Chapter Two

"So you three are like actual werewolves? As in shapeshifters? Full moons, silver bullets, nine yards?

They all nodded their intense gaze unwavering.

A strangled laugh escaped my lips. "Werewolves?" I shook my head in disbelief. "So what's next? For me to believe vampires and witches are real too?"

"We know how it sounds," Caleb chimed in, his roguish grin doing little to mask the worry in his blue eyes. "Crazy, right? But you have to believe us, babe. You're our Luna, our mate, bound to us by magic older than civilization itself."

I shot a glare at him. "How often do I have to repeat myself? My name is Keira Evans. I'm just a normal high school teacher, not this Luna person you keep rambling about."

Ryder stepped forward, his massive frame radiating a raw power and dominance that had me instinctively shrinking back against the thin hospital mattress.

"You are Luna Blackwood," he growled, his golden eyes flickering with an animalistic ferocity that sent a shiver of trepidation down my spine. "The one true mate of Alpha Zane Blackwood and the ruling Luna of our pack. Your memories have been tampered with, but we'll make you remember. One way..." His gaze raked over me with a scorching intensity. "Or another."

I swallowed hard, suddenly regretting my snarky attitude as Ryder's words took on a mildly threatening tone. These three weren't just delusional - they were unhinged, maybe even dangerous.

"Look, I get that you three are really into this weird role play thing you've got going on," I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. "But I'm just a regular human who wants no part of your freaky werewolf fantasies, okay? So why don't you back off and let me get back to my normal, mate-free life?"

Zane stepped closer, heat and desperation burning in his emerald stare. "This isn't a game or fantasy, Luna. You're far more than just a regular human."

His finger trailed my jawline in a caressing way.

"Tell me you don't feel any connections...the bond, the power...the prophecy... humming through your veins."

I jerked away from his touch, unsettled by the molten desire that flared to life in the pit of my stomach at his proximity. Stop it, Keira, I scolded myself. Don't let this ridiculously hot stranger get into your head.

"I don't feel anything except an overwhelming desire to get as far away from you insane people as possible," I shot back, my cheeks flushing.

Caleb chuckled, the deep, rich sound sending an inexplicable shiver racing down my spine. "There's our feisty Luna. I've missed that fire." He winked at me roguishly. "Don't worry, babydoll. That delectable sass is one of the things we love most about you."  

I opened my mouth to respond, but Ryder hushed me with a low, feral growl that reverberated straight through to my core.

"Enough games. If she refuses to accept the truth willingly, drastic measures will be required."

Before I could so much as blink, he lunged forward with predatory swiftness, grasping my shoulders in an iron grip.

 His eyes bored into mine with scorching intensity, and I felt a strange pressure begin to build inside my mind, as if an invisible force were battering against my mental defenses.

His gaze commanded, his deep timbre taking on an otherworldly resonance that seemed to pulse through my very soul. "Accept who and what you are, Luna Blackwood - our mate, our luna, our eternal."

A rush of pain hit my head before I clamped my eyes shut. Crying out a series of images flashed before me like a vision. I got a vision of unfamiliar places... flickering through my consciousness...even battles and... intimacy...

And binding it all together, a constant refrain of Zane, Ryder, and Caleb's rugged features imprinted on my psyche with the undeniable weight of fate and devotion.

The pressure built to excruciating levels, each memory crashing over me like a rogue wave until I felt like I was drowning in the deluge of foreign experiences.

I clawed futilely at Ryder's arms, my nails scoring crimson furrows across his tawny skin as I fought against the relentless tide threatening to tear me asunder.

Just when I thought I couldn't withstand another second without shattering completely, the onslaught ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

I collapsed against Ryder's solid form, gasping for air, mind spinning from the mental whiplash.

"What...the hell...did you do to me?" I rasped, the words a breathless rasp.

"Merely unlocked what was already there," Zane murmured, brushing a damp tendril of hair from my sweat-dampened brow. "Your true self, the Luna lurking just beneath the surface."

I shook my head weakly, dazed and disoriented as the faces and places from the vision swirled through my consciousness in a disorientating loop. "I don't...I can't make sense of it all."

"Give it time, darlin'," Caleb soothed, his voice liquid velvet caressing my addled senses. "Those memories will sort themselves out soon enough, and you'll recall everything - our pack, our bonds, our forever love."

Part of me rebelled against the notion, still clinging to the vestiges of the safe, normal existence I had known mere hours ago.

But the harder I tried to grasp those tattered remnants of my former life, the more they slipped through my fingers like fine grains of sand scattered by the winds of change.

Where Keira Evans had once stood, only Luna Blackwood remained - a fragment of a persona cloaked in mysteries and bound irrevocably to three alpha werewolves by ties I couldn't fathom.

"Who am I?" The tremulous whisper fell from my lips, laced with a heavy vulnerability I hadn't felt since childhood.

Zane cradled my face in his work-roughened palms, his molten stare searing straight through me until I felt utterly bared, body and soul, before this primal force of nature.

"You are Luna Blackwood, the heart and soul of our pack, the world and the moon to three powerful Alpha shifters bound to you by an ancient, eternal force," he rasped, his thumb tracing the curve of my parted lips with smoldering reverence. "We will spend every moment from now until our dying breaths protecting you, cherishing you, reminding you of the sacred, unbreakable bonds we share."

His words washed over me with the commanding finality of an irrefutable truth, and I felt something profound awaken deep within my core.

 It was as if a part of my soul that had been lost in the ether was finally slamming back into place, the missing piece to an elaborate puzzle that allowed the bigger, cosmic picture to take shape at long last.

With dawning clarity, I gazed up at the feral intensity blazing in my proclaimed mates' eyes - their desire, their bone-deep devotion binding them to me with a primal claim that resonated to the very marrow of my being.

My world had been irrevocably shattered and reshaped into something ancient and arcane in the span of mere heartbeats.

And as I succumbed at last to the irresistible gravitational pull of Zane, Ryder and Caleb, I had the sinking suspicion my life was about to become infinitely more...complicated.