Iris Montgomery's POV
I'm running and my body doesn't feel like my body anymore.
My legs are faster. Stronger. Each step carries me further than it should. Luna is struggling to keep up even though she's one of the fastest runners in the pack. My grandmother moves through the forest like she's part of it, like the trees are parting just for her.
But me. I'm flying.
I can feel everything.
Not just the ground beneath my feet or the branches I push through. I can feel the living things around me. A squirrel three trees over, watching us run. Its little heartbeat is like a drum I can hear in my bones. A deer miles away, running in the opposite direction, scared by something. Fish in the river far to our left, moving in patterns I somehow understand without being taught.
It's like there are invisible threads connecting me to everything with blood and bones. Everything that lives, I can sense. Everything that breathes, I'm aware of.
It should be terrifying. Instead it feels like coming home.
We run for what feels like hours but my new body doesn't get tired. Luna is breathing hard. My grandmother shows no signs of effort. But me. I'm just getting stronger.
Finally, my grandmother pulls us off the main path. She leads us deeper, through places where there's barely a trail. The trees get thicker. The darkness gets deeper. It feels like we're running into the heart of something ancient.
Then we see it.
A cabin. Small. Hidden so deep in the forest that Luna would never find it alone. The wood is dark from age. Moss covers the roof. But there's something about it that feels safe. Feels like somewhere that's been waiting for us.
My grandmother opens the door like she knows exactly where the key is. Because she probably does.
Inside, the cabin is bigger than it looks from outside. There are shelves lined with supplies. Food. Water. Things that look like they've been here for years, waiting. But what catches my attention is the books.
They're everywhere.
Stacked on tables. Packed into shelves. Some so old they're barely holding together. And they smell like something I can't describe. Like time. Like power. Like knowledge that's been waiting decades for someone to come read it.
"Rest," my grandmother says, but I can't rest.
My mind is racing faster than my body was running. My power is still rising inside me. Still changing things I don't understand. I pace back and forth in the cabin while Luna sits down hard on a cot like her legs gave out.
"What am I?" I ask, and my voice comes out shaky. "What is all of this? Why do I feel like this? Why can I sense everything around me? What have you been hiding from me my whole life?"
My grandmother sits down slowly. She looks older suddenly. Like keeping secrets has been weighing her down for so long that finally stopping is making her collapse.
"Sit," she says.
I don't sit. I need to move. I need answers.
"I'm not sitting until you tell me the truth," I say. "Everything. No more protecting me. No more pretending I'm normal. What am I?"
My grandmother takes a breath. When she speaks, her voice is soft but steady.
"There was a young woman," she begins. "Long time ago. She fell in love with someone so powerful that their union was forbidden. This woman's bloodline was old. Ancient. Her power made other people afraid."
I stop pacing. I listen.
"The woman chose survival over tradition," my grandmother continues. "She left her pack. She hid. She raised a daughter in secret. That daughter grew up believing she was normal. That daughter had her own daughter."
She looks at me.
"That daughter is your mother. And you are descended from the first Lycan Queen. A woman whose power was so great she could command the transformation of other wolves with just a thought. Just by willing it, she could make someone shift. Make someone stay in wolf form. Make someone do things they didn't want to do."
The words don't make sense. They don't fit inside my head.
"A Lycan Queen?" I repeat. "That's not real. That's a story. That's something people tell pups to scare them."
"It was real," my grandmother says. "She was real. And she was executed because that power was too dangerous. The pack leaders couldn't control her. They couldn't predict her. They were afraid of her. So they killed her."
Luna stands up. "How is this possible? If she was executed, the bloodline would be dead."
"The Queen had a daughter," my grandmother explains. "Before they executed her, she gave her daughter to someone she trusted. Someone outside the pack structure. That daughter grew up hidden. She became my grandmother. And I've spent sixty years of my life keeping Iris's power suppressed. Keeping her safe. Using herbs and magic to hold back what wants to come out."
I feel sick.
"You've been poisoning me?" I ask. "All those herbs you gave me. All my life. You've been poisoning me?"
"I've been protecting you," my grandmother says, and there's something fierce in her voice. "Do you understand what would happen if the packs found out what you are? Do you know what they would do with someone who could command wolves with just a thought? They would use you. Or they would kill you. There was no third option."
Luna sits back down like her legs won't hold her.
"But something changed," I say. It's not a question. I can feel the truth of it in my bones.
"The Blood Moon," my grandmother confirms. "It rises once every hundred years. When it rises, old magic wakes up. Magic that's been suppressed for decades wakes up. Your power was fighting the herbs and the spells I've been using. The rejection broke your emotional walls. When Kael rejected you, something inside you cracked. And the Blood Moon woke what that crack exposed."
I think about that moment at the bonfire. The rejection hitting me like a physical blow. The way my power answered my pain.
"Why didn't you warn me?" I ask. "Why didn't you tell me about my bloodline?"
"Because knowing would have changed how you saw yourself," my grandmother says. "I wanted you to have a normal life for as long as possible. I wanted you to know what it felt like to just be a person, not a weapon. Not something dangerous."
I walk to the door of the cabin and step outside. The Blood Moon is still bright above the forest. Red and alive and watching.
I need air. I need to think. I need to figure out who I am if everything I believed about myself is a lie.
I walk away from the cabin into the trees. Luna tries to follow but my grandmother stops her.
I'm alone.
And that's when I feel it.
A presence so ancient and so overwhelming that it stops my heart completely. Something is waking up somewhere far away. Something impossibly old is opening its eyes and immediately looking for me.
It feels me.
And I feel it in return.
The connection is so real I can almost feel another heartbeat synchronizing with my own. Like there's someone else in my chest, waking up at the exact same moment I'm waking up.
I reach out toward that distant presence with my mind, with my power, with every part of me that's newly awake.
And for just a moment, something reaches back.
It's ancient. It's powerful. It's so overwhelmingly certain that I belong to it that the certainty nearly breaks me.
Then it's gone.
The connection snaps away so suddenly it feels like losing a piece of my own body. Like having your heartbeat ripped out of your chest. Like having half of your soul torn away.
The absence is worse than pain.
It's worse than rejection.
It's worse than anything I've ever felt.
I stand alone in the forest under the Blood Moon and I understand something without anyone telling me.