Chapter 9
Maya
Idon’t remember moving.
One second I’m standing beneath the sharp glitter of the full moon, surrounded by a circle of strangers who suddenly seem more animal than human—and the next, I’m sitting on a worn log outside the firelight, my hands still shaking, Bolton crouched in front of me like I’m some fragile thing about to shatter.
I hate that look on his face.
I hate that this is real.
“Just breathe,” he says softly, his voice all velvet and gravel. Not a command. A lifeline.
“I am breathing,” I snap, but it’s more reflex than heat.
Inside me, something feels… cracked open. Like a box that’s been nailed shut for years just split on one side, light peeking through. I don’t know what’s in it yet, just that it’s mine and terrifying and thrilling all at once.
My hands still shake. My skin still tingles. My pulse still won’t calm.
“You’re saying I’m some kind of werewolf?” I whisper,stealing a glance toward the fire lit circle behind us. The crowd disperses slowly now, like an audience after a play’s final act, murmuring, whispering. Judging.
Bolton hesitates. “Shifter,” he says finally. “Not werewolf. We’re not monsters. We’re… more than that.”
“Cool,” I mutter, pushing my glasses up my nose with a trembling finger. “So instead of monsters, I’m just half—what? Supernatural?”
He nods once, solemn. “Your mom must’ve known. You had to come from somewhere.” His voice is gentle, but there’s something behind it—an urgency I don’t fully understand.
“She never told me anything,” I say. “I mean, I always knew she was hiding stuff. But this?” I let out a breathless laugh. “This is another universe kind of secret.”
“She never mentioned your dad?” Bolton asks carefully. His eyes are sharp now. Curious. Like he’s trying to find a thread and tug it loose.
“She said he died in a car crash,” I reply, brushing my fingers over my knees, wiping off imaginary dirt. “But that was about all I got. No grave site. No photos. Just his name—Miguel.”
That gets a reaction. Bolton stills. Not visibly, but I feel it. Like a shift in pressure before a storm.
“Miguel,” he repeats, slowly, carefully. “Your father’s name was Miguel Ortiz?”
I nod, my stomach clenching. “Yeah. Why?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He looks away, toward the fire, then back at me. His expression is suddenly unreadable—like he’s doing calculations behind his eyes. Big ones.
“There was a Miguel,” he says eventually, his voice cautious now. “He wasn’t part of our pack. But... there are stories. Old stories. About a wolf who mated with a human. About how it ended.”
Something presses against my chest, heavy and sharp.
“What kind of stories?” I ask.
He looks at me like he wants to lie. Then he doesn’t.
“Stories about a man who loved someone he wasn’t supposed to. A woman who walked away from the pack and took her child with her. Trying to keep her safe.”
“That’s not a story,” I whisper. “That’s my mom.”
And suddenly, everything tilts.
Bolton’s voice lowers as he leans closer. “Maya… if the stories are true, then your dad wasn’t just a shifter. He was important. And your mom—” He hesitates, then meets my eyes. “Your mom was a Luna.”
I blink. “A what?”
“A Luna,” he says gently. “The mate of an Alpha. A kind of... leader.”
The word hangs there between us, heavy with meaning I don’t understand. I open my mouth to ask more, but the only thing that comes out is a quiet, “She never told me.”
He nods once, solemn. “And if that’s true… then you’re not just one of us. You’re legacy.”
I stare at him, my whole body buzzing. Half of me wants to bolt. The other half wants to cry. Neither feels right.
“She never told me. She lied to me my whole life.”
“No,” Bolton says quietly. “She protected you. That’s what mothers do.”
And for a few seconds, I don’t know whether to hate her or thank her.
So I do neither.
I just sit there, watching the last embers of the fire glow in the dark, and try to find my breath again.
I stare at the fire. My thoughts race, but none of them catch.
“I’m the child of a forbidden romance,” I say flatly. “That’s just fan fiction-level ridiculous.”
“You’re more than that,” he says, tone sharpening. “You felt something tonight—something not even full-blooded shifters feel during their first moon. You don’t know who you are because no one ever told you, Maya. But I think... you’re descended from power. Ancient blood.”
I blink. “Wow. Dramatic much?”
He gives a ghost of a smile. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
My mind flashes to Elena—my mother—her tense body language, the way her voice cracked when she warned me not to come tonight. She’s always been terrified of the past catching up to us. Now I know why.
She was trying to protect me from it.
But now it’s here. It knows my name. It’s watched me under afull moon.
And I’m still not sure whether it welcomed me… or marked me.
“I need to talk to her,” I whisper, standing too fast. The world tilts for a heartbeat, but I find Bolton’s hand at my elbow, steadying me.
“You should,” he says. “But not here. Not tonight.”
I nod, even though every cell in my body is vibrating for answers.
“Let me take you home,” he says gently.
And even though I know I should probably be afraid—of him, of all of this—I say yes.
Because the only thing scarier than facing the truth… is doing it alone.
We head back through the trees, past the flickering lanterns, past the shrinking bonfire, past Cassie’s cold stare following us like a curse.
But I don’t look back.
Because something inside me is changing.
And I need to find out what it is before it’s too late.
TOMORROW, I would ask my mother the truth.
But tonight? I stare at the full moon one more time as we drive away, and I swear it stares back.
And for the first time in a very, very long time…
I don’t feel alone.