Chapter 38: CHAPTER 38: Awakening Fury

POV: Luna Pierce

The phone call with Derek ended with a click that echoed in my skull like a gunshot. His words, three days maximum, probably sooner, bounced around my consciousness, colliding with the screaming pain that pulsed through the mate bond. Three days. Seventy-two hours, while Hawk suffered.

Too long. Impossibly long.

I stared at the hospital ceiling tiles, counting the tiny perforations until they blurred into meaningless patterns. Dr. Malone stood by the monitors, her back to me, adjusting something I couldn't see. The steady beep of machines provided rhythm to the chaos in my head.

Then the images started.

Not memories—something more visceral. Like my brain was rewinding through moments that mattered, cataloging what I stood to lose.

Hawk on Timber Ridge Trail, those amber eyes locking onto mine for the first time. The world tilted sideways as the mate bond snapped into place, inevitable as gravity.

Our mating ceremony. Sage's ancient words in that guttural language. Hawk's palm bleeding against mine, our blood mixing while the pack witnesses howled approval. The claiming marks burned themselves into my wrist like brands.

His lips on mine during our first kiss as mates—not the desperate passion of early attraction, but something deeper. The kind of kiss that said "you're mine forever" without needing words.

My parents were at the engagement party before everything shattered. Mom was laughing at something Dad said, their hands intertwined after thirty years together. Jason with Victoria, so alive, so happy, so utterly unprepared for what was coming.

Hawk the morning ……...

A baby's cry shattered the cascade of memories.

High-pitched. Desperate. Terrified.

My eyes snapped open. "Where is my child?" The words tore from my throat, part question, part demand, part primal scream. "WHERE IS MY BABY?"

I lunged forward. The restraints I hadn't noticed before—soft cloth, not silver—caught me short. I clawed at them, my fingernails extending into something between human and wolf. "NOVA!"

River materialized at my bedside, hands raised. "Luna, stop! You need to—"

"Where is she?" I swung blindly, my fist connecting with River's shoulder hard enough to knock her back a step. "Viktor has her, doesn't he? He took my baby—"

The door crashed open. Jason stumbled through, his face pale and drawn, dark circles under his eyes that spoke of too many sleepless nights. "Luna! Luna, it's okay—"

"Jason." His name came out broken. I stopped fighting the restraints, my whole body going still. "Jason, where is my daughter? Please. Please tell me—"

"Nova's safe." He moved closer carefully, like approaching a wounded animal. Which, I supposed, I was. "She's three floors down. NICU. She's healthy, strong, and under constant guard. I promise you, she's safe."

The relief was so intense it hurt. I sagged back against the pillows, gasping. "I thought—I heard crying, and I thought—"

"That was someone else's baby. Different room." Jason's hand found mine, his grip warm and steady and human in ways I'd forgotten existed. "Your daughter is fine, Luna. I've been with her every day. She has your nose. And your stubbornness."

A sob caught in my throat. "I'm sorry. God, Jason, I'm sorry. I thought Viktor had taken her. I thought—"

"I know." His thumb traced circles on the back of my hand. "It's okay. You've been through hell. Nobody expects you to wake up calm."

But the relief was already curdling into new terror. "Hawk." I looked between Jason and River, searching their faces for answers I already knew would break me. "Where is he? Why isn't he here?"

River's expression fractured. "Luna, I'm sorry. Dr Malon, remember you just finished speaking to Derek. Remember, he was taken. Yes, I remember, ‘’how was he taken?

During an ambush, Viktor's rogues captured him. We've been trying—Derek and the others are planning a rescue mission—"

"No." The word was barely a whisper. "No, no, no—"

The mate bond pulsed, and Hawk's agony crashed through me like a tidal wave. I felt silver burning through his veins, felt extraction needles scraping bone, felt pieces of him being torn away. My back arched off the bed, a scream tearing from my throat that was more wolf than human.

"GET HIM BACK!" I thrashed against the restraints, my hybrid strength shredding the cloth. "HE'S DYING! I CAN FEEL HIM DYING!"

Hands grabbed me—Jason, River, someone else I couldn't identify through the red haze of panic and rage. I fought them all, my body flickering between forms, claws extending and retracting with each frantic heartbeat.

"Luna, please—" River's voice, strained with effort. "You're not stable—your transformation isn't complete—"

"I DON'T CARE!" I threw her off, my temporary strength fueled by desperation. "He needs me! He's calling for me through the bond, and I'm just lying here—"

Dr. Malone appeared with a syringe. I saw it too late—felt the needle pierce my arm, felt something cold and heavy flooding my bloodstream.

"No," I slurred, my limbs suddenly weighted with lead. "No, please, I need to—Hawk needs—"

"You'll be stable in the next two hours." Dr. Malone's voice came from somewhere far away, professional but not unkind. "Rest now, Luna. We'll figure this out when you wake."

The darkness pulled me under like quicksand.

Light filtered through my eyelids, soft and warm. Not the harsh fluorescent glare from before, something gentler. I heard humming. A familiar melody I couldn't quite place.

My eyes opened slowly.

The hospital room looked different. Softer somehow. My mother sat in the chair by the window, her hands wrapped around a paper cup. Jason leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching me with careful concern. River stood near the door, her expression guarded but present.

And Dr. Malone sat beside my bed, holding a small bundle wrapped in pale yellow.

The humming was coming from her. An old lullaby my grandmother used to sing—or no, not my grandmother. Sage used to sing it. The memory was there suddenly, clear and sharp: Sage teaching me pack songs during training, her ancient voice carrying melodies that predated written music.

The bundle shifted. A tiny fist emerged from the yellow blanket, fingers curling and uncurling.

My breath caught. "Is that—"

Dr. Malone smiled, real warmth breaking through her professional composure. "Would you like to hold your daughter?"

I couldn't speak. Could only nod as tears streamed down my face.

Dr. Malone stood carefully, crossing the few feet to my bedside. "Support her head. She's stronger than human babies, but she's still delicate."

Nova settled into my arms with a weight that felt both impossibly light and heavy as the world. I looked down at her face—so tiny, so perfect. Those amber-gold eyes that were pure Blackthorn genetics stared up at me with unsettling awareness for a newborn.

"Hi, baby girl." My voice cracked. "I'm your mama. I'm so sorry I wasn't here when you were born. I'm so sorry—"

Nova's tiny hand found my finger, gripping with surprising strength. Through pack bonds—thin but present—I felt her recognition. She knew me. Somehow, impossibly, she knew me.

"She's been waiting for you," my mother said softly, moving closer. "The nurses say she settles better when the family's near."

I pressed a kiss to Nova's forehead, breathing in her scent—pack musk mixed with human softness, the unique fragrance that marked her as a bridge between worlds. "You're perfect. You're so perfect."

But even as I held my daughter, even as joy and love flooded through me, the mate bond pulsed with Hawk's distant agony. A reminder that our family wasn't complete. That the man who'd helped create this miracle was suffering somewhere I couldn't reach.

I looked up at River, at Jason, at my mother. "No matter what it takes," I said, my voice steady despite the tears, "I'm getting him back. Hawk comes home to his daughter. That's non-negotiable."

River nodded slowly. "Derek's launching the rescue in three days. Maybe sooner."

"Then I have three days to recover." I held Nova closer, feeling her heartbeat against mine. "Three days to be strong enough to help bring her father home."

Because waiting wasn't enough anymore.

Because Nova deserved both her parents.

And because some promises—like Hawk's promise to never leave me—were worth breaking the world to keep.