Chapter 11
Maya
Iused to think I knew what it meant to feel out of place.
Now I’m walking through a world that’s tilting under my feet like it’s deliberately trying to toss me off—and I’m apparently the one causing the tremors.
Words like shifter and Luna and mate ricochet through my brain like bumper cars, none of them landing where they belong. I haven’t slept since the bonfire. Not really. Every time I close my eyes, I hear chanting in a language my body understands but my brain doesn’t. I see firelight licking up toward the sky. I feel... something under my skin twitching like it wants out.
But right now? It’s not the supernatural that’s got my pulse speeding.
It’s my mother.
“You’re home early,” I say as she walks through the door, smudged from the hospital, her keys dangling from one hand like they’re the only thing anchoring her to Earth.
She sets her tote down gently—too gently for someone who’s usually half-dead after a double shift. Her smile is a fragile structure held together by sheer maternal guilt.
“Slow day.” She shrugs, casual like she hasn’t been dodging me since Friday like I’m holding a ticking bomb.
Might be because I am.
I straighten from where I’ve been curled on the couch like a spring-loaded trap. “We need to talk.”
Her posture tenses just enough to give her away. She doesn’t answer right away, just exhales like she’s already aged a decade since walking in.
“If this is about the bonfire—”
“It is.” My voice slices through the space between us. Not yelling, not dramatic. Just... final.
I follow her into the kitchen, where she fills the kettle like she has all the time in the world, like this is a Tuesday night debrief instead of the moment I stop pretending I’m normal.
“You’ve been hiding things from me,” I say, crossing my arms. “Not just shielding me. Not protecting me. Hiding.”
“I was trying to keep you safe.” She doesn’t look at me when she says it, which is telling.
“From what? Because I hate to break it to you, but safe left the building somewhere between chant circles and a near-shift under the full moon while your ex-neighbors watched like I was dinner and dessert.”
She closes her eyes briefly before turning to face me. “You don’t understand what’s at stake.”
“Then explain it!” I bite out. “Because I’m done with riddles wrapped in guilt trips. I stood in that circle, Mom. And something—whatever you’re afraid of—it saw me.”
She goes still. Not in that casual ‘I’m thinking’ way. More like her whole body just decided movement was a risk.
“You felt it,” I say, softer now. “Didn’t you.”
She sits slowly at the table, mug loose in her hands, eyes locked on a spot somewhere around my shoulder. “You weren’t supposed to feel anything. That was the whole point.”
Silence folds in around us. A heavy, waiting silence that settles in my chest like stones.
“Your father” she says finally, her voice barely louder than the kettle starting to whistle. “Your father was Alpha of the Black Hollow Pack.”
My fingers tighten on the edge of the table.
“Everyone thought it couldn’t happen," she continues, still staring at somewhere that isn't me. "A human becoming Luna. It was impossible. Except it wasn’t.” Her mouth curves into something that might’ve been a smile in another life. “We fell in love anyway.”
So casually. Like she didn’t just rewrite my entire existence in a single sentence.
“What happened to him?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. Every move we’ve made since I was five screams one thing, loss.
