Lily POV
I tried to shift into my wolf form and nothing happened.
Standing in the middle of the forest area where I used to run every morning, I closed my eyes and reached for that familiar feeling deep inside . The place where my wolf lived, where the wild part of had always been waiting.
Empty.
It was like grabbing for a light switch in a dark room and finding nothing but air. My dog - the part of that had been there since birth - was just gone.
"Co on," I whispered to myself, trying again. I focused harder, pushing with everything I had left. My body trembled with effort, but I stayed annoyingly human.
A twig snapped behind . I spun around to find Caleb watching from the tree line, his face full of hope and pain.
"I felt you trying to shift," he said quietly. "Through the pack bond."
"The pack bond still works?" I asked, surprised by the silence in my own voice.
He nodded, stepping closer carefully like I might run away. "So of it. I can feel when you’re in trouble or using a lot of energy. But everything else..." He swallowed hard. "Everything personal is gone."
I studied his face - the boy who used to make my heart race just by smiling at . Now he looked like a stranger who happened to know my na.
"Do you rember anything?" he asked frantically. "About us? About how we felt?"
I tried to think back to our ti together. I could rember events like watching a movie about soone else’s life. I rembered him holding my hand, but not how it felt. I rembered him saying he loved , but the words had no sense.
"I rember that you were important," I said finally. "But it’s like rembering a fact from a book. Two plus two makes four. The sky is blue. Caleb used to matter to ."
He flinched like I’d hit him.
"I’m sorry," I added, though I wasn’t sure why. Sorry was supposed to be a feeling, but I couldn’t feel it anymore.
"Don’t apologize for being hurt," he said. "This isn’t your fault."
But it was, wasn’t it? I’d chosen to accept the Shadow Beast. I’d made the choice that led to this emptiness. The question was whether I’d make the sa choice again.
Looking at Caleb’s broken face, I honestly didn’t know.
"The pack wants you to co ho," he said. "Alpha Marcus thinks being around familiar things might help you heal."
Ho. Another word that used to an sothing. Now it was just a place where people expected to be soone I couldn’t rember being.
"What if I don’t want to heal?" I asked.
Caleb’s eyes widened. "What do you an?"
"What if this is better?" I gestured to myself. "No pain. No fear. No ssy feelings making do stupid things. Maybe this is who I was supposed to be all along."
"You don’t an that."
"Don’t I?" I tilted my head, studying him. "You’re hurting right now because you still love soone who doesn’t exist anymore. Isn’t that proof that feelings just cause suffering?"
"Emotions also cause joy," he claid. "And hope. And love."
"I wouldn’t know," I said simply.
We stood there in quiet for a mont. A bird chirped sowhere above us, and I realized I couldn’t even enjoy that simple sound anymore. Everything felt muted, like soone had turned down the noise on the entire world.
"The shadow creatures are gone," Caleb said finally.
"They’re not gone. They’re waiting."
"For what?"
I looked at him, and for a second I almost felt sothing. Almost. "For to decide what I want to do with them."
Fear flickered across his face. "Lily, whatever you’re thinking—"
"I’m thinking that maybe the old way of doing things wasn’t working," I interrupted. "Maybe the pack needs soone who can make hard choices without being weak."
"Love isn’t weakness."
"Isn’t it?" I asked. "Love made you follow out here even though you know I might hurt you. Love made give everything to save people who barely knew my na. How is that strength?"
Caleb stepped closer, his hands reaching out before stopping himself. "Because caring about others is what makes us human. Without it, we’re just animals."
"Or gods," I said quietly.
The words hung in the air between us like a threat. I hadn’t ant to say them out loud, but they felt true. Without feelings to hold back, without fear or doubt or love to cloud my judgnt, I could be sothing more than human. Sothing that could reshape the world according to science instead of feelings.
"You’re scaring ," Caleb whispered.
"Good," I said. "Fear keeps you alive."
I turned to walk away, but his voice stopped .
"The prophecy," he called out. "Elder Iris found more about the Triple Moon Bearer. You need to hear this."
Despite myself, I stopped. Information was useful, even if I couldn’t care about it correctly.
"What prophecy?"
"The one about the cycle. About Triple Moon Bearers becoming the very evil they were ant to fight." His voice shook. "Lily, you’re not the first. This has happened before."
I turned back to face him, and sothing cold settled in my chest. Not a feeling - emotions were beyond now. Just a cold, logical knowledge.
"How many others?" I asked.
"Dozens," he whispered. "Over thousands of years. They all started as heroes. They all saved their people. And they all..."
"Beca monsters," I finished.
He nodded, tears running down his face.
I should have felt sothing about that. Horror, maybe. Or desire to fight against my fate. Instead, I felt only interest.
"Did any of them try to break the cycle?" I asked.
"One," Caleb said. "Three hundred years ago. She tried to kill herself to stop it from happening."
"And?"
"She survived. The Triple Moon power wouldn’t let her die. She beca Morrigan instead. " The na hit like a physical blow. Morrigan - the ancient witch who had stolen wolf bonds for ages. The enemy we’d just beaten.
"I’m going to beco her," I said, and it wasn’t a question.
"Not if we can find another way," Caleb said desperately. "Not if you choose to fight it."
But as I stood there in the empty forest, feeling nothing but cold logic, I realized sothing terrible.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to fight it anymore.
"What if becoming a monster is the only way to protect the people I used to love?" I asked.
Before Caleb could answer, a new voice spoke from the darkness.
"Then you’re already halfway there, child."
We both spun around to see a figure appearing from behind the trees. An old woman with wild white hair and eyes that glowed with familiar darkness.
Morrigan stepped into the clearing, very much living, and smiled at with sothing like motherly pride.
"Hello, daughter," she said. "It’s ti we talked."
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