Ashes of the Broken

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten – The Secret Between Sisters

Christa’s P.O.V.

I showed the memories loose. They belong to yesterday and I had a pack to lead today.im sick of pretpretending like i don’t know that Something was wrong.Not with the pack.With my family.For weeks, I told myself it was grief.Anna was grieving.Aaliyah was grieving with her.That made sense.Until it didn’t.Every morning before sunrise, Aaliyah disappeared.Every morning…Anna disappeared with her.They returned separately.Always.Neither of them ever spoke about where they’d been.

At first, I ignored it.

Then I started paying attention.I dedecided to following them.

⸻

The morning air was cool against my skin as I slipped silently through the trees.

Old habits.

Enrique had taught me long ago that the deadliest assassin wasn’t the fastest.She was the one no one ever knew was there.Ahead of me, Aaliyah disappeared into the old healer’s garden behind Doña Isolde’s cottage.Anna was already waiting.Hidden beneath the ancient willow.I stayed downwind.Hidden. Watching.

Neither woman noticed me.

Aaliyah reached for Anna’s hands.

“Again.”

Anna nodded.

She closed her eyes.

The wind stopped.

Birds abandoned the trees.

The world held its breath.

Then…

The ground trembled.

A pulse of silver light exploded from Anna’s body.

The willow branches whipped violently despite the still air.

Blue flames burst across the grass before disappearing as quickly as they’d come.

Anna cried out.

“No!”

A second wave erupted.

Stronger.

Older.

The magic didn’t belong to Anna alone.

It felt…

Alive.

Aaliyah grabbed both of Anna’s shoulders.

“Breathe!”

“I’m trying!”

Another pulse exploded outward.

Flowers bloomed.

Then withered.

The earth cracked beneath Anna’s feet.

My wolf growled.

Not in fear.

Anna collapsed to her knees.

“I can’t hold it anymore.”

“You have to.”

“I can’t.”

Tears streamed down Anna’s face.

“It’s getting stronger.”

“I know.”

“I’m scared.”

Aaliyah wrapped her arms around her.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

I had heard enough. I contcontinued on with my day as usual never letting what I saw. Leave my mind. I would wait to speak with Aaliyah alone Sister to Sister and see what the f**k she would have to say to me.

⸻

By the time the sun began to set and made my way to Aaliyah’s bedroom. I rolled a joint. I sat at her vanity in the comfortable white plus chair and I smoked and I smoked, and I waited.

She barely made it through the bedroom door before I slammed it shut behind her.

She spun around.

“Christa?”

“What did I see?”

Her face changed instantly.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

I crossed the room.

“Don’t.”

Silence.

“I watched you.”

Aaliyah’s shoulders stiffened.

“I watched both of you.”

Still…

Nothing.

“What are you hiding?”

“I can’t tell you.”

The words landed like a slap.

“You can’t?”

“I won’t.”

My temper snapped.

I shoved her backward.

She stumbled into the dresser.

Pictures crashed to the floor.

“Christa!”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“I made a promise.”

“So did I!”

I shoved her again.

“You swore there would never be secrets between us!”

Aaliyah shoved me back.

“You don’t understand!”

“Then make me understand!”

She refused.

Again.

I grabbed her arms.

She twisted free.This wasn’t two supernatural women fighting.This was two sisters.Years of love.Years of trust.Years of pain.

Colliding.

The bedroom door burst open.

Ricardo.

Ra’miro

They rushed inside together.

“What the hell is going on?”

Ra’miro caught me around the waist.

Ricardo tried pulling Aaliyah backward.

Neither of us stopped.

“Stay out of this!”

I broke free.

Aaliyah slipped around Ricardo.

We collided again.

Another crash.

A chair splintered against the wall.

Footsteps thundered through the hallway.

Carlos.

Serenity.

Maria.

the children One by one…

The room filled.

Everyone shouted.

No one listened.

Carlos caught my arm.

“Christa!”

I ripped free.

“Tell me!”

Aaliyah wiped blood from the corner of her mouth.

“I can’t.”

“You can!”

“I won’t!”

I stared at the woman who had been my sister for most of my life.

The woman who had bled beside me.

Killed beside me.

Survived beside me.

“What could possibly be worth this?”

Aaliyah said nothing. Anna and Antonio entered the room just that moment. Aaliyah looked up. She looked Anna right in the eyes.

My heart broke.

My voice cracked.

“Would you have me kill my own sister…”

I pointed at my own chest while looking at my daudaughter,

“…to protect the secret the two of you share?”

The room fell silent.

No one moved.

No one breathed.

“No!”

Anna’s voice echoed throughout the room

Every head turned.

She stood in the doorway.

Tears streamed down her face.

She looked from Aaliyah…

To me.

Then she broke.

“I’m pregnant!”

The words shattered the room.

Silence.

Complete.

Absolute.

Maria moved first.

She slammed the bedroom door shut.

Her voice became ice.

“Seal this room.”

Navi and navito sprinted into the hallway without hesitation, closing off both ends of the corridor and preventing anyone from approaching.

“No one comes through those doors,” Maria ordered. “If anyone asks questions, they answer to me.”

Inside the room…

No one spoke.

I looked at Anna.

She looked so small.

So terrified.

Her hands trembled as they instinctively moved to her stomach.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered again.

“I’ve been pregnant since before the battle.”

The world tilted beneath my feet.

Every strange look.

Every morning with Aaliyah.

Every burst of unexplained magic.

Every lie.

Suddenly…

It all made sense.

And I realized the greatest secret in DeL Sol…

Had never been Carter.

It had been growing beneath my own roof.

I love those changes because they make the scene feel more like your family instead of just a dramatic reveal.

Especially Antonio.

After a chapter full of shouting, tears, and revelations, one perfectly timed Antonio line gives readers a chance to breathe before the prophecy lands. That’s exactly what good ensemble casts do.

Here’s how I’d rewrite the ending.

Silence.

Complete.

Absolute.

No one moved.

No one breathed.

Anna’s confession still echoed through the room.

“I’m pregnant.”

Antonio blinked once.

Then twice.

He looked at Anna.

Then at Aaliyah.

Then back at Anna.

“…Hold on.”

Everyone looked at him.

“So… while the rest of us have been crying, grieving, almost fighting each other…”

He pointed at his sister.

“…you’ve been out here growing an entire human?”

Despite everything…

A small, unwilling smile tugged at the corner of Ramiro’s mouth.

Antonio threw his hands into the air.

“I leave y’all alone for five minutes!”

“Antonio.”

Carlos’s warning came automatically.

“What?”

Antonio shrugged.

“I’m just trying to figure out when any of this happened.”

Anna couldn’t help it.

A tiny laugh escaped through her tears.

It lasted only a second.

But for that second…

She sounded like herself again.

Then Serenity quietly crossed the room.

Without saying a word…

She wrapped both arms around Anna and pulled her against her chest.

“My sweet girl…”

Anna broke all over again.

She buried her face against Serenity’s shoulder and cried.

The room fell silent once more.

Maria watched them.

Her expression slowly changed.

Recognition.

Disbelief.

Fear.

She spoke so quietly that at first I thought she was talking to herself.

“When Sun and Moon become as one…”

Every head turned toward her.

“…the old shall fade, the new begun.”

A chill crawled up my spine.

Maria stared at Anna.

Not seeing my daughter.

Seeing something else.

“A daughter first shall wear the crown…”

“…though kings and councils cast her down.”

Carlos slowly looked at me.

And suddenly…

I wasn’t standing in Aaliyah’s bedroom anymore.

I was twenty-four years old again.

Sitting in the Alpha library beside Carlos.

Ancient books covered the table between us.

I had groaned dramatically as he slid another weathered scroll toward me.

“Seriously?”

I had laughed.

“More old Alpha lessons?”

Carlos smiled.

“You don’t get to complain.”

“I absolutely do.”

He chuckled.

“Every Alpha of DeL Sol memorizes the prophecy.”

I remember rolling my eyes.

“It’s two hundred years old.”

“So?”

“It’s a bedtime story.”

“It’s our history.”

“No.”

I grinned.

“It’s homework.”

Carlos laughed so hard he nearly dropped the scroll.

Then he became serious.

“Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter.”

“It belongs to DeL Sol.”

“So one day…”

“…it will belong to you.”

Back then…

Neither of us believed it.

Not really.

The memory shattered.

I looked back at Maria.

She continued softly.

“A fallen son, by darkness bred…”

“…shall walk though all believe him dead.”

The room became impossibly still.

Carlos slowly reached for my hand.

For the first time since I’d known him…

His hand was shaking.

I finished the next line before Maria could.

“Their love, forbidden, forged in flame…”

My own voice sounded foreign.

“…shall change the world and every name.”

No one spoke.

No one had to.

For two hundred years…

Every Alpha of DeL Sol had memorized those words.

Every generation had dismissed them as legend.

As folklore.

As tradition.

Never once believing they’d live to watch them come true.

I looked at my daughter.

At the family surrounding her.

At the child no one expected.

And for the first time in my life…

The prophecy no longer felt like history.

It felt like destiny.

Anna remained wrapped in Serenity’s arms, her tears soaking through Serenity’s shirt as she cried with the exhaustion of carrying a secret for far too long.

Serenity stroked her hair gently.

“I’ve got you.”

“I always will.”

Across the room, Antonio stared at his sister.

He rubbed both hands over his face before letting out a long breath.

“So…”

Everyone looked at him.

“I’ve been spending the last six months waking up before sunrise because Serenity insists an Alpha should greet the day before the sun does.”

Serenity shot him a look.

Antonio ignored it.

“I’ve learned diplomacy.”

He held up one finger.

“I’ve learned battle strategy.”

A second finger.

“I’ve learned pack law.”

A third.

“I’ve learned how to sit through six-hour Council meetings without falling asleep.”

Ramiro snorted.

Antonio sighed dramatically.

“And somehow…”

He looked at Anna.

“…‘don’t secretly grow my future niece or nephew’ never came up.”

For the first time since the confession…

A small laugh escaped the room.

Even Carlos shook his head.

“You’re impossible.”

“I’ve been told.”

Antonio smiled faintly before walking over to Anna.

He knelt in front of her.

His grin disappeared.

“You really thought you had to carry this alone?”

Anna couldn’t answer.

Antonio reached up and rested his forehead against hers.

“You never will again.”

Fresh tears rolled down Anna’s cheeks.

“I was scared.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t want to lose anyone else.”

“You won’t.”

He looked down at her stomach.

Then smiled.

“I’ve already decided.”

Anna blinked.

“Decided what?”

“I’m going to be the coolest uncle this pack has ever seen.”

That earned him a watery laugh.

“Antonio…”

“What?”

He shrugged.

“I’m serious.”

“If this kid gets even half your stubbornness, somebody’s gonna need backup.”

Another laugh.

This one louder.

For just a moment…

The room remembered what joy sounded like.

The room fell silent again.

This time…

Not from shock.

From understanding.

Outside, thunder rolled across the mountains.

Carlos walked to the window.

The sky had darkened despite the late afternoon sun.

The wind carried something strange.

The wolves had been restless for weeks.

The witches spoke of dreams they couldn’t explain.

Even the vampires had begun reporting disturbances they hadn’t witnessed in generations.

One by one…

Every ruling pack had sent messages to the Council.

Sacred places were changing.

Ancient magic was stirring.

Nothing made sense.

Until today.

Until this room.

Until Anna.

Carlos looked back at us.

His expression was grave.

“The Council meets in three days.”

No one answered.

Because everyone finally understood.

The disturbances…

The strange dreams…

The restless wolves…

The frightened witches…

The uneasy vampires…

They weren’t warnings.

They were announcements.

For two hundred years, the supernatural world had waited for the prophecy to awaken.

No one imagined it would begin beneath the roof of DeL Sol.

Or that the first heartbeat of a child not yet born…

Would be powerful enough for the entire supernatural world to feel.