Chapter 152 Choosing My Alpha
Malia’s POV
This is the part everyone must have been waiting for, right? The day I choose my Alpha? Yea, it's today... or whatever day you might be reading this.
The air in the high sanctuary of the Mooncrest Spire felt thin, vibrating with the aftershocks of a power that had nearly unmade me. I stood in the center of the ancient stone chamber, the moonlight streaming through the oculus above like a physical weight. My skin still shimmered with that faint, ethereal silver—a permanent mark of the bloodline that had finally, violently, claimed me.
I looked at my hands. They were steady now, but the memory of the trembling remained. I remembered the sensation of the world breaking beneath my feet in the courtyard, the way my own wolf had felt like a stranger trying to tear its way out of my chest.
But most of all, I remembered them.
Rowan stood by the arched doorway, his silhouette tall and composed, though the tightness in his jaw betrayed the exhaustion he was trying to hide. He had been my strength.
When the school board had moved to erase me, when the "suits" had surrounded me like vultures, Rowan had been the wall. He had used his intellect, his leverage, and his own dark shadows to shield me. He had taught me that power wasn't just about claws and teeth; it was about the will to stand when everyone else was kneeling.
Then there was Cian. He was leaning against the far wall, his arms crossed, his eyes softened with a relief so deep it looked like pain. He had been my courage. In the moments when I felt like a monster, when I wanted to run into the woods and never look back, Cian had been the one to remind me that I was human. He had offered me his hand when I was drowning in the preserve's magic, never flinching at the silver fire licking at my skin.
They were my bond. My protectors.
But as my gaze shifted to the center of the room, everything else—the politics, the bloodlines, the ancient prophecies—simply faded into white noise.
Aiden.
He was standing only a few feet away, his chest heaving under a shirt that was torn and stained with the dust of the courtyard. He looked battered. He looked like a man who had fought a war and won, only to realize the prize was far more fragile than he’d imagined.
The mate bond between us was screaming. It wasn't the jagged, violent surge that had knocked him back in the courtyard. It was something deeper now. It was a rhythmic, heavy thrumming that matched the beat of my own heart. It was a pull so visceral it felt like a hook in my navel, drawing me toward him with a gravity I could no longer resist.
For weeks, I had fought this. I had told myself the bond was a cage. I had feared that loving a Moonfall meant losing Malia. I had let Lydia’s whispers and my own insecurities build a wall between us until it was a fortress.
I looked at the silver eyes reflecting in the polished stone floor. I wasn’t the girl I was when I arrived at Mooncrest. I wasn't the girl who was terrified of her own shadow. The bloodline had given me power, but it was the boy standing in front of me who had given me a reason to use it.
The truth had been there all along.
Rowan was my mind. Cian was my spirit.
But Aiden—Aiden was my heart.
"Malia," he whispered. His voice was rough, cracked with the emotion he usually kept locked behind Alpha pride. He didn't move toward me. He stayed exactly where he was, giving me the space I had always demanded, even now when the world was ending. "You don't have to... the Council says the prophecy requires a union, but you don't have to do anything you don't want. I’ll fight them. I’ll fight the whole world if they try to force you."
I looked at him—really looked at him. I saw the scars on his chest from the night I lost control. I saw the way his hands were shaking, not with power, but with the sheer terror of losing me.
In that moment, the weight of the Mooncrest legacy felt light. The expectations of the High Council, the monitoring of the suits, the fear of the students—it all became irrelevant.
I didn’t need destiny to tell me who I was anymore. I didn't need an ancient scroll to dictate who I should stand beside.
I stepped forward. The silver luminescence of my skin flared briefly, a soft glow that illuminated the dark corners of the sanctuary.
"I'm not doing this because of a prophecy, Aiden," I said, my voice finally clear, finally mine.
I stopped inches from him. I could feel the heat radiating from his body, the familiar scent of pine and rain and something uniquely Moonfall that had always felt like home.
"I spent so long trying to protect my scholarship, my future, my independence," I whispered, reaching up to rest my palms against his scorched shirt. "I thought loving you would make me weak. I thought the bond was a trick of the blood."
Aiden’s breath hitched. He looked down at me, his crimson Alpha eyes slowly fading back to their warm, dark brown, searched mine with a desperate hope.
"And now?" he breathed.
"And now I realize that I was only half-alive before you," I said. "You were the one who saw me before the silver eyes. You were the one who loved the girl who was 'just a scholarship student' from the middle of nowhere."
I felt the bond flare—a golden, searing light that seemed to wrap around the both of us, cordoning us off from the rest of the world. Rowan and Cian were still there, I could feel them in the periphery, but the universe had narrowed down to this single point.
"I choose you, Aiden Moonfall ," I said, the words echoing with a finality that shook the stone walls. "Not because I have to. Not because the moon demands it."
I went up on my tiptoes, my fingers sliding into the hair at the nape of his neck.
"I choose you because you’re my heart. And I’m not running anymore."
Aiden let out a sound—a choked, broken sob of relief—and closed the distance.
When his lips met mine, it wasn't like the desperate, panicked kisses in the hospital. It wasn't the heated, stolen moments in the woods. This was an explosion.
The moment our souls fully aligned, the mate bond didn't just pulse—it snapped into place. It felt like a massive iron gate swinging shut and locking with a golden key. I felt a surge of energy so profound it made my knees weak, but Aiden held me up, his arms wrapping around me like bands of steel.
In my mind’s eye, I saw the golden thread that had always connected us thicken, turning into a shimmering, unbreakable chain of light. It pulsed with a new frequency, one that was perfectly in sync with the silver thrumming of my Mooncrest blood.
The bond was no longer a cage. It was an anchor.
The silver light from my skin bled into him, and his Alpha gold bled into me.
The air in the room grew warm, the frost on the fountain outside melting instantly as the balance of power on the campus shifted.
Aiden pulled back just an inch, his forehead resting against mine. His eyes were shining, his face transformed by a joy so pure it made my chest ache.
"You're mine," he whispered.
"I am," I replied, the silver in my eyes swirling with a soft, contented glow. "And you’re mine."
The bond was sealed.
It was permanent. Unbreakable. A tether that would hold through death and whatever came after.
I could feel him now, not just as a presence, but as a part of my very being. I felt his strength, his fierce protectiveness, his unwavering love. And I knew he could feel me—the vast, ancient power of the Mooncrest, tempered now by the peace I found in his arms.
I looked over his shoulder at Rowan and Cian. They both nodded—a silent acknowledgment of the new reality. Even if I get to choose Aiden, we were still one. The Moonfall brothers and the Mooncrest heir.
But as Aiden leaned down to kiss me again, I knew the battle wasn't over. But I wasn't afraid.
I had my strength in Rowan.
I had my courage in Cian.
And I had my heart in the boy holding me.
Let them come. Let the prophecies unfold. Let the world tremble at the name Malia Mooncrest.
I was no longer a girl lost in the woods. I was exactly where I was meant to be.
"Whatever happens next," Aiden said, his hand cupping my cheek, his thumb brushing away the last of my tears. "We face it together."
"Together," I promised.
The Mooncrest had returned. And this time, she wasn't alone.