Elder Vera POV
"Maya isn't just living, daughter. She's your twin sister. And she has the same mate mark you do."
I dropped the old book I'd been reading when those words reached my ears through the open window. Seventy years of keeping pack secrets had taught me to listen carefully, but this was something I'd hoped never to hear.
Twin mates with matching marks.
It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible.
But I'd seen those same words written in the forbidden texts hidden in my secret collection. Prophecies I'd prayed would never come true.
I grabbed my walking stick and hurried toward the courtyard as fast as my old legs could take me. By the time I arrived, a crowd had formed around the fallen Alpha Blackwood and his newly found daughter.
Kira knelt beside her father, her face white with shock. "You lied to me for ten years? You let me think I killed my own sister?"
"I had no choice," Alpha Blackwood gasped. "The prophecy was too scary. If anyone knew both twins had survived—"
"What prophecy?" Damon ordered, his Alpha power making everyone step back.
That's when Garrett Blackwood's desperate eyes found mine across the crowd. He'd seen me at pack meetings over the years. He knew what I was—the keeper of old knowledge that most wolves had forgotten.
"Elder Vera," he called out softly. "Tell them. Tell them what the Twin Moon prophecy really means."
Every wolf in the courtyard turned to stare at me. I felt the weight of their hopes, their fear, their confusion. And underneath it all, I felt the pull of fate finally catching up with us all.
"Help me understand this," I said carefully, buying time to think. "You're saying Maya—Kira's supposedly dead twin sister—is alive and has been kidnapped by someone who knows about an ancient prophecy?"
"Yes." Garrett struggled to sit up. "Maya's mate mark emerged the same night as Kira's. I got information from my spies in the area. Two girls, born minutes apart, with matching rose and thorn marks."
I closed my eyes and felt the world shift around me. After all these years, it was really happening.
"Elder Vera," Damon's words cut through my thoughts. "What does this mean?"
I looked at him—so strong, so sure of himself, with no idea that his entire life was about to change. Then I looked at Kira, who was looking at me like I held the answers to every question that had ever tortured her.
Maybe I did.
"There's a reason your mate mark is so unusual," I told them. "It's not just a sign that you belong together. It's a sign of something much more powerful."
"What kind of something?" Kira whispered.
"The kind that could save our entire species. Or destroy it completely."
I pulled out the small notebook where I kept my most important memories. My hands shook as I flipped through pages of predictions and warnings that I'd copied from books older than any living wolf.
"Five hundred years ago, our people were dying," I began. "A plague worse than the Red Death was killing everyone—pack wolves, rogues, even the best Alphas. Nothing could stop it."
"What does that have to do with us?" Damon asked eagerly.
"Everything." I found the page I was looking for and read aloud: "'When wolves face their darkest hour, the Moon Goddess will send twin souls to restore balance. One light, one shade. One to heal, one to kill. Together they hold the power to change the world.'"
The courtyard went dead. Even the wind seemed to stop.
"You think Kira and her sister are these twin souls?" Lydia asked.
"I think the Moon Goddess doesn't waste miracles on coincidences." I looked directly at Kira. "Your sister Maya isn't just your twin. According to the forecast, she's your opposite. If you're the doctor who saved those infected rogues tonight, then she's—"
"The destroyer," Kira finished, fear dawning in her eyes.
"But destroyers aren't always evil," I said quickly. "Sometimes the world needs to be broken before it can be fixed properly."
"You're saying Maya has the power to destroy things?" Damon's voice was deadly quiet.
"I'm saying she has the power to destroy everything. Every pack, every rogue group, every wolf living. If she chooses to."
Garrett Blackwood started crying. "That's why I hid her. That's why I let everyone think she was dead. I thought if no one knew about her power, if she never learned to use it—"
"But someone found out anyway," I realized. "Someone kidnapped her to use her power for themselves."
"Or to stop her from using it," Kira said suddenly. "What if whoever took her knows about the prophesy too? What if they're trying to keep it from happening?"
I felt cold dread settle in my stomach. "Child, what did your father tell you about the night Maya supposedly drowned?"
"That we went to the banned river and she fell in. That I couldn't save her."
"And what do you actually remember about that night?"
Kira frowned, thinking hard. "I remember... we were playing by the water. Maya was laughing about something. Then there was a bright light, and yelling, and—" She stopped, her eyes going wide. "There were other people there. Adults. They grabbed Maya and told me to forget what I'd seen."
"What else?" I pressed.
"They said if I ever told anyone Maya was alive, they'd kill our whole family. They made me promise to say she drowned." Tears started running down her face. "I was eight years old and they were so scary. I believed them."
"Memory magic," I breathed. "They made you forget the facts but remember the guilt. That's why you've blamed yourself all these years for something that was never your fault."
Damon stepped closer to Kira, and for the first time since I'd known him, his face was gentle. "You were just a child. You couldn't have stopped big wolves from taking your sister."
"But why take her at all?" Kira asked. "If she was only eight, her powers wouldn't have been developed yet."
I checked my notes again, looking for the parts of the forecast I'd hoped never to share. When I found them, my heart sank.
"Because they weren't taking her to use her power," I said slowly. "They were taking her to train her. To turn her into the weapon they needed."
"What kind of weapon?"
"The kind that could end the war between packs and rogues forever. By killing everyone on both sides."
The quiet that followed was absolute.
"There's more," I continued, hating every word I had to say. "According to the prophecy, the twin souls are most powerful when they're together. Apart, they're dangerous. Together, they're unstoppable."
"So whoever has Maya is going to try to get Kira too," Damon realized.
"Yes. And when they have both sisters..." I looked around at all the faces looking at me with growing fear. "The prophecy says they can change the world however they choose. Create paradise or hell on earth, dependent on their will."
"How do we stop them?" Kira asked.
That's when I had to tell them the worst part of all. " According to the ancient texts, there's only one way to avoid the twin souls from destroying everything." I met her eyes and felt my heart break. "One of the twins has to die."
Before anyone could react to that terrible news, a howl echoed across the pack grounds. But this wasn't a normal wolf scream. This was something else—haunting and beautiful and completely inhuman.
Every wolf in the area fell to their knees as power washed over us. Not pack power or Alpha control, but something older and more terrifying.
"She's here," Garrett whispered in absolute fear. "Maya's here."
Through the main gates walked a young woman who looked exactly like Kira, except for her eyes. Where Kira's eyes were green and warm, this girl's eyes were silver and cold as winter storms.
Maya Blackwood had come home.
And the smile on her face guaranteed that nothing would ever be the same again.
"Hello, sister," she said to Kira, her voice having that same inhuman power as her howl. "Did you miss me?"