Serena's POV
The book blurred in her hands.
Serena tried to focus on the words but they kept swimming together. Werewolf History Vol. 3. She'd grabbed it from the library shelf an hour ago hoping that understanding would somehow make this easier.
It didn't.
The library was huge. Two stories of books on dark wood shelves, a fireplace, deep chairs. The kind of room that should feel peaceful. Instead it felt like a cage. A beautiful, book-filled cage where she'd spent the last hour pretending to read while her brain screamed that everything was wrong.
Werewolves were real. Her entire life was a lie. She was bound to two men by magic that didn't exist.
Except it did. It existed and it was living in her chest like a second heartbeat.
Footsteps echoed across the floor.
Serena looked up as Kael and Dante entered together. The moment they crossed the threshold, the mate bond flared hot. Heat rushed through her body like someone had lit a fire under her skin. Her mouth went dry. Her heart started hammering.
They did that to her now. Just being in the same room made her body betray every instinct telling her to run.
"We need to tell you something," Kael said. He sat across from her in one of the heavy chairs. Dante positioned himself on the armrest beside her, close enough that she could feel his body heat.
Serena closed the book. "I don't want to hear it."
"You need to anyway," Kael said gently.
There was something in his voice that made her look at him. Something that said this wasn't going to be good.
"Your parents," Kael started. "They weren't human."
The words hit her like a slap.
"They were Alphas," Kael continued. "From the Silvermoon pack. One of the oldest and most powerful packs in North America."
Serena's hands gripped the book tighter. "That's impossible. My parents were in the foster system. They died in a car accident when I was a baby."
"Your parents died protecting you," Dante said quietly. "The Silvermoon pack was slaughtered twenty years ago. A rival Alpha decided your entire bloodline was a threat. Your parents hid you in the human world before they were killed."
The room started spinning.
Serena stood up so fast the chair scraped backwards. "You're lying."
"We're not," Kael said. His voice stayed calm but there was pain underneath it. "Your blood carries Luna genetics. Dormant power from one of the strongest packs to ever exist. Your parents made sure you survived because you're the last of their line."
Everything clicked into place.
The foster homes. Twenty-three different homes in twenty-three years. Never fitting in. Never belonging. Teachers telling her she was different. Kids at school saying something was off about her. The way she could sense emotions sometimes, the way she could make people listen without trying.
It was never because she was broken.
It was because she was different.
It was because she was never supposed to be human at all.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?" Her voice cracked. "Why did I grow up thinking I was abandoned?"
"Your parents wanted you safe," Kael said. "If anyone knew you existed, if any rival pack found out a Silvermoon heir survived, you would have been hunted. Killed. The only way to protect you was to hide you completely."
Dante reached out but Serena stepped away from his touch.
"So everything was a lie," she said flatly. "My entire childhood was a lie. My parents weren't people I never knew. They were Alphas I'll never meet. And I was supposed to just magically be okay with that?"
"You're allowed to be angry," Kael said. "You're allowed to grieve what you lost."
"I'm angry at everything." Serena's hands were shaking. "I'm angry at my parents for hiding me. I'm angry at the packs for killing them. I'm angry at you for telling me the truth. I'm angry at myself for feeling this stupid connection to you when you're basically the reason my entire life is destroyed."
Dante dropped to his knees in front of her.
"Look at me," he said.
She didn't want to. Didn't want to see the way he was looking at her like she was something precious. Like she mattered.
She looked anyway.
"You were always meant for more than the human world," Dante said quietly. "You were always meant for this. For us. Every lonely year, every moment you felt like you didn't belong, that was your wolf knowing where you should be."
"I don't have a wolf," Serena said but her voice wavered.
"You do. She's sleeping in you waiting to wake up. She's been waiting since the moment you were born." Dante reached out and took her trembling hand. "And she knows we're hers."
Serena wanted to pull away. Wanted to tell him that destiny was just another cage. That being special meant being hunted. That love was just another way to get trapped.
But she was falling anyway.
The bond between them was so strong it hurt. She could feel Dante's sincerity like it was her own emotion. Could feel Kael's control wavering from across the room like his control was cracking from the effort.
"What if I refuse?" The words came out small. Desperate. "What if I don't want this bond? What if I don't want to be a Luna or a werewolf or anything you're telling me I should be?"
The room went silent.
Kael's silver eyes met hers and for just a moment she saw something break inside him. Something raw and painful and honest.
"Then we all suffer," he said. His voice was rough like gravel. "The longer you resist the bond, the more pain all three of us carry. If you keep fighting it long enough, one of us dies from the strain. Or we go feral. There's no refusing fate, Serena. We can only accept it or let it destroy us."
She was trapped.
Not by the twins. Not by pack law or history or destiny.
By herself. By her own body. By the bond that was already woven through her cells and couldn't be torn out without killing everyone involved.
Dante was still on his knees in front of her, holding her shaking hand.
Kael was watching her with eyes full of pain.
And Serena understood with creeping horror that she was never getting her old life back. She was never going to be free. She was never going to have a choice.
She was bound to them now.
Forever.