The Prophesied Luna (completed)

Path to Happiness

Aldrnari’s POV

            Our healers and the doctors of the Gold Moon Pack have been working tirelessly for two days but in the end, we were not able to save all of the werewolf warriors who have been bitten by the vampires. For the few that we were able to save, it was only possible because of Kayla. Two days ago, Thiago received a call from Reena about the sudden vampire attack. Without asking for any details, Granny and I rushed over to the Gold Moon Pack with the best healers from our coven. We were shocked to see Kayla and Alpha Finn lying side by side in the shelter in the pack house, completely unconscious. Reena told us Alpha Finn had saved Kayla from a vampire but in doing so, he was bitten by that vampire. In fact, the Beta said he had seen with his own eyes how Alpha Finn’s wolf was turning back into its human form, something that happened to badly injured werewolves moments before their deaths. Yet, we couldn’t find a single scratch on the Alpha’s body, let alone the bite marks from a vampire. 

            The Beta then described to us an explosion, seemingly caused by Kayla and after this explosion, all the vampires had turned to dust, and Kayla herself fell unconscious. After checking a few times to make sure that Kayla’s vitals were normal and feeling her life force strongly in the balance, Granny became convinced that whatever it was that Kayla did with that explosion, it was an outburst of magic and that magic not only killed the vampires, it must have saved the life of the Alpha as well. To be honest, even I didn’t feel completely convinced by this theory, which was why I was shocked when Granny suggested trying to channel some of Kayla’s powers to heal the bitten werewolf warriors. I was even more flabbergasted when Granny suggested that the only way to do this would be to use the super seven, also known as our sacred stone, to transfer the magic derived from Kayla’s blood to the bite wounds. Needless to say, the Gold Moon Pack was not amused by this suggestion and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t trembling when the aura of the Beta went berserk on us. In the end, it was Thiago and Reena, the most logical minds in the room, who convinced everyone that it was worth a try and from a medical perspective, it was safe for any healthy adult to donate up to 8% of their blood at one sitting. 

            We were in absolutely unknown territory beyond the limits of any magic that we knew of or human medical knowledge. After Reena extracted a bag of blood from Kayla and ran some tests to ensure everything was ok, Granny experimented with different amounts of blood with different sized sacred stones to perform the energy transfer to heal the bite marks. Unfortunately, by the time we were ready to start testing, a few werewolf warriors had already died from blood poisoning from the venom in the vampires’ fangs, which are deadly for werewolves. The remaining werewolves were doing better after receiving the transfer of magic from Kayla’s blood but after the first 24 hours, their conditions began to deteriorate again and we guessed that perhaps that dosage wasn’t enough. At the same time, we couldn’t just take more blood from my sister again and a difficult decision was made to use the remaining blood on the four werewolf warriors in the best conditions, to maximize the chances of anyone surviving. It was a cruel decision and I was glad that I wasn’t the one who had to make it. Even then, I could barely look into the eyes of the families who lost their husbands, wives, sons and daughters that day. Despite understanding the circumstances, it was a bitter pill for anyone to swallow. 

            I took my seat in the armchair beside Kayla and prepared myself for another long night. Even though Kayla appeared to be fine, Granny and I were still worried that something was wrong, just that we weren’t aware of it. This was why we decided it’d be better to stay close to Kayla round the clock and the time had come for my shift. Reena was also on duty, no doubt to keep an eye on me and I couldn’t blame her, after everything that had happened in the past few years. The entire Gold Moon Pack was still on edge and in lockdown as the Beta tried to figure out the next steps. For the time being, the entire Pack was staying in the underground shelters beneath the packhouse while warriors and guards kept watch outside round the clock. Granny and I had also cast a magical barrier on the pack borders that could hold off the vampires for a while, giving us time to react should there be another attack. I was deep in thought when I heard a soft groan. My gaze darted to my sister and I saw her eyebrows knitted together as her eyelids fluttered. I sprang to my feet and dashed to her side, holding her hand in mine as she opened her eyes with difficulty. 

            “Mother?” Her hoarse voice cracked and I hurried to give her a glass of water, before calling for Reena to come check on Kayla. 

            “Finn?! Finn, answer me, please!” Kayla whimpered as she looked desperately at the Alpha in the bed next to her when I came back to the room with Reena. 

            “Hey, hey, it’s ok, everything is ok. The Alpha is fine, Kayla, but you need to calm down,” Reena said gently as she stroked Kayla’s arms gently until the monitors hooked up to her stopped beeping like crazy. 

            “You’re not lying, right? He’s really fine?” Reena nodded reassuringly at Kayla’s questions while she performed some checks. Seeing my little sister so vulnerable and devastated made me feel instinctively protective of her and I wanted so much to hold her, to comfort her. But I knew it wasn’t the right time. She had just woken up and our last encounter with each other was anything but pleasant. If anything, my well intentioned gestures meant to comfort her would probably just overwhelm her and not in a good way. Sighing silently in my heart, I turned to leave so that I could tell Granny the good news that Kayla had woken up. 

            “Wait, Aldrnari,” Kayla’s feeble voice stopped me in my tracks and for a moment, I was sure that I must have heard wrongly. 

            “Could we talk? I know this sounds crazy, but I think I saw our mother,” she said slowly, like she was trying to pick her words carefully. 

            I failed miserably not to look bewildered as I looked from Kayla to Reena, not sure if I was more surprised that my little sister wanted to talk to me or that she had seen our mother. Reena gave Kayla the all clear before leaving us to speak alone, well not alone, if you counted the unconscious Alpha in the bed next to Kayla. 

            “I saw her, Aldrnari, and I’m sure it was her because she looks so much like us. We were in a clearing, in the middle of a sea of lavender and she told me many things. She said that I could talk to her even though she was in the spirit world because I’m the prophesied one. At first, I thought that I had died but then now that I know I’m still alive, I don’t know if that was real or it was just a dream.” My own face must have been a reflection of the confusion in Kayla’s voice as I tried to process what she had said but it simply wasn’t possible, at least not based on what I know about magic. 

            “I’m not sure, Kayla, but based on what I know, it’s impossible to speak with those who have passed on to the spiritual world. Our worlds are separated by a barrier that no magic can bridge, if not there would be havoc on both sides. But, if Mum said that you could see her and talk to her because you’re the prophesied one, then it could be possible. After all, no one really knows exactly how powerful you are, or you’re supposed to be, I guess. There has never been anyone like you, Kayla.” My heart squeezed painfully for a short second as I realized that my little sister was more special than me in many ways and perhaps, that was why Mum had chosen her over me and even in the next world, she had chosen to reach out to my sister and not to me. 

            “I’m sorry, Aldrnari,” Kayla whispered as she reached out to wipe away the tears that had escaped my eyes, tears that I didn’t realize I was crying. “I know nothing that I say would change anything or make whatever happened be acceptable. I don’t know why the Moon Goddess made our mother choose between her child and her destiny with her fated mate. But I know it wasn’t an easy decision for her, Aldrnari. I could feel her pain as she told me why she chose to leave. She loved you.” 

            “But she loved you more,” I said matter-of-factly. “It’s not important anymore, Kayla. We can’t change what others did but we can choose the future that we want to live, and I stay true to my word that I want you to be a part of my future as my sister, my blood and kin.” 

            Kayla’s eyes glistened with tears, conveying emotions that I didn’t understand, as she smiled at me and nodded. “I’m ready to accept myself for who I am, to embrace my identity as a witch and a werewolf and to let go of the past. I was hoping that you’d help me on this journey.” 

            I chuckled at how shyly Kayla was looking at me as she awaited my answer while my heart sang a joyful melody at my sister’s forgiveness and acceptance. Even though she didn’t spell it out, I understood that she had forgiven me for my part in her ordeal in the past few years and more importantly, she wanted me to be a part of her life as well. Without hesitation, I pulled her gently into a hug and whispered gratefully, “yes, a thousand times! Thank you, Kayla. I promise that I won’t let you down this time.”

Kayla’s POV

            I got up to cuddle with my mate in his bed after Aldrnari left. It felt good to make peace with my half sister, with the only blood family that I still have in this world. Before she left, I had told her to come back tomorrow with our grandmother so that I could share with them everything that my birth mother, or should I say, my mother had told me. I still couldn’t decide if I was really somehow on the other side, in the spiritual world and was able to talk to my mother or if it was just a dream. It reminded me of that one time just before my 18th birthday and Finn had rejected me because he thought I was too weak to be his Luna and he mistook Nate’s attack on me as a tryst between two consenting parties. I didn’t have all of my memories at that time and my wolf was dormant. After the rejection, I was unconscious for a long time based on what Leyton told me after I had woken up but to me it was just like this time. It didn’t feel like it had been days and if I were honest, I actually wished that I had more time to talk to my loved ones in the spiritual world. In my dreams, if they were indeed only dreams, my loved ones comforted me and they told me many things. They told you about things that we didn’t know of. They answered your questions. My wolf’s words gave me my eureka moment as realization dawned on me that those couldn’t have just been dreams.

            I remember the words of my adoptive mother from the first time that I was able to talk to someone who had already passed on. She had sent me to the forest, to Baum the oak tree, who recounted the past to me, giving me the answers that I sought, and everything that they told me, had come to bear. Baum told me that my wolf would surface when she was strong enough to protect me and she did. He also said that the evil that took my father away from me would come back to find me and it did in the form of Martha the witch. This time, even though there was no way for me to verify the words of my birth mother, they made so much sense that I couldn’t ignore the truths in her words. I thought of the many curveballs thrown our way in the past 8 years as I pressed my face into my mate’s chest, hungry for the warmth of his embrace. He looked a little paler than normal but other than that, I couldn’t see any visible wounds and everything felt normal via our mate bond. Even his shoulder or forearm, which is where the vampire bite should have been, looked perfectly fine and either his wolf was a super healer, or that explosion must have somehow healed the bite wound. It was the first thing that I checked on when I staggered over to his bed and I was pleasantly surprised to see no bite mark or signs of a healed wound at all. 

            “Thank you for not leaving me, Finn,” I whispered into the night as the sound of his steady heartbeat put my heart at ease. “There are still so many things that I don’t understand and I wished that I was able to have more time with my mother. But I guess I understand now that no matter what curveballs get thrown at us, no matter how little control we have over everything, it’s the decisions that we make that define us. We’ve both had our share of bad decisions, I guess, but I’m glad that you stuck by me, Finn. And I want you to know that I really don’t blame you for choosing what you thought was your pup over me on that night over three years ago. I really don’t, at least not anymore because I know now that I would never want you to put me above our Pack, above your duty as Alpha.” The hand I had resting on Finn’s chest instinctively curled into a ball, clutching fistfuls of his shirt even as I snuggled closer to him. If it was possible, I wanted to melt into him so that nothing could ever come between us again. 

            “If you had died to save me and left our Pack without an Alpha, I don’t know how I would feel but I know with full certainty now that I don’t want that for us. I don’t want our love to be at the expense of others. I love you, Finn, with all my heart.”