Kai's POV
I threw myself between Dominic and my son just as his claws came down.
The pain was terrible. Four deep cuts across my chest, but I didn't care. Ethan was safe behind me, and that was all that counted.
"Daddy!" Ethan cried, and hearing him call me that gave me strength I didn't know I had.
I spun around and grabbed Dominic by the throat, pulling him off the ground. His golden eyes went wide with shock. He'd forgotten how strong I was when I was protecting my family.
"You will not touch my son," I growled, my Alpha voice making the whole building shake.
"Your son?" Dominic gasped. "He's mine! Maya is mine!"
I threw him across the room so hard he crashed through the kitchen wall. Dust and broken pieces of wall rained down everywhere.
Maya was already pulling Ethan toward the door, but there was nowhere to run. I could smell Dominic's pack members in the stairs, waiting for orders.
"The fire escape," I told Maya quickly. "Take Ethan and go. I'll hold them off."
"No," Maya said strongly. "We're not leaving you."
"Maya, you don't understand. Dominic brought at least ten wolves. I can't fight them all."
"Then we fight together," she said, and I felt the mate bond between us pulse with shared purpose.
But before any of us could move, Dominic climbed out of the kitchen wreckage. His face was covered in blood, and his eyes had gone totally red. The family curse was taking over completely now.
"If I can't have them," he said in a voice that didn't sound human anymore, "then I'll make sure no one can."
He threw back his head and howled. Not a regular wolf howl, but something twisted and evil that made my skin crawl.
The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees quickly. Frost began forming on the windows, and our breath came out in white puffs.
"What's happening?" Maya asked, pulling Ethan closer to her.
I knew exactly what was happening, and it scared me. "He's using dark magic. The kind that's banned by werewolf law."
"I don't care about laws anymore," Dominic laughed, his voice echoing strangely. "I don't care about anything except keeping what's mine."
Dark shadows started pouring out of his hands like smoke. They moved across the floor toward us, and everywhere they touched, things faded and died. Maya's houseplants turned black and fell to dust.
"Mama, I'm scared," Ethan whispered.
But I noticed something strange. The shadows stopped about three feet away from Ethan, like there was an unseen wall protecting him.
"The boy," Dominic said, noting the same thing. "He's blocking the death magic."
Ethan looked up at me with those silver eyes that matched mine. "Daddy, there's something bad trying to get in my head."
My blood turned to ice. Death magic didn't just kill the body. It tried to corrupt the soul first, especially in young wolves who didn't know how to protect themselves.
"Fight it, son," I said. "Don't let it in."
But Ethan's face was getting paler by the second. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he fought against something I couldn't see.
"I can't," he gasped. "It's too strong."
That's when Maya did something that shocked everyone in the room.
She walked straight through the death power like it wasn't even there.
The dark shadows split around her like water, unable to touch her at all. She went straight to Dominic and slapped him across the face so hard the sound echoed through the apartment.
The magic stopped instantly.
Dominic stared at her in complete disbelief. "How... how did you do that?"
"Because I'm not afraid of you anymore," Maya said simply.
But I could see something else in her eyes. A silver glow that matched the power I'd felt when she healed my cuts earlier.
"Maya," I said slowly. "What's your mother's maiden name?"
She looked at me strangely. "Silvermoon. Why?"
The world stopped spinning.
Silvermoon. The mythical bloodline that everyone thought had died out a century ago. Healers so powerful they could walk through death magic without being touched. Wolves who could purify dark power just by being near it.
"Oh my God," I breathed. "You're a Silvermoon."
"What does that mean?" Maya asked.
Before I could answer, Elder Marcus's voice came from the stairs. "It means you're the most powerful healer born in two hundred years."
We all turned to see the old man climbing through the destroyed doorway, followed by six of my pack's best fighters.
"Marcus?" I said. "How did you—"
"I felt the death magic from fifty miles away," he said sadly. "And I knew there was only one person who could stop Dominic once he started using the forbidden arts."
He looked straight at Maya. "Your grandma was my sister, child. Elena Silvermoon. She was the last of the healing gene, or so we thought."
Maya's legs gave out, and she sat down hard on the floor. "My grandma was a Silvermoon? But that's impossible. I'm just an omega."
"No," Marcus said softly. "You're not an omega at all. You're something much rarer. A Luna Prime. The most powerful type of werewolf female that exists."
Dominic growled from across the room. "Lies! All lies!"
"Is it?" Marcus asked. "Then explain how she walked through your death magic unscathed. Explain how she can heal with just a touch. Explain how her son can beat full-grown Alphas at four years old."
"Because he's MY son!" Dominic screamed.
"No," Marcus said sadly. "He's not. And deep down, you've always known it."
The old man pulled out a piece of paper from his jacket. "DNA results, Dominic. From the blood sample you gave me three years ago when you asked me to help you find Maya."
Dominic's face went white. "You had them tested?"
"I had to know the truth," Marcus said. "Ethan Sterling is not your real son. His father is Kai Nightfall."
The paper fluttered to the ground between us.
Dominic looked at it for a long moment, then began to laugh. But it wasn't a happy sound. It was the laugh of someone whose mind had finally broken completely.
"Then I'll just have to make a new son," he said, his red eyes locked on Maya. "With my true mate."
"She's not your mate!" I roared.
"She will be," Dominic said, pulling out a small bottle of dark liquid from his pocket. "After she drinks this."
Maya gasped. "A mating potion."
"The most powerful one ever created," Dominic agreed. "It will override any existing mate ties and replace them with absolute loyalty to me. She'll forget you ever existed, Kai. She'll think I'm the only man she's ever loved."
He uncorked the bottle, and a sweet, sickening smell filled the room.
"And the best part," Dominic added, "is that Ethan will think I'm his real father. The potion will change his memories too."
"No!" I lunged toward him, but three of his pack members came out of nowhere and held me back.
"Maya, run!" I shouted.
But Maya wasn't running. She was standing completely still, her silver eyes blazing with power I'd never seen before.
"Dominic," she said softly. "Do you want to know why your mate bond with me never felt real?"
"It felt real enough," he snarled.
"No," Maya said, taking a step toward him. "It felt forced. Artificial. Wrong."
She took another step, and I could see silver light starting to glow around her hands.
"Do you want to know why?" she asked.
"Tell me," Dominic ordered.
Maya smiled, and for the first time since I'd known her, she looked truly powerful.
"Because I was already mated," she said frankly. "I've been Kai's true mate since the day I turned eighteen. Everything you felt, everything you thought was real, was just you trying to steal something that never belonged to you."
Dominic's face twisted with rage and confusion. "That's impossible!"
"Is it?" Maya asked. "Then explain this."
She held out her hand toward me, and I felt the mate bond between us burst with power. Silver light shot out from her fingers and wrapped around both of us like chains made of stars.
The light was so bright that everyone in the room had to hide their eyes.
When it faded, Maya and I were linked by a visible silver cord that pulsed with our shared heartbeat.
"A true mate bond," Marcus whispered in awe. "I never thought I'd live to see one."
Dominic stared at us with growing fear. "But... but you were mine. For two years, you were mine."
"No," Maya said sadly. "For two years, I was confused and scared and didn't understand what was happening to me. But I was never yours, Dominic. I could never be yours."
That's when Dominic's surviving sanity finally snapped.
He raised the mating liquid to his lips and drank the entire vial in one gulp.
"If you won't love me willingly," he said as dark magic started pouring out of his skin, "then you'll love me as my slave."
But instead of aiming the magic at Maya, he turned toward Ethan.
"I'll start with the boy," he said with a twisted smile. "Once he's under my control, you'll do anything I say to protect him."
The dark magic shot toward my son like a black arrow.
And there was nothing any of us could do to stop it.