ELLA'S POV
The woman with silver hair and purple eyes—my eyes—stands in the hallway glowing like a nightlight, and my brain totally short-circuits.
"Cousin?" I repeat stupidly. "I don't have a cousin."
"You have seven, actually." She steps forward, and Marcus's guards scramble backward like she's toxic. The purple power crackling around her hands intensifies. "Though most of them are dead now, thanks to the Council's purges. I'm Lyra. Your grandmother's sister's granddaughter. We're family, Ella."
"My grandmother died when I was five," I say, trying to understand this while still trapped in an elevator with Adrian, Marcus, and six heavily armed guards. "She was a teacher. She didn't have a sister. She definitely didn't have magic—"
"She had plenty of magic." Lyra's smile is sad. "She just hid it very well. Like she taught you to hide yours."
"I don't have magic!"
"Really?" Lyra tilts her head. "Then explain why every electronic gadget malfunctions around you when you're emotional. Why plants grow faster in your room. Why you can always tell when someone's lying."
My mouth opens. Closes. Because she's right. I've always written those things off as chance or bad luck, but— "The Forgotten Ones," Marcus interrupts, his voice tight with controlled fear. "You were supposed to be extinct."
"We are excellent at playing dead," Lyra says cheerfully. "It's helped us survive your extermination attempts for the past three hundred years."
"What are the Forgotten Ones?" I ask, looking between them.
Adrian answers, his voice rough. "Ancient humans. The original bloodline that lived before shifters. They had magic—real magic, not just change. According to stories, they were equals to shifters once. Partners. Then came the Great Subjugation."
"We called it the Great Betrayal," Lyra corrects coldly. "Three hundred years ago, the shifter Council decided humans was too dangerous to leave free. They conquered human territories, enslaved the people, and specifically hunted down every Forgotten One they could find. We had the power to fight them, you see. Couldn't have that."
The pieces click together in my head with horrible clarity. "My grandmother—" "Went into hiding. Changed her name. Dyed her hair. Taught your mother to do the same, then you." Lyra's face softens. "She loved you very much, Ella. She died protecting your secret."
Something cold settles in my stomach. "How did she die?"
The silence is answer enough.
"Marcus Steele killed her," Lyra says, looking straight at the Council enforcer. "Fifteen years ago. Said it was a random human caught in the gunfire during Adrian's parents' execution, but we knew better. She was there trying to save them. She failed."
I turn to look at Marcus. He doesn't deny it.
"Wait," Adrian says slowly. "Fifteen years ago. The day my parents died—"
"Your father was helping us," Lyra says. "He believed shifters and Forgotten Ones could work together again. He was hiding several of our people, planning to give evidence to the Council that we weren't a threat. Someone betrayed him." Her eyes bore into Marcus. "Someone always betrays us."
Marcus's jaw clenches. "I was following orders."
"You murdered children." Lyra's voice drops to something dangerous. "You burned people alive. You hunted us like animals. And now—" she looks at me, at Adrian, at our joined hands, "—fate has given us the perfect tool against you."
"What are you talking about?" I demand.
"You're mated to an Alpha," Lyra says. "A link between a Forgotten One and a shifter Alpha hasn't existed in three hundred years. Do you understand what that means?"
Adrian's hand tightens on mine. "The prophecy."
"What prophecy?" I'm so tired of not knowing anything.
Lyra's smile returns, sharp and pleased. "The prophecy that says when Forgotten blood and Alpha blood bond freely, the balance will shift. The old magic will return. And the shifters' rule will end."
The guards raise their weapons instantly, aiming at me.
"She's the weapon," Marcus says simply. "Kill her. Now."
"No!" Adrian shifts partially—his wolf ears growing, claws extending. He pulls me behind him even though we're still stuck in an elevator with nowhere to go.
Lyra smiles. "Oh, please try. I'd love to see what happens when you attack a Forgotten One who's just woken her power."
"I haven't awakened anything!" I protest.
"Haven't you?" Lyra points to the elevator. "Why do you think it stopped? Why do you think the entire building's electricity system just failed? You did that, cousin. Your fear, your anger, your desperate need to protect yourself—it sparked your magic. You just don't know how to control it yet."
I look at my hands. They look fully normal. No glowing. No sparking purple magic.
Then I notice the metal walls of the lift. They're twisting. Bending inward slightly, like something's pulling on them from the inside.
Like I'm pushing on them without meaning to.
"Oh god," I say.
"Training can come later," Lyra says. "Right now, we need to leave. The Council's troops are coming, and you're not ready to fight them yet."
"I'm not going anywhere with you," I say strongly. "I don't know you. I don't trust you. And I surely don't want to be anyone's weapon."
"Then you'll die here." Lyra's speech is matter-of-fact. "Marcus has his orders. The Council wants you eliminated before you can bond with Adrian fully. That mate bond? It's only half-formed. The full bond requires—"
"Don't," Adrian growls. "Don't tell her."
"Why not?" Lyra's eyebrows rise. "She deserves to know that the only way to complete the bond and unlock her full power is to—"
"I SAID DON'T."
The building shakes again. This time, cracks spider-web across the elevator walls. One of Marcus's guards talks into his radio: "Sir, the foundation is compromised. Whatever's down there—"
"It's the rest of our people," Lyra says quietly. "We came prepared. You can either let us take Ella quietly, or we tear this building down floor by floor until we reach her. Your choice."
Marcus looks at me with those cold, dead eyes. I see him calculating. Weighing choices. Coming to a choice.
"Kill them all," he says.
The guards shoot.
Adrian shoves me down as darts whistle over our heads. Lyra's hands flare bright purple. The darts freeze in mid-air, then drop harmlessly to the floor.
"Wrong choice," she says.
She claps her hands together. The elevator's ceiling tears open like paper. Through the gap, I see night sky—we're suddenly at the top of the building somehow, forty floors up in an instant.
"Grab her!" Lyra orders.
Hands reach down through the hole. Multiple hands. More Forgotten Ones, pulling me up and out. I scream, grabbing for Adrian, but he's stuck below, fighting Marcus's guards, unable to follow.
"ADRIAN!"
"I'll find you!" he shouts back. "I swear I'll find you!"
Then I'm on the roof, surrounded by people with silver hair and violet eyes, all of them looking at me like I'm their salvation or their doom.
Lyra climbs up beside me. "Welcome home, cousin."
"This isn't my home!"
"Not yet." She pulls something from her pocket—a small bottle of glowing purple liquid. "But it will be. After you drink this."
"What is it?"
"Awakening medicine. Made from Forgotten blood. One sip, and your magic fully awakens. You'll finally become what you were always meant to be." She holds it out to me. "What you were born to be."
I stare at the jar. At Lyra. At the dozen other Forgotten Ones watching me with desperate hope in their eyes.
Below, I hear Adrian still fighting. Still trying to reach me.
"If I drink that," I say slowly, "what happens to Adrian? To the mate bond?"
Lyra's smile falters. Just for a second. "That's... complicated."
"Uncomplicate it."
She sighs. "The serum will finish your transformation into a full Forgotten One. But it will also sever any incomplete ties you have with shifters. The mate link with Adrian isn't finished yet, so—"
"It'll break," I finish. "You want me to choose between my magic and my mate."
"I want you to choose life. Power. Revenge against the species that killed our families." Lyra's eyes flash with anger. "Or you can choose a wolf who tortured you for three years and expects you to forgive him because of biology."
She's not wrong. But she's not right either.
I look at the vial. At the glowing liquid that offers power and answers.
Then I hear Adrian's howl from below—desperate, anguished, calling for me.
"I need time to think," I say.
"You have thirty seconds," Lyra says. "Because that's how long before Marcus's helicopters arrive."
I hear them now—the whump-whump of rotors approaching fast.
My grandmother's voice echoes in my memory: Sometimes the right choice is the one that scares you most.
I reach for the vial.
The world bursts in blinding white light.
When my vision clears, I'm not on the roof anymore. I'm standing in a forest I've never seen before, surrounded by old trees that glow faintly silver.
And my grandma stands in front of me, young and alive and smiling.
"Hello, sweetheart," she says. "We need to talk about your destiny."