ARIA POV
The dart hit my shoulder before I could dodge.
Fire burned through my veins as the poison spread, but I didn’t fall. The people in their white coats had made one big mistake—they thought all silver-eyed wolves were the sa.
"Impossible," the head scientist whispered as I yanked the dart from my flesh. "The sedative should have—"
I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. "Should have what? Made weak like the others?"
Around , chaos burst. Lucien fought three soldiers at once while Mira shielded the boys behind an overturned table. Elder Malin had changed into his wolf form, snarling at anyone who ca near Selene.
But my attention was on Lyra.
The young girl stood frozen in the corner, her silver eyes wide with fear as two humans approached her with more darts. She didn’t know how to fight. She didn’t even know what she was capable of.
"Lyra!" I shouted, throwing the scientist aside. "You have to fight back!"
"I don’t know how!" she cried.
A dart flew toward her chest. Without thinking, I threw myself between them, taking the second dose of poison ant for her. This ti, my legs buckled.
"Mama!" Luna scread from sowhere behind .
The room spun, but I forced myself to stay aware. Two darts worth of their poison—that would have killed an average wolf. But I wasn’t normal anymore. None of us silver-eyed wolves were.
"Listen to , Lyra," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "You’re not just an Oga. You never were. Feel the power inside you. Use it."
"There is no power!" Varro yelled from across the room. "She’s useless! Weak!"
That was when Lyra’s eyes started to glow.
Not just silver—they blazed like liquid tal, brighter than I’d ever seen. The air around her started to tremble, and every wolf in the room felt it. The ancient, primal force that marked a true Alpha.
"No," Varro breathed. "This can’t be happening."
The closest human raised his weapon at Lyra, but she moved faster than lightning. Her hand shot out, and he flew backward into the stone wall with bone-crushing force.
"I’m not weak," she said, her voice having a power that made everyone stop fighting. "I never was weak."
The transformation was amazing to watch. Lyra stood taller, moved with grace and power she’d never shown before. The scared servant girl was gone. In her place stood sothing magnificent—a true Alpha wolf.
"Impossible," Varro said again. "Alphas are born, not made!"
"Wrong," Elder Malin said, shifting back to human form. "Alphas are chosen by the Moon Goddess. And she chose Lyra long ago. You were just too blind to see it."
The humans tried to regroup, but now they faced sothing they hadn’t expected—two Alpha females working together. Lyra and I moved like we’d trained together for years, covering each other’s backs, protecting our pack.
I felt the mate bond flare as Lucien joined us, his dical training making him deadly precise in battle. Together, the three of us cut through the humans like they were made of paper.
But then I heard Silas’s voice, cold and amused, coming from a small device one of the humans carried.
"Fascinating," he said. "Two Alphas awakening at once. My research will advance by decades."
I grabbed the device. "Your study is over, Silas. We’re coming for you."
His laugh made my skin crawl. "Oh, my dear Aria. You’re not coming for . I’m already here."
The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. Luna started crying—not the normal tears of a scared child, but the heart-wrenching sobs of soone experiencing true fear.
"He’s in my head again," she whispered. "But this ti, he brought friends."
That’s when I saw them. Five dogs I didn’t recognize stood in the doorway, but their eyes were wrong. Instead of natural wolf colors, they all had the sa eerie blue glow.
"et my collection," Silas’s voice continued from the device. "Silver-eyed wolves who chose to join freely. They’re much more powerful than these human soldiers."
Varro stepped forward. "You said you only wanted to study them!"
"I lied," Silas answered simply. "I’ve been building an army. And thanks to your cooperation, I now have the finished piece."
The controlled wolves attacked without notice. These weren’t normal fights—they moved with perfect precision, like parts of a single mind. And they were strong. Much stronger than they should have been.
One of them went straight for Lyra. She blocked his first strike, but I could see the shock on her face. She’d just found her Alpha power, but she didn’t know how to use it in real combat.
"Stay behind ," I told her.
"No," Lyra said, standing her ground. "These are my pack mbers. I can sll their original scents underneath whatever Silas did to them. They’re Stone River wolves."
My heart sank. Fighting people was one thing. But asking a new Alpha to fight her own pack mbers—wolves she’d grown up with—was cruel beyond words.
"They’re not themselves anymore," I said gently. "Silas is controlling them."
"Then we help them," Lyra said with purpose. "We don’t kill them."
Easier said than done. The controlled wolves fought like robots, feeling no pain, showing no rcy. Lucien went down hard when one of them landed a good hit to his ribs. Mira was backed into a corner, the boys hanging to her legs in terror.
I was fighting two at once when I heard Selene scream. Not from pain—from sothing worse.
"He’s taking control of again!" she gasped, her eyes flashing between silver and black. "The babies—he’s using the babies to get inside my head!"
Elder Malin moved to help her, but that left Luna vulnerable. One of the controlled wolves broke away from the main fight and went straight for my daughter.
I tried to reach her, but the poison in my system picked that mont to hit again. My legs gave out, and I crashed to the stone floor.
"Luna, run!" I scread.
But my three-year-old daughter did sothing that shocked everyone in the room.
She didn’t run.
Instead, she stood up straight, her silver eyes shining even brighter than Lyra’s had. When she spoke, her voice carried the power of soone much older.
"Stop," Luna ordered.
And amazingly, impossibly, the controlled wolf froze mid-step.
"Luna," I whispered. "How—?"
"The Moon Goddess talks to , Mama," she said quietly. "She told I’m special. Different from the other silver-eyed dogs."
Silas’s voice ca through the device again, but this ti he sounded excited instead of amused.
"Extraordinary! The child isn’t just silver-eyed—she’s sothing entirely new. Sothing I’ve never seen before."
"What do you an?" I asked, dread filling my stomach.
"Your daughter, my dear Aria, looks to be the first true Moon Wolf born in over a thousand years. She can command any werewolf, regardless of rank or pack loyalty. Even my tad wolves must obey her."
Luna looked at with wide, scared eyes. "Mama, I don’t want to be special. I just want to go ho."
But we didn’t have ti for comfort. Because that’s when Alpha Varro revealed his final betrayal.
"Take the child," he told his remaining warriors. "Silas promised power beyond imagination if I delivered her specifically."
I tried to get up, but the poison still held down. Lucien was hurt, Mira was trapped, and Elder Malin was helping Selene fight Silas’s ntal control.
Only Lyra stood between Varro’s dogs and my daughter.
"You’ll have to go through ," she said, her new Alpha power flowing from her like heat.
"Gladly," Varro growled. "It’s ti soone taught you your place, servant girl."
But as Varro changed into his massive wolf form, I saw sothing that made my blood turn to ice.
Luna’s eyes weren’t just glowing silver anymore.
They were turning gold.
Pure, bright gold like the full moon itself.
And when she opened her mouth to speak, the sound that ca out wasn’t my little girl’s voice at all.
It was the voice of the Moon Goddess herself.
"Enough."
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