Iris Montgomery's POV
We're running through the forest when I feel it.
The council elders entering my grandmother's house. The shock on their faces when they see what I've become. The way their bodies react to the power radiating from the place where I just was.
I can feel it all through the connection I share with my grandmother.
One of them falls to her knees. Corvette. The oldest elder. Her fear is so strong it makes my new senses burn.
"That's forbidden magic," I hear her voice in my mind. "That's Lycan Queen magic."
Luna pulls me deeper into the trees but I'm distracted. I'm split between running and feeling what's happening behind us.
My grandmother's power rises like a wall of invisible force.
"Iris is under my protection," she says, and even from this distance I can feel the weight of her words. "If any of you touch what's mine, you're declaring war on someone far older and far more dangerous than you realize."
Someone makes a mistake.
The pack beta reaches for something. Reaches for my grandmother maybe, or for the place where I was standing moments before. He's thinking he can restrain the threat before it gets bigger.
He doesn't understand what I am now.
I feel it before it happens. I feel my own power stirring in response to the threat. And I can't stop it. It moves faster than thought.
Pain explodes through the beta's body.
From the inside.
His blood burns because my will commanded it to burn. His cells scream because some ancient part of me decided they should scream. He falls to the ground and everyone in the house hears his screams even though they're not coming from his mouth. They're coming from inside his body.
They're psychic.
They're real.
Luna grabs my arm hard, shaking me. "Focus," she hisses. "We have to keep moving."
I pull my attention back to running but I can still feel it. I can still feel my grandmother's presence like a shield between the council and the place where I was.
But something else is happening.
Someone is arriving at the house.
Someone powerful.
I feel him before I see him. Kael. My rejected mate. He's moving through pack territory at full speed, following the surge of power he felt through the mate bond.
He didn't understand what that surge meant at first. But now he's understanding. Now he's realizing that the girl he threw away in front of five hundred people just woke up something ancient.
He bursts through the front door of my grandmother's house just as we reach the edge of the forest.
I stop running.
I have to look back.
Through the trees, through the darkness, through the distance, I can see my grandmother. I can feel her power crystallizing into something solid and visible.
A barrier.
Made of pure magic. Made of starlight and ancient knowledge. Made of three hundred years of preparation.
It appears between Kael and everyone else in the house like a wall of glowing light.
"My granddaughter is leaving," my grandmother says, and her voice is so quiet it's terrifying. "If you follow us, if you try to take her back, if you try to stop what's happening, I will end you. Alpha or not. Nothing you are matters compared to what I will do."
Kael steps forward but the barrier flares brighter. He stops. He can feel it. He knows what crossing it would mean.
He looks past the barrier. He looks out the window. He looks toward the forest where Luna and I are standing frozen.
And he looks at me.
I can feel his regret like it's my own. I can feel him understanding in that moment that he made a choice that can never be unmade. He rejected his mate. He rejected me. And now I'm something he could never control even if I wanted him to.
His eyes meet mine across the distance and I see everything he's feeling.
But my grandmother doesn't give him time to move.
She turns back to the council and her power rises even higher. The entire house shakes. Windows crack. The council elders cover their heads like the sky is falling.
"Go," my grandmother says without even looking at me. But I hear it clearly. I feel it like a command written in my blood.
Luna pulls me away from the window.
"Run," she whispers.
We run deeper into the forest. The Blood Moon above us. The ancient presence still moving toward me. Kael behind us, caught behind my grandmother's barrier, finally understanding what he threw away.
We run until the house is out of sight.
We run until there's nothing but trees and darkness and the red light from above.
And I run feeling my grandmother's power still holding strong, still protecting me, still buying me time to become what I'm meant to be.
Behind us, something is breaking through the barriers between worlds.
Something ancient is coming.