Rise of the Forbidden Luna

Chapter 37: The Great Reveal

The frozen trenches of the Forbidden Mountains screamed with a chaotic symphony of clashing steel, howling blizzards, and exploding dark magic.

Following my command, Beta Thomas and the soldiers had sliced their own palms, coating their silver swords in blood. The effect was instantaneous and breathtaking. Every time a blood-slicked blade collided with a blue-eyed phantom warrior, it disintegrates the skeletal phantoms into clouds of black ash. We were actively pushing them back, carving a bloody path up the snow-covered mountain ridges.

I marched side-by-side with Ethan, my blade tightly locked in my bleeding hand. I parried a heavy strike from a rusted broadsword, twisting sharply on my heels to bury my blood-coated blade deep into an undead scout’s chest, watching him instantly vanish into smoke.

"Thomas! Hold the flank perimeter!" Ethan roared, his monstrous, giant Lycan form a blur of pure destruction as he charged and tore three phantoms with his claws to shreds mid-air.

We breached the high ridge, stepping onto the massive, wind-swept plateau of the ancient obsidian altar. The blizzard violently swirled around us, but my breath caught completely in my throat as the smoke cleared, revealing the architects of our ruin.

Standing at the edge of the altar was my treacherous sister, Sienna, her eyes wide with a manic, villainous glee. Beside her stood Alpha Richard, his dark armor heavy, his hands resting on his hips as he sneered at our advancing army. But standing directly between them was a terrifying, cloaked silhouette. It was an ancient, decrepit witch whose skin looked like wrinkled parchment, her long grey hair whipping in the storm, and her empty, milky-white eyes glowing with a sickening green sorcery. In her gnarled hands, she held The Eye of Aethelgard, a colossal crimson crystal pulsing with dark, blinding waves of pure sorcery.

"Richard!" Ethan hissed, voice a terrifyingly low growl that rattled the mountain foundations. He shifted back into his towering human form, his tan skin covered in sweat and enemy ash as he stepped forward, his eyes drilling into his rival. "You are nothing but a pathetic coward. You brought a witch to a pack war because you are too weak to fight like a true wolf. You hide behind dark sorcery because you know you could never survive on the battlefield."

Alpha Richard let out a loud, mocking laugh, his jaw tightening with an ugly arrogance. "Honor does not save kingdoms, Lycan King! You think you are a god because you wear a crown? When my undying legions crawl out of the Land of the Dead and tear your empire to dust, no one will care about the honor of a wolf! You will bleed just like the rest of them and your kingdom will be mine."

The ancient witch cackled, her voice a grating, high-pitched screech that sent an icy shiver straight down my spine. She lifted the Eye of Aethelgard high into the dark crimson sky, the green magic around her fingers exploding into a brilliant, suffocating aura. "The veil is already fracturing! Your blood-coated steel cannot save you from what comes next!"

"Shut your mouth, old hag!" I screamed fiercely, stepping out from behind Ethan's shadow, my knuckles turning white around my silver blade. "I will tear that crystal from your dead fingers myself!"

The moment my voice cut through the howling wind, the witch froze. Her milky-white, blind eyes slowly pivoted toward my face, her nostrils flaring aggressively as she openly began to scent the air around my frame. Suddenly, her sickening green aura flared violently, and a look of absolute, unadulterated shock twisted her wrinkled features.

She looked down toward my midsection, a chilling, manic smile stretching across her decaying teeth.

"Oh... what do we have here?" the witch whispered deathly softly, her voice carrying a dark, prophetic power that echoed across the entire silent plateau, drawing the eyes of everyone towards me. "The reborn Luna speaks of vengeance... while drowning in a sea of her own secrets!"

My heart violently stumbled against my chest, pure, paralyzing terror freezing the blood in my veins. No. Please, no.

Ethan's brow furrowed, his protective instincts immediately flaring as he stepped in front of me, his massive shoulders blocking her line of sight. "Silence! If you say another word to my mate, I will rip your tongue out!"

"Your mate?!" the witch shrieked in pure, mocking amusement, pointing a crooked, gnarled finger directly at my stomach. "What true mate keeps a pregnancy secret from her partner."

The entire battlefield plunged into a dead, suffocating silence.

Ethan stiffened, his breath catching in his throat as he slowly turned his head to look down at me, his gold-flecked eyes wide with a sudden, chaotic confusion.

"She's been using you and your love for her to fuel her revenge plan,and she isn't just carrying a single heir! I see them clearly, four tiny heartbeats! She is pregnant with quadruplets! Two boys and two girls carrying your bloodline!" The witch's voice sounded like a thunderclap across the ridge, delivering the ultimate, world-shattering reveal.

Alpha Richard and Sienna gasped in pure shock, their faces turning completely pale at the revelation of the pregnancy.

But the real destruction was happening right beside me. Ethan slowly turned his head to look down at me, his hands completely shaking, the revelation of the secret pregnancy turned his world completely upside down. The gold-flecked amber warmth in his eyes completely died, replaced by a raw, suffocating wave of pure, unadulterated hurt. He didn't look angry; he looked entirely broken. The supreme, untouchable predator of the werewolf world looked at my pale face with an expression of such deep, agonizing betrayal that it ripped my soul into jagged pieces.

"Aria..." Ethan whispered, his voice cracking with a pain so intense it made my heart break. He took a hesitant, trembling step backward away from my frame, his chest heaving in ragged, shallow gasps as the agonizing reality of my deception settled into his bones. "You... you hid this from me? You've been using me this entire time?"

Before I could even force a single syllable past my frozen lips to answer him, the witch let out a loud, villainous cackle that echoed across the mountain.

"But it doesn't matter anyway," she sneered, her blind eyes flashing with a sickening green light as she raised her gnarled hands hands high into the air. "Because you will never live to bring them forth. You all die tonight!"

With a violent scream, she slammed the Eye of Aethelgard onto the center of the altar. A massive, colossal wave of black and green lightning exploded from the ground, shattering the remaining stone structures as a towering, monstrous undead phantom commander–the King of the Land of the Dead, slowly began to materialize from the smoke, his giant phantom broadsword raised to slaughter us all while Ethan stood entirely paralyzed in pure, unadulterated grief!