"I felt... heat," I said carefully. "Not like fever. Like energy. Pressure in my chest. My hands started to... react."
The words felt inadequate to describe what had happened. How could I explain the sensation of something ancient awakening inside me? The way my blood had seemed to sing with power I had never known I possessed?
"React how?" Ren asked.
His fingers twitched slightly, as though already imagining writing down my response in one of his endless records. Would I become another footnote in pack history? The omega who didn't break cleanly from her bond?
I swallowed hard. "There were... sparks. Light. Silver. Just for a moment."
As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt vulnerable, exposed. These were the pack's most powerful members, wolves who had the authority to exile me if they deemed me dangerous or unstable. Abnormal wolves were rarely tolerated, especially those who manifested unexplained abilities.
The Elders exchanged a look I couldn't read. Not surprise. Not confusion.
Recognition.
Something cold settled in my stomach. They knew what was happening to me. They had seen this before, or at least heard of it.
Mirella stood slowly, descending the steps from her chair until she stood in front of me. Up close, her scent was a mixture of age, power, and something distinctly female — a strength different from the dominating presence of male alphas, but no less formidable. Her gaze flicked down to my hands. "Show us."
"I don't know how—"
"Try."
It wasn't a request. The command in her voice triggered an instinctive response in me, the omega automatically wanting to comply with an alpha's order. But it was more than that — a part of me wanted to know if I could reproduce the phenomenon, if what had happened in the privacy of my room was real or just a hallucination born from rejection trauma.
I took a slow breath and raised my hand. I focused on that strange thrum in my chest — that not-heartbeat. The ache beneath my skin. The fire that wasn't fire.
At first, I felt nothing but the slight trembling of my fingers in the cool air of the chamber. Then I thought of Kael — of his cold eyes as he turned away from me, of the whispers that followed me as I fled the ceremony, of the way my world had collapsed in on itself in that single moment of rejection.
The emotion surged, and with it came the heat, flowing from my chest down my arm.
For a moment, nothing.
Then... silver light curled along my fingers like smoke.
Soft. Flickering. Impossible.
It was beautiful and terrifying — tendrils of luminous energy that danced between my fingers, responding to my heartbeat, to my breath. Not just light, but something alive, something with purpose. It didn't burn, but I could feel its warmth, its potential.
I gasped. The light faded instantly.
The shock broke my concentration, snuffing out whatever had been building. But for those few seconds, the chamber had been transformed by the silvery glow, the moonstones in the walls resonating in response, brightening as if greeting an old friend.
The Elders said nothing for a long moment.
In the silence, I could hear my own rapid breathing, the pounding of my heart. I lowered my hand slowly, fingers still tingling with the memory of that strange power.
Finally, Mirella exhaled through her nose. "Moon Healer."
The words seemed to echo in the chamber despite its perfect acoustics. They hung in the air between us, heavy with implication.
"No," I whispered. "That's just a myth."
Moon Healers were legends told to pups, rare wolves blessed by the Moon Goddess with extraordinary healing abilities. Not just the practical medicine that pack healers practiced, but true healing — the power to mend what was broken, to purify what was tainted, to restore what was lost. Some stories said they could even heal the bond between mates, strengthen connections between pack members, repair spiritual wounds.
But they were stories. Fairy tales. No one had seen a Moon Healer in generations.
"It's not," Thorne said. "The line was believed to be extinct. But it's not. Your mother... she was one, wasn't she?"
My mother. Gentle, quiet, always with a remedy for every ailment. I remembered her hands — always warm, always soothing when she placed them on my childhood scrapes and bruises. How they seemed to glow sometimes when she thought no one was watching.
Had I imagined that? Or had she been hiding her true nature all along?
"I don't know," I said, voice cracking. "She died when I was seven. She never—she told me stories—"
Stories about wolves blessed by the moon. About healing hands and silver light. I had thought they were just bedtime tales, comfort for a child who showed no signs of being anything but an omega in a world that valued alphas.
"Stories to protect you," Mirella said. "If anyone had known what you were—what you could become—you'd have been taken before you ever shifted."
The implication sent a chill through me. Taken by whom? Why? What value would a child with dormant abilities have?
Unless...
Unless those abilities were rare enough, powerful enough, to be worth killing for. Or controlling.
My thoughts spun. The room tilted.
"I'm not... I'm not anything," I whispered. "I'm just a healer. An omega."
The labels I had accepted, the boundaries of the identity I had built for myself — all of it suddenly felt like a lie. Or at best, a partial truth.
"No," Ren said. "You're not just a healer. You're the first of a lost bloodline. And the Alpha who rejected you may have just doomed himself."
I looked up sharply. "What?"
Kael. The unshakeable, cold, perfect Alpha of our pack. The wolf who had looked at me with such disdain, such certainty that I was beneath him.
Mirella nodded. "Rejection from a Moon Healer has consequences. You were never meant to be separated. He severed something that was never meant to be touched. It will unravel him."
"His wolf," Thorne added. "It will grow unstable. He will lose control."
Control — the thing Kael prized above all else. His legendary self-discipline, his unwavering commitment to appearing perfect, to leading without showing weakness. The idea that he might lose that control, might experience even a fraction of the chaos he had unleashed in me...
I swallowed. A thrill — dark, unwanted — sparked in my chest.
So he'll suffer.
The vindictive thought surprised me. I had never been one to wish harm on others, had spent my life healing rather than hurting. But something had changed inside me when Kael rejected me — a hardening, a sharpening of edges I hadn't known I possessed.
But then a second thought bloomed.
If he dies... part of me might go with him.
The realization was instinctive, bone-deep. Despite the rejection, despite the humiliation, something of the mate bond remained — twisted, damaged, but present. His suffering would eventually become mine.
I closed my eyes. Confused. Angry. Terrified. I didn't know what I wanted — to hurt him, or to save him. Or maybe both.
The silver energy had faded completely from my fingers, but I could still feel it circulating through me, responding to my conflicted emotions. Ready to manifest again if I called it forth.
"You must remain under observation," Mirella said firmly. "Your powers will grow. They must be monitored."
"I'm not staying locked up," I said quickly. "I haven't done anything wrong."
My voice came out stronger than I intended, with an edge of defiance I had never dared show before. The Elders exchanged glances, clearly noting the change.
"You don't need to," Ren said flatly. "You're dangerous by nature now."
Dangerous. The word should have frightened me. Instead, it settled into my bones with a strange sense of rightness. Wasn't this what I had secretly longed for all these years? To be something other than weak, other than dismissed?
Before I could argue again, the chamber doors creaked open behind me.
A woman entered — tall, red-haired, wearing the robes of a Keeper. A moonstone pendant hung at her throat, capturing and reflecting the same blue light that pulsed through the chamber floor. Her movements were fluid, graceful in a way that suggested both strength and restraint.
"This is Keeper Alira," Mirella said. "She will escort you to the eastern wing. You'll have privacy. Meals. Books. You're not a prisoner, Evelyn... but you are under watch."
Not a prisoner, but not free either. The distinction felt meaningless. After years of being overlooked, suddenly I was too important to be allowed freedom.
The Keeper gestured gently. "Come with me."
Her voice was surprisingly warm, lacking the clinical detachment I had expected. There was something in her eyes — not pity, but something like understanding. Had she been through something similar? Or was she simply skilled at handling those in shock?
I didn't move.
Instead, I looked at the Elders — three strangers who had just torn open the truth of who I was and handed it to me like a weapon I didn't ask for.
"Why now?" I asked quietly. "Why is this happening now?"
It was the question that burned brightest in my mind. If this power had been in my blood all along, why had it manifested only after the rejection? Why had my mother never told me? Why had no one recognized what I was before this moment?
Mirella tilted her head. "Because your mate rejected you."
Five simple words that changed everything. The rejection hadn't weakened me as everyone expected. It had broken whatever seal had contained this part of me. What Kael had intended as my destruction had instead become my awakening.
And just like that, I turned and walked away — not with pride, not with confidence.
But with power.
Flickering. Waiting.
Ready to bloom.