Damon's POV
Power burst from Luna like a nuclear bomb, and I couldn't breathe.
The woman I loved - my mate, my family, my everything - was glowing with silver fire that made my Alpha impulses scream in terror and awe. This wasn't the gentle Luna who'd worked in our kitchens. This wasn't even the powerful Nexus who'd broken us out of the time loop.
This was something ancient and dangerous and absolutely scary.
"Luna," I whispered, but she didn't seem to hear me.
Her attention was focused totally on Seraphina, who was backing toward the door with real fear in her eyes for the first time since I'd known her.
"You wanted to see real power?" Luna asked, her words echoing with the weight of centuries. "Let me show you what happens when you hurt my family."
She raised her hand, and Seraphina froze in place like she'd been turned to stone.
"For three years, you tortured innocent pack members," Luna continued, silver fire dancing around her fingers. "You stole their memories, their power, their free will. You turned them into dolls."
"Luna, please," I said frantically. "This isn't you."
"Isn't it?" She turned to look at me, and her eyes held worlds. "Do you know what I was before I became Luna Ashford, the scared little kitchen omega?"
Through our Guardian Bond, I could feel memories that weren't mine flooding into my awareness. Images of Luna in different bodies, different lives, different times. Always strong. Always hunted. Always forced to hide what she really was. "I was Lyralei the Stormcaller, who could command lightning with her thoughts," Luna said, power building around her. "I was Serenity Nightweaver, who could walk through dreams and heal broken souls. I was Elena Starborn, who could see the future and change fate itself."
More memories crashed through our bond. Luna fighting troops of supernatural creatures who wanted to use her power. Luna being betrayed by people she trusted. Luna dying over and over again, only to be reborn without her memories.
"Every lifetime, I was kind," she continued, silver fire spreading across the walls. "Every world, I tried to help people. Every lifetime, someone like Seraphina decided my power belonged to them."
"Luna, you're scaring me," Marcus said quietly.
She looked at him with eyes that held a thousand years of pain. "Good. Maybe if I'd been scary sooner, fewer people would have suffered."
The mind-controlled pack members Seraphina had brought were all conscious now, staring at Luna with mixture of fear and hope. They remembered what Seraphina had done to them, and they wanted justice.
But what Luna was planning wasn't justice. It was payback.
"I could erase Seraphina from existence," Luna said conversationally, watching her frozen enemy. "Not just kill her. Delete her completely, like she never lived at all."
"Don't," I begged. "That's not who you are."
"How do you know who I am?" Luna asked, and pain flickered across her ancient features. "You fell in love with a kitchen worker who barely knew her own strength. But I'm not her, Damon. I'm the sum of every life I've lived, every power I've gained, every betrayal I've survived."
She was right, and that scared me. The Luna I'd fallen in love with was gentle and kind and unsure of herself. This being of silver fire and cosmic power was a stranger wearing my mate's face.
"Then show me who you really are," I said desperately. "Don't let Seraphina turn you into something dark."
For a moment, the silver fire flickered. For a moment, I saw my Luna underneath all that old power.
"I'm tired of being kind to people who don't deserve it," she whispered. "I'm tired of letting evil people hurt the ones I love because I'm afraid of my own strength."
"So be strong," I said, moving closer despite the energy radiating from her skin. "But be strong like yourself, not like your enemies."
Luna stared at me, and I felt something shift through our Guardian Bond. The other guys - Marcus, Gabriel, Raphael - were all sending her the same message.
We love you. All of you. Every lifetime, every power, every experience. But don't lose yourself trying to protect us.
"I could fix everything," Luna said weakly. "I have the power to make sure no one ever hurts our pack again."
"By becoming the thing we need protection from?" Gabriel asked gently.
The silver fire around Luna began to dim. Slowly, she lowered her hand, and Seraphina fell to her knees, gasping for air.
"You're right," Luna said finally. "Revenge isn't justice. And fear isn't love."
She turned to face the pack members Seraphina had mind-controlled. "Go home," she told them kindly. "Rest. Heal. Remember that you're free now."
As they filed out gratefully, Luna looked at Seraphina with eyes that held sadness instead of rage.
"You're banished," she said bluntly. "Leave Sterling land and never come back. If you try to hurt anyone else, I will find you. And next time, I won't be feeling forgiving."
Seraphina climbed to her feet and ran without another word.
When she was gone, the ancient power around Luna faded totally. She swayed on her feet, suddenly looking tired, and I caught her before she could fall.
"Are you okay?" I asked, holding her close.
"I will be," she said softly. "But Damon, there's something you need to know. Awakening my original memories didn't just give me power. It gave me knowledge."
"What kind of knowledge?"
Luna looked up at me with eyes full of fear. "I know why I was reborn so many times. I know what I was originally made to stop."
"What?"
"The Void," she whispered. "A force of pure destruction that wants to erase all supernatural life from reality. Every thousand years, it gets strong enough to try again. And according to my memories..."
She paused, and ice filled my veins.
"It's due to return in three days."
Before I could ask what that meant, the temperature in the room dropped forty degrees. Frost began forming on the windows, and our breath came out in white clouds.
"Actually," said a voice that sounded like winter wind and dying stars, "I'm already here."
A figure appeared in Luna's kitchen. It looked human, but wrong - like someone had tried to draw a person from memory and gotten the features slightly off. Its eyes were totally black, and when it smiled, the air itself seemed to wither.
"Hello, Luna," it said kindly. "You've led me quite a chase across the ages. But now that you've awakened your full power, I can finally finish what I started a thousand years ago."
Luna pressed closer to me, fear radiating through our Guardian Bond.
"You can't be here yet," she said desperately. "The barriers are still in place."
"Were in place," the Void corrected. "Your friend Seraphina's experiments with dark magic produced some lovely cracks in reality. And when you released your ancient power just now, you blew those cracks wide open."
It stepped closer, and everything it touched turned gray and dead.
"Thank you for making this so easy. Now I can destroy all supernatural life and remake the world in beautiful, perfect emptiness."
The thing that called itself the Void looked at each of us with those terrible black eyes.
"Starting with you five, of course. The Guardian Bond makes you a perfect power source for global destruction."
I felt my family's shared fear through our connection, but underneath it was something else. Determination. Love. The total refusal to let this thing win.
"Luna," I said quietly, "what do we do?"
She looked up at me with eyes that held both ancient knowledge and present fear.
"We fight," she said simply. "And we hope that love really is stronger than the void."