The Wraith Wolf's jaws closed over Seraphina but instead of tearing flesh, its teeth snapped against a barrier of silver light.
A shield, her power.
Seraphina hadn't called it. She didn't even know she could call it.But the shield erupted from her palms like instinct, shimmering with ancient runes she'd never seen.
Kael landed beside her, claws out, breath ragged. "You can conjure shields?"
Seraphina swallowed hard. "Apparently."
The creature reeled back, snarling. Its bones cracked as its limbs reformed, reshaping with sickening fluidity. It stared at her not with hunger, but with recognition.
Kael stiffened. "Why is it looking at you like that?"
"I have no idea"
The Wraith Wolf spoke.
Not in words, but in a guttural echo vibrating inside their skulls.
"Silvermoon, returned."
Seraphina froze as the beast lowered its massive head to the ground, its exposed ribs trembling as if in reverence.
Kael stepped in front of her again. "Don't move. It's a trap."
The Wraith Wolf growled not at Seraphina, but at him.Its eyes blazed red.
"Shadowfang, corrupted mate, destroy."
Kael snarled, dark power rolling off his skin. "Try it."
The creature lunged again this time at Kael but Seraphina reacted without thinking. The silver shield flared, slamming into the beast and throwing it against the ravine wall.
Her knees buckled with the effort.
Kael grabbed her arm. "You're weakening."
"No," she breathed. "I'm awakening."
He stared at her troubled, awed, confused.A dangerous mix.
The ground pulsed beneath them again, as if the gorge itself had a heartbeat. Loose stones rolled toward the river. Thunder rumbled beneath the earth.
"We need to leave," Kael said. "Before this place collapses."
Seraphina nodded, but her gaze lingered on the creature.It was rising again slowly, painfully its form deteriorating as if the very air was poison.
"What's happening to it?" she whispered.
Kael's brows knit. "Wraiths can't survive outside their seals for long."
The beast staggered forward, not attacking.Trying to speak.
A word burned into Seraphina's mind like branded fire.
"Prophecy…"
And then, with a violent crack, its body crumbled into dust, scattering into the wind.
Silence swallowed the gorge, her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
Kael turned to her, voice low. "Seraphina… that thing bowed to you."
"I didn't ask it to."
"It didn't bow because you asked." His black eyes flickered. "It bowed because it knew you."
She shook her head. "Impossible. The Silvermoon line died out"
He grabbed her wrist gently but firmly, lifting her hand toward the moon.
The silver mark on her skin shimmered like living starlight.
"You're not just a Luna," he said."You're the Last Silvermoon. The Luna of Prophecy."
Her blood ran cold.Her breath faltered.
Because he wasn't wrong.
The moon bled harder, staining the gorge in red light and her mark glowed brighter, answering it.
Before she could speak, a horn's faint echo drifted through the ravine.Not a Shadowfang horn.
A Moonvale rescue squad.
Her pack.
Kael heard it too. His muscles tensed, instincts sharpening to a dangerous edge.
"They'll kill me on sight," he said.
"Then hide," she whispered.
"I don't hide."
"Kael"
He stepped closer, voice low, rough. "We fell together, We were marked together. You think I'm letting you walk out of this gorge without me?"
Before she could answer, another sound echoed closer, sharper.
Not her pack.
Not Shadowfang, something else.
Queen Nyx Valerius.
Ruler of the Nightfall Court.
Her eyes burned silver as she smiled at Seraphina.
"Found you."