Samuel's mouth quirked in what might have been a smile. "She knew your grandmother, you know. Before the madness. She might be the only person alive who can tell you what Luna Celestine was really like."
The prospect both thrilled and terrified me. After yesterday's confrontation with Dad and the pack council, after seeing Kai in that hospital bed with tubes down his throat because of what I'd done to him, I needed answers. I needed to understand what I was becoming, and how to stop it from destroying everything I touched.
The road curved one final time, and suddenly we were driving through a gate made of carved stone and twisted iron. The Cascade pack house rose before us like something out of a gothic novel—all dark wood and steep rooflines, with smoke curling from multiple chimneys. It looked like it had grown out of the mountain itself.
"Home sweet home," Beta Samuel muttered, but there was something in his tone that suggested he wasn't entirely comfortable being here.
A delegation was waiting for us in the circular driveway. I recognized Alpha Thomas Cascade from various pack gatherings over the years—a tall, silver-haired man with kind eyes and the easy bearing of someone completely secure in his power. Beside him stood a woman who must be his Luna, along with several other pack members I didn't know.
But it was the figure standing slightly apart from the group that made my breath catch.
She was small—maybe five and a half feet tall—with silver-white hair that fell in intricate braids to her waist. Her face was ageless in the way that spoke of great power rather than good genetics, and her pale gray eyes seemed to look right through me to something deeper.
When those eyes met mine through the car window, I felt a jolt of recognition that had nothing to do with memory and everything to do with power calling to power.
"Elder Celeste," I whispered.
"The one and only," Beta Samuel confirmed. "Good luck, kid. You're going to need it."
The introductions were polite but brief. Alpha Thomas welcomed me with genuine warmth, his Luna offered to show me to my room, and the other pack members smiled and nodded in all the right places. But through it all, I was acutely aware of Elder Celeste's presence, the way she watched me with those unsettling gray eyes.
"Miss Montenegro," she said when the formalities were over, her voice carrying an accent I couldn't place. "Walk with me."
It wasn't a request.
I followed her away from the main house, down a winding path that led deeper into the forest. The other pack members melted away without a word, leaving us alone among the towering trees.
"You have questions," Elder Celeste said after we'd walked in silence for several minutes.
"A few thousand."
"Then let's start with the most important one." She stopped beside a massive cedar tree and turned to face me. "Do you know why you're really here?"
"Because I nearly killed someone and my father thinks I'm going insane?"
"No." Her gray eyes were steady, unblinking. "You're here because the Moon Goddess has work for you, and you need to be prepared."
"Work?"
"A storm is coming, child. War, betrayal, the potential destruction of our entire species." She resumed walking, her pace unhurried despite the weight of her words. "The signs have been building for months. Hunters moving in coordinated patterns. Government interference in pack business. Ancient enemies stirring in the shadows."
I hurried to keep up with her, my heart hammering. "What does that have to do with me?"
"Everything." We emerged into a clearing dominated by a circle of standing stones, each one carved with symbols that seemed to shift and dance in the dappled sunlight. "This is where we'll begin your real education."
"Real education?"
"Your father sent you here to learn control." Elder Celeste walked to the center of the stone circle and gestured for me to follow. "I'm going to teach you something far more important. I'm going to teach you to embrace what you are."
The moment I stepped inside the circle, power rushed through me like an electric current. The birthmark on my shoulder blade flared to life, silver light bleeding through my shirt, and I gasped as every nerve ending in my body suddenly sang with energy.
"Good," Elder Celeste said, watching my reaction with satisfaction. "The stones recognize you. As I thought they would."
"What are they?"
"Moonstone. Quarried from the sacred sites of the first packs, blessed by generations of Moon Priestesses." She moved to stand in front of me, her small hands surprisingly strong as she gripped my shoulders. "This circle has been here for over two hundred years, waiting for you."
"Waiting for me specifically?"
"Waiting for the Last Daughter."
The title sent a chill down my spine. "Last Daughter of what?"
"The Moon Goddess herself." Elder Celeste's voice took on the otherworldly quality I'd heard from Elder Patricia during her visions. "Do you know the true story of how werewolves came to be?"
"The usual creation myth. The Moon Goddess fell in love with a mortal man, blessed him with the ability to transform, their children became the first werewolves."
"A pretty story. Also complete nonsense." Elder Celeste began to pace around the circle, her fingers trailing over the carved stones. "The truth is far more complicated. The Moon Goddess didn't just fall in love with one mortal man. She had many lovers, many children, over many centuries. But only a select few inherited her direct bloodline."
"The Moonlight Bloodline."
"Precisely. We were her priestesses, her representatives on earth. We could manipulate the mate bonds because they were our birthright. We could command the loyalty of any werewolf because we carried our mother's authority in our veins."
"Were?"
Elder Celeste stopped pacing and fixed me with those piercing gray eyes. "There were dozens of us once. Entire bloodlines devoted to serving the Moon Goddess's will. But power corrupts, child. Always. Some of us began to believe we knew better than the goddess herself. We started reshaping the world according to our own desires rather than hers."
"Like my grandmother."
"Luna Celestine was not the first to fall to the temptation. Merely the last." She moved to stand directly in front of me again. "When the combined packs rose up against her, when they bound her power and drove her mad, they also made a decision. No more Moon Daughters. The bloodlines would be allowed to fade, to dilute over generations until the power was lost."
"But I'm here."
"You're here. The last pure-blood descendant of the Moon Goddess herself, with power that hasn't been seen in over fifty years." Her smile was sharp, predatory. "And you're going to need every ounce of that power for what's coming."
The weight of her words pressed down on me like a physical force. "What's coming?"
"War. The hunters have been organizing, child. For years, they've been building their strength, gathering weapons, preparing for a final assault on our kind." She gestured to the stones around us. "The old protections are failing. The ancient treaties are breaking down. Soon, we'll be fighting for our very survival."
"And you think I can help?"
"I think you're our only hope."
The casual way she said it—like she was commenting on the weather—made it somehow more terrifying.
"I don't know how to use this power," I admitted. "Yesterday I nearly killed someone by accident. I can't control it."
"That's because you're fighting it." Elder Celeste moved to one of the stones and pressed her palms against its surface. Immediately, the carved symbols began to glow with soft silver light. "Your father taught you to suppress your nature, to put duty before instinct, pack politics before personal truth. Everything in you has been trained to resist what you really are."
"And what am I, really?"
"A force of nature. A weapon forged by the goddess herself." The light from the stones grew brighter, and I felt an answering pulse from my own power. "But first, you need to understand the cost."
"What cost?"
"Power like yours comes with a price, child. Always." She turned away from the stone to look at me, and her expression was infinitely sad. "The more you embrace what you are, the harder it becomes to connect with ordinary mortals. The more you use your gifts, the more isolated you become."
"Isolated how?"
"Your grandmother, in her final years... she couldn't touch another person without causing them pain. The power was so strong in her that it burned anyone who got too close." Elder Celeste's voice was gentle, but the words hit like hammer blows. "She died alone, child. Completely and utterly alone."
I swallowed hard. "And that's my future?"
"That's one possible future. If you let the power consume you the way she did." She moved closer, her gray eyes intense. "But there's another path. Harder, more dangerous, but possible."
"What path?"
"Learning to channel the power through connection rather than isolation. Through love rather than fear." She reached out and touched my cheek, her fingers surprisingly warm. "Your grandmother tried to control the world. You need to learn to serve it."
"I don't understand."
"You will." She stepped back, gesturing to the glowing stones around us. "But first, you need to learn the basics. How to call your power without anger. How to shape it without losing yourself. How to be what you were born to be without becoming what she became."
"How long will that take?"
"As long as it takes." Her smile was enigmatic. "But I suspect we don't have as much time as I'd like."
"What do you mean?"
"The dreams," she said simply. "I've been having them for weeks now. Visions of fire and blood, of silver chains and broken bonds. Of a great battle that will determine whether our kind survives or perishes."
A chill ran down my spine. "And you think this battle is soon?"
"I think it's already begun. The hunters are moving, the government is taking sides, and your mate..."
"Kai isn't my mate," I said quickly. "He rejected me, remember?"
"Rejection doesn't break a true mate bond, child. It only damages it." She studied my face carefully. "He's in danger. More danger than he knows."
"What kind of danger?"
"The kind that comes from being marked by powers greater than himself." She turned and began walking toward the edge of the circle. "Come. We have work to do."
"Wait." I hurried after her. "What do you mean, marked? Marked by whom?"
"That," she said without looking back, "is a lesson for another day. Today, we're going to teach you how to light a candle without burning down the forest."
The next four hours were the most exhausting of my life.
Elder Celeste started with what she called "basic energy manipulation"—essentially teaching me to summon my power without the trigger of extreme emotion. It sounded simple in theory.
In practice, it was like trying to thread a needle while riding a roller coaster.
"Feel the energy," she instructed as I stood in the center of the stone circle, my hands outstretched toward a single white candle. "Don't force it. Invite it."
I took a deep breath and reached for the silver light that lived beneath my skin. For a moment, nothing happened. Then power flared through me like lightning, and the candle exploded in a shower of wax and flame.
"Too much," Elder Celeste said calmly, producing another candle from somewhere in her robes. "Again."
We repeated the exercise seventeen times. I destroyed fourteen candles, set fire to two of the stones, and somehow managed to create a small thunderclap that sent every bird in a half-mile radius fleeing for their lives.
On the eighteenth attempt, I managed to light the candle without destroying it.
"Progress," Elder Celeste announced, though she didn't look particularly impressed. "Tomorrow we'll work on maintaining the flame for more than three seconds."
I collapsed onto the grass outside the circle, my entire body shaking with exhaustion. "This is impossible."
"This is necessary." She settled beside me with the fluid grace of someone decades younger than she appeared. "Your power is raw, untrained, tied too closely to your emotional state. If you're going to survive what's coming, you need to learn precision."
"And if I can't?"
"Then you'll burn out like a star going nova. Spectacular, devastating, and ultimately useless to anyone."
"You really know how to motivate a girl."
"I know how to keep a girl alive." Her voice was serious now, all traces of dry humor gone. "There are forces moving against you already, child. Forces that would see you dead rather than trained."
My blood ran cold. "What forces?"
"The same ones that killed your mother."
The world seemed to tilt sideways. "My mother was killed by hunters. Random hunters who tracked our pack to a camping trip."
"Was she?" Elder Celeste's gray eyes were steady, unreadable. "Or was she killed because someone knew what you would become? Because they wanted to prevent the Last Daughter from ever reaching her full power?"
"That's impossible. I was five years old."
"And already showing signs of your heritage. The way you could calm injured animals with a touch. The way other children's nightmares stopped when you were around." She reached out and touched the birthmark on my shoulder, somehow managing to find it through my shirt. "This started glowing when you were three, child. Anyone with knowledge of the old bloodlines would have recognized what you were."
I felt sick. "So my mother died because of me?"
"Your mother died because people fear what they don't understand. Because they'd rather destroy something beautiful and powerful than risk it being used against them." Her hand moved to cover mine, squeezing gently. "But her death wasn't in vain. It bought you time to grow, to develop, to become strong enough to survive what's ahead."
"What is ahead?"
"War. Betrayal. The choice between saving the ones you love and saving everyone else." She stood, brushing grass from her robes. "But also hope. Redemption. The chance to become something greater than your grandmother ever dreamed."
"And if I'm not strong enough?"
"Then everything ends." She said it so matter-of-factly that it took a moment for the full weight of her words to sink in. "No pressure, of course."
I laughed, but it came out hollow and shaky. "Of course not."
"Come." She extended a hand to help me up. "Alpha Thomas will be expecting you for dinner, and you need to eat if you're going to survive tomorrow's lessons."
"What's tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow, we teach you to fight."
"Fight? I thought this was about controlling my power."
"Power without purpose is just destruction, child. You need to learn not just how to use your gifts, but when to use them. When to show mercy and when to show strength." Her gray eyes glinted with something that might have been anticipation. "You need to learn how to be the weapon the Moon Goddess intended without losing the compassion that makes you human."
As we walked back toward the pack house, I couldn't shake the feeling that my life had just taken another irrevocable turn. Yesterday I'd been a sheltered pack princess with an inconvenient supernatural talent. Today I was apparently the last hope for werewolf survival.
"Elder Celeste?"
"Yes, child?"
"The vision you mentioned. The battle that's coming. Did you see how it ends?"
She was quiet for so long that I thought she might not answer. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
"I saw two possible endings. In one, you stand victorious over the bodies of your enemies, but you stand alone. Everyone you ever cared about is dead, and the power has consumed everything that made you who you are."
"And the other?"
"In the other, you die saving the man who rejected you, and the world burns."
We reached the pack house in silence, but as I climbed the steps to the front door, Elder Celeste's voice stopped me.
"Aria?"
"Yes?"
"In both visions, the choice was yours. Remember that, when the time comes. The choice will always be yours."
I nodded and went inside, but her words followed me to my room and haunted my dreams that night.
Because if there was one thing I'd learned in the past few days, it was that choices—especially the important ones—never came without a price.
And I had a feeling that the price of my choice, whatever it ended up being, was going to be higher than I could possibly imagine.
That night, as I lay in the unfamiliar bed in my temporary room, I felt the mate bond pulse weakly in my chest. Somewhere, hundreds of miles away, Kai was probably lying in his hospital bed, recovering from the damage I'd done to him.
Was he thinking about me? Regretting his choice? Or was he relieved to have me out of his life?
I closed my eyes and tried to reach out through the bond, the way I had when I'd nearly killed him. But this time, instead of anger, I sent something else.
An apology. A promise that I would learn to control this power, that I would never hurt him again.
And maybe, just maybe, a whisper of the love I was still too afraid to acknowledge.
Whether he felt it or not, I couldn't tell. But for the first time since this nightmare began, I fell asleep without crying.
Tomorrow, I would begin to learn what it really meant to be the Last Daughter of the Moon.
Tonight, I was just a girl who missed her home and the impossible boy who should have been hers.
But perhaps that was enough for now.