Bolton’s voice lowers as he leans closer. “Maya… if the stories are true, then your dad wasn’t just a shifter. He was important. And your mom—” He hesitates, then meets my eyes. “Your mom was a Luna.”
I blink. “A what?”
“A Luna,” he says gently. “The mate of an Alpha. A kind of... leader.”
The word hangs there between us, heavy with meaning I don’t understand. I open my mouth to ask more, but the only thing that comes out is a quiet, “She never told me.”
He nods once, solemn. “And if that’s true… then you’re not just one of us. You’re legacy.”
I stare at him, my whole body buzzing. Half of me wants to bolt. The other half wants to cry. Neither feels right.
“She never told me. She lied to me my whole life.”
“No,” Bolton says quietly. “She protected you. That’s what mothers do.”
And for a few seconds, I don’t know whether to hate her or thank her.
So I do neither.
I just sit there, watching the last embers of the fire glow in the dark, and try to find my breath again.
I stare at the fire. My thoughts race, but none of them catch.
“I’m the child of a forbidden romance,” I say flatly. “That’s just fan fiction-level ridiculous.”
“You’re more than that,” he says, tone sharpening. “You felt something tonight—something not even full-blooded shifters feel during their first moon. You don’t know who you are because no one evertold you, Maya. But I think... you’re descended from power. Ancient blood.”
I blink. “Wow. Dramatic much?”
He gives a ghost of a smile. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
My mind flashes to Elena—my mother—her tense body language, the way her voice cracked when she warned me not to come tonight. She’s always been terrified of the past catching up to us. Now I know why.
She was trying to protect me from it.
But now it’s here. It knows my name. It’s watched me under afull moon.
And I’m still not sure whether it welcomed me… or marked me.
“I need to talk to her,” I whisper, standing too fast. The world tilts for a heartbeat, but I find Bolton’s hand at my elbow, steadying me.
“You should,” he says. “But not here. Not tonight.”
I nod, even though every cell in my body is vibrating for answers.
“Let me take you home,” he says gently.
And even though I know I should probably be afraid—of him, of all of this—I say yes.
Because the only thing scarier than facing the truth… is doing it alone.
We head back through the trees, past the flickering lanterns, past the shrinking bonfire, past Cassie’s cold stare following us like a curse.
But I don’t look back.
Because something inside me is changing.
And I need to find out what it is before it’s too late.
