Elara's POV
I grabbed Cassian's arm before he could leave my room.
"Don't tell anyone what I said about that woman," I whispered anxiously. "Please. Especially not Mom."
Cassian looked at me like I'd grown two heads. "Elara, you're really scaring me now. What's going on?"
"Just promise me!"
"Okay, okay! I promise." He gently pulled his arm free. "But you need to calm down. You're going to make yourself sick before the Dance."
After he left, I locked my door and pressed my back against it. My whole body was shaking.
Morgana knew. She had to know. That wave wasn't a mistake. She was telling me she remembered too.
But how was that possible? The Moon Goddess sent me back. Did she send Morgana back too? Why would she do that?
Unless Morgana found another way to remember. Dark magic. Witch magic. Something evil that let her keep her memories when time restarted.
My wolf whimpered inside my mind, sensing my panic.
"I know, girl," I whispered. "We're in danger. We've always been in danger."
I walked to my closet where the silver dress hung. The one my mother wanted me to wear tonight. I touched it and memories burst in my mind.
Kieran's hands tightening around my throat. "You're nothing without your power, Elara."
The prison walls covered in my blood.
My wolf roaring uselessly behind the seal, unable to save me.
The poison burning through my blood.
I yanked my hand away from the dress like it was on fire.
I couldn't wear it. I wouldn't wear it. That dress reflected everything I lost.
I put it deep into my closet and pulled out a different dress—a simple blue one I forgot I owned. It wasn't as fancy, but I didn't care. I needed to be different. I needed to change everything.
As I changed clothes, phantom pains shot through my body. My throat burned where Kieran choked me. My sides ached where he kicked me. My wrists throbbed where chains cut into my skin.
None of it was real. These cuts didn't exist yet. But my body remembered death. Every cell remembers the pain.
I sat on my bed and tried to breathe through it. In my first timeline, I never knew pain like this until after I married Kieran. I was soft. Weak. Innocent.
Not anymore.
Seven years of suffering taught me how to live. How to notice when someone was lying. How to see danger before it hit. How to be brutal when I needed to be.
The old Elara died in that prison. The new Elara was harder. Smarter. Colder.
I looked at my hands—young and untouched. But I could see the scars that should be there. I could feel every hurt that hadn't happened yet.
"Choose differently, daughter."
The Moon Goddess's voice rang in my mind again, soft as moonlight.
"I will," I promised out loud. "I'll choose differently. I'll save myself. I'll save Cassian. I'll save everyone Kieran and Morgana hurt."
But first, I needed to understand the curse on my wolf.
I closed my eyes and reached deep inside my mind, looking for her. She was there—trapped behind a wall of dark magic that felt cold and ancient.
"Can you hear me?" I asked her quietly.
A weak whimper answered. Yes.
"Do you remember what happened? When you got locked away?"
Images flashed through my mind. Not my thoughts. Hers.
A woman with dark hair and green eyes. Morgana.
She sang strange words while touching my head.
Pain. Terrible pain. Like being ripped apart.
A cage growing around my wolf. Trapping her. Sealing her.
My mother standing in the corner, crying but doing nothing to stop it.
My eyes snapped open. Tears streamed down my face.
My mother watched Morgana curse me. She watched and did nothing.
Why? Why would she accept that?
A horrible thought crept into my mind. What if my mother made a deal? What if she traded my wolf's freedom for something else?
Money? Power? Protection?
What was worth more than her daughter's wolf?
I needed answers, but I couldn't approach my mother directly. She would lie. She would make reasons. She already showed she couldn't be trusted.
I had to play along. Pretend everything was normal until I found out the truth.
A soft knock on my door made me freeze.
"Elara?" My mother's voice was sweet again. Fake sweet. "Are you ready, darling? We need to leave for the Moon Dance in an hour."
I wiped my tears and calmed my voice. "Almost ready, Mom."
"I'll be downstairs when you're done. Don't take too long."
I waited until her footsteps faded. Then I stood and looked at myself in the mirror.
The blue dress fit nicely. My hair was messy but I didn't care. I looked different from my first timeline. That was good. Different choices started with looking different.
But my eyes were the biggest change. They weren't innocent anymore. They held information they shouldn't have. Pain they shouldn't know.
Anyone looking closely would see something was wrong.
I needed to be careful. I needed to act like the naive eighteen-year-old everyone expected.
At least until I faced Kieran.
My wolf stirred suddenly, alert and afraid.
Danger, she warned. Something's coming.
I felt it too. A strange force in the air. Like a storm coming.
I walked to my window and looked out at the forest edge again.
Morgana was back.
But this time she wasn't alone.
A man stood beside her. Tall and broad with dark clothes. Even from this distance, I could feel his power rolling off him in waves.
Alpha Kieran.
They were talking. Morgana pointed at my house. At my window. Kieran nodded and smiled—that cold, cruel smile I knew too well.
They were planning something.
My heart stopped when Kieran suddenly looked directly at me. Our eyes locked across the distance.
He couldn't possibly see me from there. My window was too far. But somehow, he knew exactly where I was.
He raised his hand to his throat and made a chopping motion.
A threat. A promise. A reminder of how he killed me in the other reality.
Then he mouthed two words I could read exactly on his lips: "I remember."
The world turned sideways.
Kieran remembered too. He knew about the time travel. He knew I came back.
Which meant tonight at the Moon Dance wouldn't just be me denying him.
It would be him trying to kill me before I could change anything.
My mother's voice called from downstairs. "Elara! It's time to go!"
I backed away from the window, my mind spinning.
Morgana honored. Kieran remembered. They were working together just like before.
But if they remembered, that meant they had time to plan. Time to prepare. Time to make sure I didn't escape this time.
I was walking into a trap.
The Moon Dance wasn't just a party anymore. It was a hanging.
And I had less than an hour to figure out how to survive it.