—Natasha's POV—
The truth, once unleashed, did not bring clarity. It bred a more complex, more insidious kind of chaos. The confrontation on the overlook had stripped away the simple narrative of possessive rivalry, replacing it with a tangled knot of debt, biology, and ancient magic. The air in Ashbourne grew thick with the static of unresolved energy.
Whispers no longer slithered; they buzzed, a swarm of speculation that followed me from the library to the lecture hall, growing sharper, more politically charged with each passing day.
The catalyst for the rising fever was the impending Full Moon Gathering.
It was not a social event. It was a cornerstone of pack life, a sacred convergence under the lunar eye where the community presented itself to the ancient powers, where loyalties
