Lucien's POV
I ripped the door off my bedroom closet.
Not on plan. I was just trying to open it, but my hands were shaking so bad I grabbed too hard. The whole thing came off its hinges and crashed to the floor.
"Damn it," I growled, looking at the mess.
This was the third thing I'd broken today. First my bathroom mirror. Then the kitchen table. Now this.
All because I couldn't stop thinking about her.
Aisla.
It had been two days since she ran away. Two days since I'd felt her fear and confusion through our mate bond. Two days of pure hell.
My wolf was going crazy.
Find her, he snarled in my head. Bring her home.
"She doesn't want to come home," I said out loud, knowing I sounded crazy. "She's scared of us."
She's scared of her power. Not us.
But that wasn't true. I'd felt her fear when she realized she'd almost controlled our minds. Felt her shame and horror at what she'd nearly done.
She thought she was becoming a monster.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe we all were.
I grabbed a clean shirt from the pile of clothes on my floor and headed downstairs. Kieran was in the kitchen, looking at a cup of coffee he wasn't drinking. Caelan was at the table with his head in his hands.
We all looked like garbage.
"Any news?" I asked.
"Father's scouts found her scent near the old garden behind the pack school," Kieran said without looking up. "But it goes cold after that."
"She's using her power to hide," Caelan mumbled. "Masking her scent somehow."
The mate bond told us she was still living. Still close. But that was all we knew.
"We need to find her before the Council does," I said.
"I know."
"Do you? Because you're sitting here drinking coffee while our mate is out there alone and scared."
Kieran's cup broke in his hand. Coffee and blood dripped onto the counter.
"You think I don't know that?" he snapped. "You think I'm not dying inside too?"
"Then do something about it."
"Like what? Like you? Breaking everything you touch because you can't control yourself?"
He was right. I couldn't stop myself. The need to find Aisla, to protect her, to hold her, was eating me alive from the inside.
But that didn't mean I was going to sit around and do nothing.
"I'm going to look for her," I stated.
"Father said to wait for the search teams," Caelan said.
"Father can go to hell."
I stormed out before they could stop me. My wolf was pushing forward, trying to take control. He was stronger than usual, driven by desperation and need.
The garden, he pushed. Start at the yard.
The old garden was on the far side of pack territory, behind the abandoned school house. It used to be beautiful, back when pack children still went to school there. Now it was overgrown and wild.
Perfect place for someone to hide.
I changed into my wolf form and let my nose guide me. Her smell was faint but definitely there. Roses and moonlight and something uniquely Aisla.
I followed the trail deeper into the wild plants. Past broken benches and crumbling stone walks. Past dead flowers and bent trees.
And then I saw her.
She was sitting in the middle of what used to be a flower bed, her knees pulled up to her chest. Her dark hair was twisted with leaves and dirt. She looked smaller than usual. Fragile.
My heart clenched painfully.
I shifted back to human form and stepped out of the darkness.
"Aisla."
She jerked her head up, and I saw tear tracks on her face. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
"Go away, Lucien," she whispered.
"I can't do that."
"Yes, you can. Just walk away and pretend you never found me."
I moved closer, my wolf pushing me forward. "The Council is looking for you. It's not safe out here alone."
"I'm not safe anywhere." She hugged her knees tighter. "Did you see what I almost did? I almost made you all love me. Against your will."
"You stopped yourself."
"This time. What about next time? What happens when I get angry or scared and I can't control it?"
I was only a few feet away from her now. Close enough to smell her fear and sadness. Close enough to see the dark circles under her eyes.
"You won't hurt us," I said.
"How do you know?"
"Because I know you."
She laughed, but it sounded broken. "You don't know anything about me. None of you do. I'm not the sweet little omega you think I am."
"I never thought you were sweet."
That got her attention. She looked up at me with surprise.
"I always knew you were strong," I continued. "Even when you were quiet and hiding in the dark. I could see the fire in you."
"That fire is going to burn everyone I care about."
"Then let it burn. Maybe the world needs to burn a little."
She stared at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was.
"You don't mean that."
"Don't I?" I dropped to my knees in front of her. "Aisla, I've been going crazy without you. I can't eat. Can't sleep. Can't think about anything except finding you and making sure you're okay."
"That's just the mate bond talking."
"No, it's not. It's me. The real me. The part of me that doesn't care about pack politics or customs or what anyone else thinks."
I reached out to touch her face, but she flinched away.
The rejection hit me like a physical blow. My wolf snarled in answer, and I felt my control slipping.
"Don't pull away from me," I said, my voice rougher than I meant it to be.
"Lucien, you're scaring me."
But I was already going. My wolf was in charge now, driven by need and desperation. I caged her between my arms, pressing her back against the stone wall behind the flower bed.
"I can't stay away from you," I growled. "Do you understand that? I physically can't do it."
"Let me go."
"No."
I leaned closer, breathing in her smell. She smelled like fear now, sharp and bitter. But underneath that was something else. Something that made my wolf purr with satisfaction.
She smelled like she wanted me too.
"I can smell your desire," I whispered against her ear. "You want this as much as I do."
"That doesn't matter."
"It's the only thing that matters."
But then I felt it. Through our mate bond, I felt her fear flooding through me. Pure, gut-wrenching fear.
Fear of me.
It hit me like ice water to the face. I jerked back, staring at her in fear.
She was pressed against the wall, shaking. Her eyes were wide with fear. She looked like a trapped animal.
Because of me.
"Oh god," I breathed. "Aisla, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"
"Don't touch me," she whispered.
The fear in her voice made me want to vomit. This was exactly what I'd sworn I'd never do. I'd told myself I'd never be the kind of man who scared women. Who used his strength to scare.
But that's exactly what I'd just done.
"I'm sorry," I said again, backing away from her. "I'm so sorry."
"You're just like them," she said, tears running down her face. "Just like the Council. You think you can control me. Make me do what you want."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it? You just trapped me and told me I couldn't leave. How is that different?"
I didn't have an answer for that.
My wolf was howling in pain. We'd hurt our mate. The one person we were supposed to protect above all others.
"Aisla, yes. Let me explain-"
"No." She stood up, and power started spreading from her in waves. "I'm done with excuses. Done with all of you trying to decide what's best for me."
The air around us began to shimmer with silver light.
"You want to know what I'm capable of?" she asked, her eyes beginning to glow. "You want to see what the Council is so afraid of?"
"Aisla, don't-"
But it was too late.
The power burst out of her like a bomb.
I was thrown backward, crashing into a tree twenty feet away. Every bone in my body screamed with pain.
But that wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was what I saw when I looked up.
Aisla was floating three feet off the ground, her hair whipping around her face in an imaginary wind. Her eyes were pure silver now, no longer human.
And she was happy.
Not the sweet, shy smile I'd fallen in love with.
This smile was cold. Predatory.
Dangerous.
"You're right about one thing, Lucien," she said, her voice booming with power. "The world does need to burn."
She raised her hand, and every dead plant in the yard came back to life. Flowers bloomed. Trees grew. Vines curled up from the ground.
But they weren't normal trees.
They were black. Twisted. Wrong.
"Starting with anyone who thinks they can control me," she continued.
The black branches started moving toward me, reaching out like grasping fingers.
"Aisla, stop. This isn't you."
"This is exactly who I am. This is who I've always been underneath all that fear and self-doubt."
One of the branches wrapped around my ankle. Where it touched, my skin began to burn.
"I am the last of the Moonblood line. I am power alive. And I am done being afraid."
More plants grabbed me, pulling me toward her. The heat spread up my legs, into my chest.
"Please," I gasped. "You don't want to do this."
For just a moment, her face flickered. The silver in her eyes faded.
"Don't I?" she whispered.
But then her power flared again, stronger than before.
"The Council wants me dead because they know what I could do to them. What I could do to everyone." She leaned down until her face was inches from mine. "Maybe it's time I showed them they were right to be afraid."
The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was her eyes.
Cold. Silver. Completely without pity.
And I realized with perfect, terrifying certainty that we hadn't just lost our mate.
We'd made a monster.