Chapter 147 The Principal’s Truth
Malia's POV
The walk to Principal McLunar’s office feels like a funeral procession, only I’m not sure who’s being buried: the girl I was ten minutes ago, or the secrets that have kept this school standing for a century.
Aiden, Cian, and Rowan walk me to the heavy oak doors. They don’t speak, but the bond is a physical weight now—a triple-braided cord of heat, steel, and steady earth. They want to come in. I can feel the protective snarl vibrating in Aiden’s chest, the calculated Dossier-style interrogation Cian is already running in his head, and Rowan’s quiet, observant worry.
But the summons was clear. Malia alone.
"We’ll be right here," Aiden says, his voice a low vibration. He doesn't touch me—not with everyone watching—but his shadow overlaps mine on the stone floor. It’s enough.
I push the doors open.
The Principal’s private chamber is unlike the rest of Mooncrest College. While the campus is all soaring arches and modern supernatural amenities, this room smells of old parchment, dried lavender, and something sharp—like ozone. It’s circular, the walls lined with books that don't have titles on their spines, only symbols that seem to shift when you blink.
Principal McLunar is standing by the window, his back to me. He’s a man who usually carries himself with a terrifying, polished calm. Today, his shoulders are heavy. He looks like a man who has been holding up a ceiling for twenty years and has finally decided to let it fall.
“Sit, Malia,” he says, not turning around.
I don’t sit. My wolf is too close to the surface, her gold-flecked vision making the embers in the fireplace look like dancing spirits. “What happened in the courtyard... I couldn’t stop it.”
“I know you couldn't,” he says, finally turning. His eyes are tired. Deeply, fundamentally tired. “Because the seals are breaking. I thought we had more time. I thought if we kept you suppressed, if we let you believe you were just a late-bloomer, a glitch in the system... you might have a normal life.”
He walks toward his desk, but he doesn't sit either. He picks up a small, silver compass-like object. The needle is spinning frantically.
“You deserve to know who you really are,” he says quietly.
The air in the room thins. I can hear my own heartbeat, loud and erratic. “I know who I am. I’m a hybrid. I’m a ward of the state who got lucky enough to be Fated to three Alphas.”
McLunar lets out a short, hollow laugh. “Lucky? No, Malia. The stars don't work on luck. They work on gravity. And you have more gravity than anyone I have ever met.”
He sets the silver device down and looks me dead in the eye.
“You are not a ward of the state. You were a hidden asset. A protected legacy.” He pauses, the silence stretching until it feels like it might snap. “Your mother wasn't a low-ranking omega who abandoned you. Your mother was Aurora Mooncrest.”
I smile, I should have been affected by the news if I hadn't known.
“Aurora...” I whisper.
Everyone knows the stories. Aurora Mooncrest wasn't just an Alpha; she was the pinnacle. The once-in-a-thousand-years Sovereign who could command the tides and quiet the minds of an entire pack with a single thought.
“The most powerful Lunar Sovereign in history,” McLunar confirms, his voice thick with a respect that borders on fear. “And you are her only child.”
“Why,” I shake my head, the denial tasting like copper in my mouth. “My power levels were baseline. I was almost a human-equivalent for eighteen years!”
“Because she hid you,” McLunar says, stepping closer. “Not just in a foster home, Malia. She hid you inside yourself. She used the last of her Sovereign strength to place a lunar eclipse on your soul. She dampened your scent, muffled your power, and flattened your aura.”
My mind races back. Every time I felt a spark and it fizzled. Every time I felt like I was screaming behind a glass wall while the world stayed silent. It wasn't weakness. It was a cage. A cage built by a mother I never knew, made out of love and terror.
“Why?” I ask, my voice trembling. “If she was so powerful, why hide me?”
“Because the world doesn't want a Sovereign, Malia. They want a figurehead,” McLunar explains, his face darkening. “The Council, the rival packs, the ancient families—they feared her bloodline. A Lunar Sovereign doesn't just lead; they rule. They see through lies. They bind the three Alphas of the Great Houses—the Fire, the Steel, and the Earth—into a single, unstoppable force.”
The Fire, the Steel, the Earth. Aiden. Cian. Rowan.
“The Three Alphas,” I breathe. “It wasn't a fluke that I was Fated to all three.”
“It was an inevitability,” McLunar says. “The Sovereign is the heart. The Alphas are the hands. Without you, they are just three powerful men fighting for a throne. With you...” He looks toward the door, where my mates wait. “With you, they are a revolution.”
Suddenly, the weight of the courtyard incident makes sense. The way the students looked at me—not with confusion, but with a bone-deep recognition. The way the Alphas reacted. The way the very stones of Mooncrest seemed to hum beneath my feet.
The "Malia" I thought I was—the underdog, the scholarship kid, the girl trying to prove she belonged—shatters. In her place is someone ancient. Someone heavy.
“You were never weak, Malia,” McLunar says, his voice softening with a touch of pity. “You were hidden. For your own safety, and for the safety of the world. But the eclipse is over. The sun is coming out.”
I walk over to a mirror on the wall. I look the same. Same messy hair, same tired eyes. But as I watch, a flicker of gold pulses in my pupils. Not the gold of a regular wolf. It’s brighter. Whiter. Like the moon at its zenith.
And then, the realization hits me. The darker side of the truth.
“That’s why they hate me,” I say, the words feeling like shards of glass. “The faculty. The purebloods. The Council members who keep trying to have me expelled or ‘evaluated.’”
It wasn't just because I was a "weak hybrid" tainting the Mooncrest bloodline.
It was because they knew. Or they suspected.
They didn't hate me for being nothing. They hated me because they knew I was destined to be everything. They didn't want to protect the school from a weakling; they wanted to kill the Queen before she could put on her crown.
“Every obstacle you’ve faced,” McLunar says, “was a test designed to break you before you woke up. The ‘accidents’ in the preserve, the disciplinary hearings, the whispers in the halls... they were trying to suppress the Sovereign before she could bind the Three. Because once the bond is fully realized, no Council on earth can tell you what to do.”
I press my hands against the cool glass of the mirror. My entire life suddenly makes sense. The loneliness. The feeling of being "too much" and "not enough" at the same time.
I wasn't a mistake. I was a masterpiece kept in a dark room.
“What do I do now?” I ask.
“Now?” McLunar walks to the door, his hand on the latch. “Now you stop trembling, Malia. You have three Alphas outside who would burn this world down if you asked them to. And more importantly...”
He opens the door.
Aiden, Cian, and Rowan are there instantly. They don't look at McLunar. They look at me. They feel the change. They feel the eclipse ending. The air in the hallway begins to shimmer, the temperature rising, the shadows sharpening.
“...you have a mother’s legacy to reclaim,” McLunar finishes.
Aiden steps forward, his eyes burning with a fire I finally understand. He reaches out, and this time, when he touches my face, I don't just feel his heat. I feel my own power rise up to meet him, a Sovereign greeting her General.
The courtyard was just the beginning.
The secret is out. My wolf is awake and God help anyone who stands in my way.