Chapter 7 Luna's Dilemma
I ripped my hand away from Damon's like his touch was poison.
"Don't touch me," I gasped, stumbling backward into Marcus, who instantly steadied me with gentle hands that felt like home.
But were they really gentle? Or was that just the magic talking?
"Luna," Damon's voice was soft, hurt. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" I laughed, but it came out broken and bitter. "Everything! My daughter is lost, I'm apparently some mythical creature, and now I find out my feelings aren't even real!"
We stood in Elder Moonwhisper's cottage, where she'd brought us after we found Aria asleep in the woods. My daughter was sleeping peacefully on an ancient couch, totally unaware that her mom was having a complete breakdown.
"Your feelings are real," Marcus said quietly. "The magic doesn't make emotions, Luna. It just... connects them."
"How would you know?" I snapped, then instantly felt terrible. Marcus had been nothing but kind to me for three years. He'd held me when I cried, helped raise Aria, never asked for anything in return.
But was any of it real? Or was he just magically made to care about me?
The thought made me sick.
"I know because I've been fighting this connection for years," Marcus admitted, running a hand through his hair. "Long before I met you, I could feel... something. Like part of me was lost. When I found you that night, it wasn't chance, Luna. I was drawn to that alley by something I didn't understand."
"So you never had a choice either," I whispered.
"None of us did," Damon said sadly. "I spent three years thinking I was going crazy, fretting over a woman I barely knew. Every reasonable part of my brain told me to move on, but I couldn't. Now I know why."
I looked between them - these two men who'd shaped my entire adult life. Damon, whose single night of passion had given me Aria and then broken my heart. Marcus, whose steady love had put me back together again.
How much of it was magic? How much was choice?
"What if I don't want this?" I asked suddenly. "What if I want to make my own decisions about who I love?"
Elder Moonwhisper spoke from the corner where she'd been quietly watching. "The Tri-Soul tie can be broken, child. But the cost—"
"I don't care about the cost," I interrupted. "I care about being able to choose my own life."
The Elder's ancient eyes filled with something that might have been sympathy. "The cost is your daughter's life."
The words hit me like a physical blow. "What?"
"Aria's power comes from the bond between you three. She's not just powerful because of genes, Luna. She's powerful because she's the child of a Tri-Soul marriage. Break the bond, and her powers will consume her from the inside."
I sank into a chair, feeling like the whole world was crashing down around me. "So I'm trapped."
"We all are," Damon said softly.
"No," I stood up so fast the chair fell over. "No, I refuse to accept that. There has to be another way."
"Luna—" Marcus started.
"Don't 'Luna' me," I snapped. "Both of you, just... don't. I need to think."
I walked to where Aria was asleep and brushed her dark hair away from her face. She looked so peaceful, so normal. How was I meant to protect her when I couldn't even understand what was happening to us?
That's when I felt it. A strange tingling in my fingers where they touched Aria's forehead.
Images filled my mind. Not my memories - someone else's.
I saw Seraphina meeting with a dangerous-looking man in an abandoned building. I heard them planning to use dark magic. I watched them flip through pages of an old book that made my skin crawl.
But the worst part was what I saw at the end. Seraphina and the man staring at each other in terror, wondering where everyone had gone.
Because somehow, I'd made an entire village of supernatural beings disappear.
"Oh god," I whispered.
"What is it?" Damon was beside me instantly, his Alpha reflexes kicking in.
"I think... I think I did something terrible."
The images kept coming. I saw families of werewolves, covens of witches, groups of vampires - all of them simply vanishing into thin air. And somehow, I knew it was linked to the moment when my emotions had exploded earlier.
"Luna, talk to me," Marcus said earnestly.
"I made them disappear," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "All those people. I don't know how, but I made them disappear."
Elder Moonwhisper was beside me in an instant. "Show me what you saw."
I let her touch my hand, sharing the images. Her face went white.
"Impossible," she breathed.
"What's impossible?" Damon demanded.
"Luna didn't make them disappear," the Elder said slowly. "She transported them. To a place between worlds. A place that shouldn't exist."
"What does that mean?" I asked, though I was afraid of the answer.
"It means your power isn't just about unity and peace, child. You're not just a Harmony Keeper." Elder Moonwhisper looked at me with something that might have been awe. "You're a Reality Shifter. The first one born in over three thousand years."
The room went dead silent.
"A what?" Marcus asked.
"Someone who can change the very fabric of existence itself," the Elder explained. "Someone who can create new worlds, new realities, new possibilities."
I felt like I was going to throw up. "I just wanted everyone to be safe."
"And so you made a safe place for them. Somewhere Seraphina couldn't reach them." The Elder stopped. "But Luna, there's something you need to understand about Reality Shifters."
"What?"
"Their power grows with their feelings. And if they can't learn to control it..."
She didn't need to finish. I could see the answer in her terrified face.
"They can unmake reality itself," I whispered.
That's when Aria sat up on the couch, her three-year-old eyes shining with the same silver light that had been plaguing our family.
"Mommy," she said in a voice that didn't sound like her own, "the bad lady is coming. And she's bringing the hungry dark with her."
Through the house windows, I could see the sky turning an unnatural shade of black. And in that darkness, shapes were moving. Huge, terrible shapes that made my Reality Shifter power scream warnings.
"What's the hungry dark?" I asked, though every sense I had was telling me I didn't want to know.
Aria looked straight at me with eyes that held way too much knowledge for a three-year-old.
"The things that eat worlds, Mommy. And they're very, very hungry."


























