He’d teased my lips into parting, before he’d kissed me with a tenderness I couldn’t bear. I’d tilted my head to the side, getting a better angle, loving how it made his nose and mine brush together, how there’d been no space between us as his hands came to my waist so he could move me into him tighter, and finally, he’d let me feel his tongue against mine.

He’d thrust into me, like he was mimicking sex, and as my heart started to pound, as my being started to expand to encompass the feelings he inspired in me, I’d groaned, reached down, and grabbed his ass, my body undulating against his as I reacted to what he made me feel.

With a groan, he’d started to thrust into me faster, until I was breathing his air and he was breathing mine.

And then I’d felt it.

Where the fuck it had come from, I had no idea. But it was there, in my mouth, and he pulled away just in time for me not to gag, and had said, “Swallow it.”

Before I could ask him how the hell I was supposed to swallow something whole that was the size of a peach, I recognized it wasn’t actually solid. It was energy. It still made me panic, though, but I’d done it. I’d managed to swallow the bead of light, and he’d urged, “Look at the moon. Look at it and nothing else until you feel it.”

I couldn’t even ask what I was supposed to be feeling, I just obeyed. I tipped my head up to the sky, and he’d made the moment perfect—he’d moved behind me, my spine coming to rest against his belly, the back of my head coming to rest on his shoulder as I tilted it slightly so I could relax in the angle of his throat.

Together, we’d looked at the moon, and even though I hadn’t known what was coming, I’d just been aware that I’d never forget this moment, not for as long as I’d live.

I loved the night sky, but it was even more beautiful with Todd at my back.

I’d just appreciated the moment until, with the power of an open book clapping shut, a book the size of the Earth and with the weight of it too, everything had changed.

Like a boom inside my head, I recognized things I never had before.

The trees that thrust up into the sky, marring my total view of the moon were a Douglas fir and a western hemlock. The stars around the moon? Cassiopeia and Ursa Minor.

And that was the tip of the iceberg. A tip that I couldn’t even think about breaching to see below it, because it was too extensive. Too mind blowing.

I truly knew how Indy had felt in that alien council room in Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull, because, sheesh, this was something crazy.

But what had made it bearable? Todd.

Him at my back. Grounding me.

He’d always do that, I knew.

Just like I also knew that the scents in the area were mixed in a way they shouldn’t be. And part of the problem?

Me.

I scented of it too.

Hyena.

I didn’t understand that, but I didn’t need to understand it to know. Somehow, I was of hyena heritage. Mother had obviously been bitten when our father had pimped her out. And because of that, because of his cowardly and shameful actions, I was…

Kali Sara.

That hideous beast I’d killed, the other who’d died at the front door of my cabin, I couldn’t be that.

I just… I couldn’t.

But the scent was undeniable, as were the myriad other smells in the area. I could perceive a large number of them here, more than that, I could scent that godawful perfume on a woman I hadn’t seen in over a decade.

“How are you feeling?” Todd had whispered in my ear.

Huskily, I’d told him, “I’m feeling fortunate that you’re patient with me.”

“Patient? Why?” he asked, his tone back to being amused.

Only, this time, I wasn’t annoyed by that.

“If I’d known what I did then, when I tried to tell you I wasn’t interested in being your mate, I’d have slapped me.”

He snorted. “No need. We’re destined. And now you know what that means, don’t you?”

I bit my lip. “To a certain extent.” If I focused on that, on us, on how right this felt, I could forget about the rest.

Forget about the fact Mama had given birth to a child who was part shifter.

A hum escaped him, and the sound soothed me further. “We can explore that later.”

“I’m pretty sure my sister is here,” I whispered cautiously.

“Sabina?”

“No. The one I told you was dead.” I twisted to look at him. “I am the Moon Child, aren’t I?”

He nodded, but his eyes were troubled. “Yes. I don’t know what that means, and I think even though we have a kind of universal knowledge that few have, there’s actually little spoken about what the Moon and Sun Child can and can’t do. What their eventual purpose is.”

Yes, if there was a Moon Child, there was also a Sun Child. That knowledge had hit me too. But he was right in that there was definitely a black hole surrounding that particular truth.

When I tried to look into it, tried to see further into that segment of my brain, a segment I didn’t even know how I’d found, there were only shadows.

A hazy future, knowledge that had yet to be written.

I gulped, well aware of why that was—because I hadn’t lived it yet. How could there be a tale to be told if I hadn’t actually endured it? My ascension was only the start of another story. One that would end with the Sun Child’s rise to power.

“I need to help,” I rasped when another howl speared the night sky.

Before, I hadn’t understood what that was, but now I did. It was one of the strange wolves. One of the odd ones. The large ones.

I heard her, and she told me everything.

The clearing. The totem circle. Death everywhere. Blood shed and bones broken. Hyenas slaughtered, wolves ripped to shreds.

And an urge hit me.

For things to just slow down for a second.

For the world to just stop turning until I figured out what to do.

And that’s what I did.

The howl, even though it was ongoing, died. But it wasn’t because the bitch had stopped, it was because time had.

I twisted around, wondering if he was frozen too, but Todd was there, watching me, a proud smile on his face.

“I can’t do that, you did that.”

His eyes gleamed with his feelings, with his pride, only I wasn’t sure I deserved it, because I hadn’t exactly meant to do what I had, but instead of focusing on that, I asked, “Why am I special?”

“We don’t know. And even though you stopped time, it won’t stop forever. It won’t even stop everyone. Some things are written, and only the Mother and the Father are privy to what will happen.”

I gulped at that. “Why can I smell Jana?”

“I don’t know, but we can go and find out.”

So we had.

And we’d learned that Jana was a psychotic bitch with a god complex, and she’d just murdered my mate.

I blinked up at the sky, wondering if I could freeze time again, hoping to the Mother and the Father and Kali Sara and whichever God was listening in that it would work and that Todd would be frozen until I figured out what to do, but nothing changed.

Nothing except for one thing.

I heard pounding footsteps, dozens of them, and out of nowhere, we were surrounded in a circle of those strange wolves. The big ones again.