Kira POV
No!
I screamed inside my own mind as Maya forced my body to choke Lydia. This was wrong. Lydia was trying to help me, and Maya was using my hands to hurt her.
Stop fighting, sister, Maya's voice echoed in my head. You'll only make this harder on yourself.
But I couldn't stop. Even stuck inside my own body, watching through silver-tinted eyes as Maya controlled everything, I kept fighting. Every cruel word she spoke with my voice made me push harder against the walls of my mental jail.
When she'd ruined the antidote, I'd felt my last hope shatter. But then Lydia had said something that changed everything.
Someone did accept Kira. Someone saw her worth from the very beginning.
The words hit me like lightning. Through Maya's control, I felt a crack in the wall between us. For just a moment, I was able to cry one real tear.
Damon loved me. He'd always loved me.
Don't be stupid, Maya hissed in my mind. He told you himself—love only brings him pain. He was protecting himself, not loving you.
But I remembered now. All those times I'd caught him watching me when he thought I wasn't looking. The way he'd tense up whenever another pack member was cruel to me, like he wanted to protect me but didn't know how. The fact that he'd claimed me at all, even when I was just an unknown rogue.
Maya felt my understanding and tightened her control. My body moved without my permission, grabbing Lydia's throat and pulling her off the ground.
You're making me hurt innocent people, I told my sister frantically. This isn't what Mom and Dad would have wanted.
Mom and Dad are dead, Maya answered coldly. Just like they'll be if we don't take control first. The humans will destroy everything we love unless we kill them first.
Through my hijacked eyes, I saw the infected rogue dogs burst into the clearing. Their eyes glowed red with rage, foam dripping from their snarling mouths. Maya had turned them into weapons, just like she was trying to turn me.
But unlike me, they couldn't fight back anymore. The serum had eaten away their human minds totally.
Is that what you want me to become? I asked, showing Maya my memories of the mad rogues. A dumb killer?
For a second, Maya's control faltered. I felt her doubt, her fear of what she'd become.
I didn't have a choice, she whispered. Viktor said it was the only way to live.
There's always a chance, Maya. Even now.
I pushed against her power with everything I had. My body shook, caught between two wills. Lydia gasped as my grip on her throat relaxed.
"Kira?" Damon's speech was full of desperate hope. "Are you in there?"
For a moment, I managed to speak with my own voice instead of Maya's. "I'm... trying..."
But Maya slammed back into control, her anger burning through our shared mind. You weak little fool! Do you want to die like Mom did? Do you want to watch everyone you love burn?
She forced my head to turn toward the pack members hiding behind trees. Through her eyes, I saw them differently—not as people who'd been cruel to me, but as sheep waiting to be killed by stronger predators.
Look at them, Maya ordered. Look how they run when faced with real power. They would never protect you the way I'm protecting you now.
She was right about one thing. Most of the pack had treated me badly. They'd made me feel useless and unwanted for months.
But not all of them.
I focused on Lydia, still trying to breathe in my grip. She could have run when the infected rogues emerged. She could have saved herself. Instead, she was here, trying to reach the part of me that was still human.
Let her go, I begged Maya. Please. She's the first person who's been kind to me since I got here.
Kindness is weakness, Maya snapped. Viktor taught me that.
Viktor was wrong.
I showed Maya my memories from the past three months. Not the mean ones, but the small kindnesses I'd tried to ignore. Elder Vera bringing me tea when I was sick. A young pack member called Tommy asking if I was okay after training. Even Damon, leaving food outside my door when he thought I wasn't eating enough.
There had been good times mixed in with the bad. People who'd tried to help, even when I was too hurt to see it.
That's not enough, Maya said, but her voice was weaker now. A few scraps of kindness don't make up for years of pain.
Maybe not. But they show that not everyone is evil. They show that some people are worth saving.
The sick rogues were getting closer. I could hear Damon screaming orders, trying to organize a defense with what few warriors we had. Most of the pack members weren't fighters—they were families, children, adults.
They were going to die because of what Maya and I had become.
I won't let you hurt them, I told my sister furiously.
You don't have a choice anymore.
But she was wrong. I did have a choice. And I was going to make it count.
I gathered every memory of love I had left. Dad teaching me to hunt before Maya vanished. Mom singing lullabies when I had dreams. Even the painful feelings of missing Maya for ten years, because missing someone meant you loved them.
And yes, I thought about Damon. About the mate bond I'd felt pulling me toward him even when he seemed to hate me. About the way he'd looked at me in those last moments before Maya injected me with the serum—like I was valuable, like I mattered.
I took all that love and used it like a weapon against Maya's power.
The silver glow in my eyes flickered and went out.
For just a second, I was myself again. I looked at Lydia with my own green eyes and whispered, "The cure. The puddle by the tree. There's still some left."
Then Maya roared back into control, angry at my defiance. "NO!"
My body convulsed as we fought for control. Every muscle screamed as two minds tried to control the same body. I felt something wet and warm running from my nose—blood from the strain of our fight.
"Kira!" Damon was running toward us, but the sick rogues reached us first.
The biggest one, a massive gray wolf with red eyes like burning coals, leaped at Damon's throat. My mate dodged, but barely. He was fast, but not fast enough to fight twenty mad dogs at once.
Let me help him, I begged Maya. Please. If you ever loved me as your sister, let me save him.
I'm trying to save everyone! Maya screamed back. Can't you see that?
By becoming a monster? By turning into everything we used to fear?
Our shared body fell to its knees as our battle reached a breaking point. I felt Maya's control slipping, but mine wasn't strong enough to take over fully.
We were killing each other from the inside.
That's when I heard Elder Vera's words cutting through the chaos: "The joining ritual has a weakness! If both souls reject it at the same time, it can be reversed!"
Reject it, Maya, I begged with my sister. Choose to be yourself instead of Viktor's tool. Choose to remember who you used to be.
For a moment, I felt Maya pause. Felt her remembering the little girl who used to climb trees with me and collect pretty stones by the river.
But then Viktor's words echoed from somewhere beyond the trees: "Maya! Complete your task or face the consequences!"
Terror flooded through Maya's mind. Whatever Viktor had done to her over the past ten years, the fear of him was greater than her love for me.
I can't, she whispered. I'm sorry, Kira. I can't.
She took full control of our body just as the biggest infected rogue broke through Damon's defenses. Its claws raked across his chest, sending him crashing into a tree.
Now you'll watch everyone you love die, Maya said with cruel pleasure. And there's nothing you can do to stop it.
But she was wrong about that too.
Because as I watched Damon fall, as I saw Lydia trying desperately to crawl toward the diluted antidote, as I heard the screams of pack members being torn apart by mad wolves, I felt something new rising inside me.
Not Maya's stolen power. Not the serum's fake strength.
My own Alpha DNA, finally breaking free after ten years of suppression.
And unlike Maya's cold silver fire, my power burned with golden light—the same color as the cure that could save us all.