CHAPTER 122: CHAPTER 122: DEFENSE CIRCLE

ARIA POV

I looked up and saw something that changed everything I thought I knew about werewolves, about magic, and about my own fate.

The Moon Goddess herself was descending from the kies, and she looked absolutely furious.

"Oh," my father’s Shade whispered, his confident smile finally fading. "This is unexpected."

The Moon Goddess hit the ground like a fallen star.

The impact sent shockwaves through the ground, knocking everyone—Devourers, werewolves, and me—flat on our backs. When the dust cleared, she stood in the middle of a perfect circle of silver light, and I had never seen anything so beautiful or terrifying in my life.

"ENOUGH," she said, and her voice made the mountains shake.

My father’s Shade stumbled backward, his ghostly form quivering like a candle in the wind. "Selene, I—"

"Silence, Astron," the Moon Goddess snapped. "You were banished from this realm for good reason."

Astron. My father’s name was Astron. I filed that information away while trying to process everything else going around me.

The Devourers were hissing and backing away from the Goddess’s silver light, but they weren’t running. That scared me more than anything else.

"Great Selene," the marked Devourer said with mock respect. "How nice to see you again. It’s been, what, three thousand years?"

"Not long enough, Vorthak," she answered coldly.

The Moon Goddess knew these animals personally? This was getting worse by the second.

"Aria," Mira whispered anxiously beside me. "Can you reach the triplets? We need them here now."

I tried to connect with Kael, Lucien, and Jaxon through our bond, but the link was still damaged. All I could feel were fragments—pain, resolve, and desperate worry for me.

"I can barely feel them," I said. "The shadow magic did too much damage."

"Then we fix it," the Moon Goddess said, having heard me despite being fifty feet away. "But first, we deal with the immediate threat."

She raised her hand, and silver light shot toward the Devourers. But instead of screaming in pain like they had with my star power, they simply accepted the energy.

"Surprised?" Vorthak laughed. "We’ve had thousands of years to adapt, old friend. Your magic feeds us now, just like theirs does."

The Moon Goddess’s face darkened. "I see. Then we’ll have to try something different."

She turned to me, and when our eyes met, I felt a jolt of awareness. Not just of who she was, but of something deeper. Something that connected us.

"Aria Blackwood," she said, walking toward me. "Daughter of two worlds, child of impossible love. Do you know what you truly are?"

"I’m starting to get an idea," I said, looking at my father’s Shade. "And I don’t like it."

"You are the bridge," she said simply. "Between werewolf and Celestial, between creation and death, between order and chaos. That is why your power is so dangerous—and why it’s also our only hope."

"Great," I grumbled. "No pressure or anything."

The Moon Goddess almost smiled. "Your mother said the same thing when I told her about the prophecy."

"There’s a prophecy about me?"

"There’s always a prophecy," she said dryly. "But this one is particularly difficult. It says that when the Devourers return, only a child of two realms can stop them—by either destroying them totally or joining them in destroying everything else."

"Those are terrible options," I said.

"Yes, they are."

Behind us, I could hear the Devourers moving closer. The Moon Goddess’s presence was keeping them at bay, but I could feel their hunger building. They wanted to take her power too.

"We need to create a barrier," I said suddenly. "Something that will hold them back while we figure out a better solution."

"Impossible," Astron’s Shade said. "The Devourers consume all power. No barrier can hold them."

"Not all magic," I realized. "They can’t eat star power directly—it burns them. They have to process it first."

"And if you use too much star power, you’ll destroy the Moon Alpha network completely," the Moon Goddess reminded me.

"Then we don’t use just my power," I said, the plan forming in my mind. "We combine it with everyone else’s, but in a way they can’t absorb."

"Explain," she said.

"A circle," I said happily. "We form a circle with all the surviving Moon Alphas linked through the network. Each of us provides a little power, but we cycle it through the star magic to change its nature. The Devourers won’t be able to eat it because it’s constantly shifting between different types of energy."

"That’s... actually brilliant," Mira said. "But can the network handle that kind of strain?"

"Only one way to find out," I said, reaching out through the damaged links. "Elena? Zara? Raven? Can you hear me?"

Their replies came back weak but determined. They were all badly hurt, but they were living and willing to try.

"Everyone link up," I said through the network. "Form a mental circle and prepare to channel power."

"This is madness," Astron’s Shade said. "You’ll kill yourselves."

"Maybe," I admitted. "But at least we’ll die trying to save people instead of destroy them."

The Moon Goddess nodded approvingly. "Begin the circle. I’ll hold it with my power."

As the other Moon Alphas connected to me through the network, I felt their energy flowing into mine. It was like being hit by lightning, but in a good way. Each link made me stronger, but it also made the star power inside me burn brighter.

"Aria," Elena’s voice came through the network, tight with pain. "The power is too much. We can’t hold this for long."

She was right. I could feel the network struggling under the combined magical load. But it was working—a shimmering barrier of silver and starlight was building around our group, and the Devourers couldn’t break through it.

"Now we need to teach the others," I said to Mira. "Everyone who isn’t a Moon Alpha needs to help support the barrier, or it’ll collapse."

"How do we do that?" she asked.

"Simple pack magic," I said. "The same kind of energy sharing we do during hunts or fights. They just need to feed their strength into the nearest Moon Alpha."

Mira nodded and started calling out orders to the surviving pack members. Within minutes, dozens of werewolves were joining their power to ours, and the barrier grew stronger.

"Impressive," Vorthak admitted from outside the barrier. "But this won’t last forever. Your people are already weakening."

He was right. I could feel the pressure on everyone connected to the network. The barrier was holding, but it was like trying to stop a river with our bare hands.

"How long can we keep this up?" I asked the Moon Goddess.

"Hours, maybe," she said. "Perhaps a day if we’re lucky."

"And then?"

"Then you’ll have to make your choice," she said sadly. "Save your people by destroying the Devourers, which will take power that will kill you and break the werewolf world forever. Or..."

"Or let the Devourers consume us all," I finished.

"There has to be another way," I said desperately.

"There is," a familiar voice said through our link.

My heart leaped. "Lucien?"

"We’re coming, Aria," he said, his mental voice stronger than it had been since the shadow magic attack. "Kael figured out how to repair our bond, and Jaxon found something in the old books. Something about the Devourers that they don’t want anyone to know."

"What is it?"

"They’re not just consuming magic," he said. "They’re keeping it. All of it. Every bit of power they’ve taken from werewolves over the centuries—it’s still inside them."

Hope flared in my chest. "Which means?"

"Which means if we can find a way to reverse the process, we might be able to give everyone their power back," Kael’s voice joined the chat. "But it’s dangerous. We’d have to get inside their collective mind."

"And if we fail?" I asked.

"Then we all die together," Jaxon said bluntly. "But at least we’ll be fighting until the end."

Through the barrier, I saw Vorthak’s face change. The old Devourer was listening to something I couldn’t hear, and for the first time since this nightmare began, he looked worried.

"What is it?" another Devourer asked him.

"The Shadow Lords," Vorthak said grimly. "They’re not coming to help us as promised."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean they’ve decided we’re too dangerous to control," he said. "They’re coming to destroy us all—Devourers and werewolves alike."

The barrier around us flickered as my focus wavered. The Shadow Lords were coming? Here? Now?

"How long do we have?" I called out to Vorthak.

He looked at me with something that might have been respect. "Perhaps an hour. Maybe less."

An hour to save my pack, defeat the Devourers, repair the Moon Alpha network, and somehow escape whatever the Shadow Lords had planned.

And just as I was trying to figure out how to do the impossible, the worst thing happened.

Through our bond, I felt one of the triplets scream in agony, and then his presence in my mind went totally dark.

One of them was dying, and I didn’t even know which one

I looked up and saw something that changed everything I thought I knew about werewolves, about magic, and about my own fate.