Chapter 2 The Moon Healer's Awakening

Aria's body ached as she drifted in and out of consciousness. The last thing she remembered was the glowing light, the warmth spreading through her body, and the sound of a heartbeat growing stronger inside her.

When she opened her eyes, she was lying on a soft bed that smelled of lavender and sage. The air was thick with the scent of herbs and smoke, medicinal yet comforting.

"Rest, child," a calm voice said, deep with the wisdom of ages.

Aria turned her head slowly, her neck stiff and sore. An old woman sat beside her on a wooden stool, her posture straight despite her obvious age. Her hair was white as fresh snow, braided intricately with small silver beads that caught the light. Her eyes were bright silver like the moon itself, holding depths of knowledge that made Aria feel like a child again. The woman's face was lined with wrinkles that spoke of centuries lived, yet there was an ageless quality to her presence.

"Who are you?" Aria whispered. Her voice was weak, barely more than a breath. "Where am I?"

"I am Elder Morgana," the woman said, her voice carrying an accent Aria couldn't place, something ancient and nearly forgotten. "You are safe now. You are in neutral territory, where no pack law can touch you."

Aria's hand flew to her stomach, panic rising in her chest. Relief flooded through her as she felt the faint, steady rhythm of her baby’s heartbeat.

Elder Morgana nodded, her expression grave. "Your babies are fine. They should have died. Any normal pregnancy would have ended when your mate bond shattered so violently. But your powers saved them."

"My powers?" Aria frowned, confusion clouding her thoughts. "I don't understand. I'm just an omega. The weakest rank. I have no powers."

Elder Morgana reached out her hand and touched the glowing mark on Aria's shoulder—a mark that was once so faint, she barely noticed it. It is shaped like a crescent moon with intricate spirals flowing from it. The moment the elder's fingers made contact, warmth spread through Aria's entire body. "You are a Moon Healer, my child. You have Moon Healer blood flowing through your veins."

Aria shook her head in disbelief, wincing at the movement. "That can't be right. Moon Healers are only legends. Bedtime stories mothers tell their pups."

"Not legends," Elder Morgana said, her voice heavy with sorrow. "Extinct. Or so everyone believed. Hunted to extinction three hundred years ago for their blood, which could cure any ailment, break any curse. The last known Moon Healer died protecting her children from those who would drain her dry."

Aria stared at her hands, watching in amazement as silver light flickered faintly beneath her skin like trapped starlight. "What does that mean? How is this possible?"

"It means you are both a healer and a bridge between life and death. Your light comes from the Moon Goddess herself, a gift passed through bloodlines thought lost forever. It only awakens through great love and great pain experienced together, a paradox of the heart."

Aria's chest tightened painfully. Great love and great pain. Kane's cruel words echoed in her mind: You're nothing but a weak omega. Get out before I kill you and those bastards you carry. The memory made her newfound power flare, silver light crackling around her fingers.

"Control," Elder Morgana said gently. "Your emotions fuel your power, but they must not control you, you should control it."

The elder studied her carefully before continuing. "You have great power in you. Just like your mother."

"My mother?" Aria's throat tightened with emotion she'd long suppressed. "You knew her? But she died when I was three. Everyone said she was just an omega who died of grief after my father..."

"Lies," Elder Morgana interrupted. "Necessary lies to protect you." She walked to an old wooden chest in the corner, and lifted a small silver box etched with moon symbols that seemed to move in the flickering firelight. "This belonged to her. She entrusted it to me before she died, made me swear to give it to you when your powers awakened."

Aria opened the box with shaking fingers. Inside, nestled in midnight-blue silk, lay a moon-shaped pendant on a silver chain so fine it looked like captured moonbeam. Her mother's scent lingered faintly on it; jasmine and rain, soft and familiar, bringing back hazy memories of bedtime songs and gentle hands.

Tears blurred Aria's vision. "How? I don't understand any of this."

The moment her fingers closed around the pendant, the world shifted violently.

She was running through a dark forest, her white dress torn and bloodstained, heavily pregnant. Behind her, wolves howled. Not the familiar howls of pack, but the savage cries of hunters seeking Moon Healer blood for the black market. Her mother's voice, young and desperate, chanted words of power: "I bind my power. I hide my light. Let them see only an omega, nothing more." The sacrifice burned through her like acid as her magnificent power dimmed to nothing, the moon mark on her shoulder fading to invisibility. All to protect the child in her womb, to protect Aria.

Aria gasped, jerking back to the present, her whole body trembling. "I saw her. I saw my mother running, hiding, she gave up everything for me."

"The pendant holds memories," Elder Morgana said gently, steadying Aria with a warm hand. "Your mother stored them there for you, knowing one day you'd need to understand your heritage. It's more than memories though, when worn with the right herbs and spells, it can mask your scent completely. Make you invisible to those hunting you. It's how your mother hid for years before."

"Hunting me?" Aria's blood ran cold. "Who would hunt me? I'm nobody."

Elder Morgana's expression darkened like storm clouds gathering. " The Blackstone family has put a bounty on any pregnant omega from the Shadow Moon Pack. They cannot risk Kane's indiscretions coming to light before the alliance is sealed."

"Victoria's family?" Aria felt sick, her hand instinctively protecting her stomach. "They want me dead?"

"You and your children. They've hired the best trackers, offered enough money to tempt even honorable wolves. Which is why you cannot remain as Aria Winters." Elder Morgana began mixing herbs in a wooden bowl. "Your mother was a Moon Healer, the last of an ancient line. And your father was an omega. The combination of their blood created something new in you. Your powers will surpass even your mother's."

She continued grinding the herbs with practiced movements. "Your children are special too. One carries Alpha energy so pure it will challenge the old bloodlines. The other carries healing light that could restore what was thought lost forever."

Aria's gaze dropped to her stomach in wonder. "Alpha energy and healing light?"

"Yes," Elder Morgana said, adding drops of silver liquid to the mixture. "The boy will have Alpha power unlike any born in centuries. The girl will carry the gift of the Moon Healer, perhaps the last of your kind. But first, you must survive long enough to raise them."

She brought the bowl to Aria, the mixture inside gleaming with silver threads of light that moved like living things. "This, combined with your pendant and your Moon Healer abilities, will transform you completely. Not just your scent, but your very essence. You will become someone new. A rebirth of identity so complete that even soul bonds cannot recognize you."

"Who will I become?"

Elder Morgana smiled, the expression both sad and proud. "That is for you to choose. Even your mate, former mate, would walk past you and never know. Aria Winters will cease to exist."

Aria didn't hesitate. She thought of Kane's cold eyes as he chose pack politics over love. Victoria's smug smile as she claimed what wasn't hers. The bounty on her head and her innocent children. The weak omega who had begged for love, who had accepted shadows and secrets, who had believed promises whispered in darkness. That girl was already dead.

"Luna Sage," she said firmly, the name coming to her like a revelation. "I will be Luna Sage, a healer with no pack, no past, and no connection to the pathetic girl who loved someone who saw her as nothing."

Elder Morgana nodded approvingly.

Aria drank the mixture, feeling it burn down her throat like liquid moonlight. The pendant grew hot against her skin as her body began to change. Her birthmark glowed. Silver light shot out like lightning. It was so bright that the whole room turned white. Her scent shifted, reformed, and became something entirely new.

"Good," Elder Morgana said as the light finally dimmed. "Luna Sage is born. And Aria Winters is dead to this world."

Outside, a raven cawed urgently, three sharp cries, a warning. Elder Morgana's eyes widened. "Scouts. They're getting closer. We must prepare to move."

Luna, for that's who she was now, completely and irrevocably, stood, her hand protective over her stomach where her twins rested safely. "Let them come. They're hunting for a weak omega named Aria. They'll never find her."

The pendant pulsed warm against her chest, her mother's final gift now her greatest protection. The twins stirred within her, responding to their mother's newfound strength.

The Moon Healer had awakened. And Luna Sage would never kneel to anyone again.