--- Chapter Five: The Book of Shadows POV: Lira Velasquez --- The book sat heavy in my lap, its cracked leather cover pulsing with a quiet kind of menace—as if it knew the weight of what it contained. The symbol burned into the front looked exactly like the one etched into my mirror: a crescent moon wrapped in thorns, the center split by a jagged line. It wasn’t just a symbol. It was a warning. And it had belonged to my mother. The fire crackled beside me, casting flickers of gold across the dark pages. Kael had left hours ago, after Mira dropped the book into my hands and whispered those words I couldn’t get out of my head. "She was meant to be Kael’s Luna." How? How could my mother have been tied to any of this? She never spoke of werewolves or mates or cursed Alphas. She raised

