HIS WHITE LUNA

Chapter 2 - MINE

The white light didn't burn.

It poured into me like cold water down my throat, into my chest, into my bones. I tried to scream but no sound came out.

Then it wasn't light anymore. It was memory.

Blood. Snow. Everywhere was snow and blood. A woman who looked exactly like me — same brown hair, same freckles, but older, silver streaks, eyes pure white — running with a baby wrapped in white fur. Wolves howling behind her. Big wolves. Black, grey, shadows that flickered.

A man laughing. Not a howl. A laugh. "Give me the White Pup, Selene, and I will let your precious Whitemoon Pack live. One pup for a hundred wolves. Fair trade."

The woman — Selene — stopped running. She turned. When she spoke, her voice was two voices at once, just like mine had been.

"Never. She is not for you, Godless."

Claws. Screaming. So much screaming. The baby in the fur crying — me — me crying.

Then a different voice, older, Arnold's voice but younger. "My Luna, you have to do it now! Wipe them! Make them human!"

Light. White light so bright it swallowed everything.

I gasped and fell backwards.

I didn't hit the floor. Arms caught me. Steel arms that smelled like winter and expensive cologne and something wild I didn't have a name for.

Harrison.

His chest was heaving against my back. I could feel his heart hammering as fast as mine. When I looked up, his eyes were no longer amber. They were pure, molten gold, glowing in the dim office. Black veins crawled up his neck like tattoos.

"What did you do to her?!" He roared at Principal Valentina, and the whole office shook. Literally shook. The bookshelves rattled. The jars with weird bones in them fell and smashed.

Principal Valentina didn't flinch. Her own eyes had changed too. Silver. Like mirrors.

Brayden was on his knees a few feet away, both hands clutching his head, blood pouring from his nose onto his white shirt. "Too many— too many futures at once— make it stop—"

Ethan — shy, invisible Ethan — was flickering like a bad TV signal. One second he was there, next second I could see the wall through him. His eyes were white, glowing, tears running down.

And me. I could feel it. Something under my skin moving, pushing, trying to get out. My hands. I held them up. My nails were white, sharp, longer than they should be. My veins were glowing faintly silver.

"Isla, look at me. Breathe." Valentina grabbed my face, her silver eyes locking with mine. "You are shifting for the first time. Human girls don't shift. Luna's do. If you shift here, in school, humans will see. You will die. Breathe with me."

"I— I'm human," I choked out. My voice was layered. Two voices. Mine and something else, softer, stronger. "I'm just Isla, I'm human, I have math homework—"

"You were never human," Valentina said, and her voice cracked for the first time. "Oh, pup. You were never human. You are White Luna. My Luna. Selene's daughter."

Harrison's arms tightened around me so hard I couldn't breathe.

"She's mine." His voice was not Harrison King's voice. The popular billionaire boy who never talked to me. This was deeper. Animal. A growl under the words. "I smelled it ten years ago on the playground and you told me I was imagining it. You told me I was sick. You lied to me, Valentina."

He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at Valentina like he wanted to rip her throat out.

Brayden wiped his nose with his sleeve, leaving blood on his cuff, and stood up swaying. His eyes were now ice-white, glowing like mine. "Harrison, put her down. Right now. Your possessive imprinting is spiking her cortisol. You are going to force her into a panic shift and her heart will stop. She is seventeen, she has never shifted."

"Don't tell me what to do, Seer," Harrison snarled, but he loosened his grip a fraction. Just enough for me to breathe.

Ethan finally became solid again, gasping. "I... I remembered too. The fire. My mom... she put me in a laundry basket and told me to be invisible... Isla, we are siblings? We were adopted same day because we are—"

"We are not siblings," Valentina cut him off sharply. She let go of my face and ran to lock the office door. Click. Then she pulled the blinds. Then the curtains. The room went dark except for the moon lantern on her desk, which was now pulsing. Fast. Like a heartbeat. "You four are the last. The last pups of the Four Thrones."

She yanked the world map off the wall. Behind it wasn't a wall. It was a carving in stone. Four huge wolves carved around a white moon. A black wolf. A grey wolf with stars in its fur. A transparent wolf. And a white wolf in the middle, bigger than all of them.

"Ten years ago, on the Blood Moon, Sebastian Cole burned the four great packs," she whispered. "Blackthorn. Silverclaw. Nightfang. Whitemoon. He wanted one thing. White Luna blood. Legend says White Luna blood can make a wolf with no wolf become a God — no weakness to silver, no weakness to wolfsbane, immortal. Your mother, Selene, Isla, she was the last White Luna."

My knees buckled. Harrison caught me again, this time pulling me fully against his chest.

"Your mother used the last of her power to hide you four. She gave you to human families. She wiped your memories. She made you human to keep you hidden. Arnold Johnson — your dad — Isla, he was her Beta. Her most loyal warrior. He took you and raised you as human. He died last week because Sebastian found him and asked where you were. He didn't tell him. He died protecting you."

The room went dead silent except for the pulsing lantern and my ragged breathing.

So my dad didn't have a heart attack. He was murdered. Because of me.

The white thing under my skin howled, loud inside my head.

Mate. Mate is here. Mate is holding us. He is safe. He is Alpha.

Mate?

I looked up at Harrison. His gold eyes were locked on mine. His face was inches from mine. I could see every eyelash. His lips slightly parted. He looked as shocked as I felt.

No. No no no.

He is Harrison King. He has dated every senior girl in school. He called me "Johnson's weird kid" last year. He has never said two words to me since 7th grade.

He can't be my mate. That's not how this works. That's fairy tale stuff.

As if he heard my thought, his grip tightened. His nose brushed my hair, just behind my ear, and he inhaled deeply, eyes closing.

A low, guttural sound left his throat that made every hair on my body stand up and my strange new nails dig into his shirt.

"MINE."

The word vibrated through my bones.

Brayden slammed his fist on the desk so hard it cracked. "Harrison, I swear to the Moon Goddess, let her GO! She is not just yours! She is White Luna! She belongs to all thrones!"

Valentina suddenly went completely stiff. Her silver eyes snapped to the sealed window. She sniffed the air once, like a dog.

Her face went white as paper.

"He felt it," she whispered. Her voice was pure terror now. "Oh Moon... the glow... when you touched the lantern, your mother's protection broke. The hiding spell is broken."

"Who felt it?" Ethan asked, voice shaking, still half-transparent.

Valentina didn't answer. She ran to the window and slammed the heavy steel shutters closed — I didn't even know the office had shutters. The room went almost pitch black except for the lantern, now pulsing so fast it was strobe-lighting.

Far away, outside the school, past the football field, past the town, a howl tore through the afternoon.

Not a normal wolf howl. Twisted. Broken. Like a man trying to howl with a throat that wasn't made for it.

And every single glass in the office — the windows, the jars, Valentina's glasses on her desk — cracked at the same time. A spiderweb of cracks.

The lantern stopped pulsing. It went solid white, blinding.

"He knows you are awake now, Isla," Valentina said, shoving me behind her, behind Harrison, her whole body shielding me. "He knows the White Luna is awake."

"Who?" I whispered, clutching Harrison's shirt because my legs would not hold me anymore. My eyes were burning white, tears glowing as they fell.

Valentina looked at me like she wanted to cry but couldn't.

"The man with no wolf who killed your mother. And he has 30 days until your 18th birthday to drink your blood and become God."

Outside, the wrong howl came again. Closer this time.