The Star Goddess
Aerilaya Thorne POV
Deep within the Moonlit Dungeons
Starborn Court, Fae Realm
The stone walls hummed softly with old magic. Older than even me, it is pressed into every grain of this damned cell. Cold, quiet, and painfully polite like everything in this court. A gilded cage is still a cage.
I shifted against the silken bench turned bed, tossing the heavy braid of my hair over one shoulder. It shimmered, silver and black, the signature of my lineage, and the only thing I have left that reminds me I was once Aerilaya Thorne, warrior of the Starborn, First Blade of the Queen’s Elite Guard.
Not just… an imprisoned traitor. They never tortured me. That’s not the Fae way. No, they used silence. Isolation. A room with no sharp corners to break myself on, only moonlight and regret. And dreams. Dreams that feel more like prophecy.
I pressed my fingers to my temple as another vision crashed through my skull like a wave breaking across glass. There she is. My daughter. My starchild. My reason. She’s radiant now, glowing, gods help me, glowing. Silver and green and carved from divine flame. Surrounded by mates, protectors, allies. A chosen of the moon. A vessel of the earth. And still... still so vulnerable.
“You’re showing me too much,” I whispered aloud to the shadows.
The air thickened with star scented mist. Jasmine, and moonflower, and the cool bite of cosmos. She is coming. She always does when I ask… or beg.
And tonight, I am begging.
“Aerilaya,” a voice as soft as galaxies exhaled through my mind. I didn’t see her. You never see her. You feel her, like moonlight on bare skin or gravity tugging at a falling star.
“Elanithra,” I whispered, kneeling instantly, my hand over my heart. “She’s in danger, isn’t she?”
“She will always be in danger now,” the Star Goddess murmured. “But yes. There is an ambush planned. Aegis. Hollow Creed. They will descend upon the fae portal in Montana with blood and fire.”
My heart clenched. “She’s not ready for that. Not yet. Please...you have to warn her. Or reach the others. The Earth Mother, the Moonlight Sister...someone.”
A silence, vast and ancient, stretched between us before Elanithra finally answered. “The other goddesses are… trying. Their influence in the mortal realm grows stronger with every offering, every act of faith. But none of us can yet cross the veil unaided. We need a tether.”
I clenched my fists. “Use me.”
“You are trapped, my child.”
“I am still hers,” I growled. “Still her mother. Still a warrior of the light. I don’t care what this court has done to me. My blood sings with her name. Use me, damn it!”
A soft sigh rippled through the room like stars crying. “You have always been fire in starlight, Aerilaya.”
The mist curled tighter around my hands and pulsed against my skin. “Then let me burn for her.” The warmth grew. A connection forming.
“You may send her a dream. Just one. A whisper carried on the starwinds. She will feel it in her bones if her soul is listening.”
I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to the stone floor. “Then let it scream through her blood. Let it howl like a wolf with no moon. She must not go to that portal unprepared.”
The vision breaks. I’m alone again. But something shimmers in the air above me, thin threads of starlight slowly coiling toward the veil.
And I pray, please, please, let her hear me.
Elowen POV
My hands were still stained with blood. Not mine...but it didn’t matter. I scrubbed until my skin turned raw, like I could wash the weight of the dead off my soul with soap and hot water. I stood naked before the mirror, hair dripping, my breath shaking, and stared at a woman I didn’t fucking recognize.
Silver and green and blue fucking hair. Glowing marks. Goddess blessed. War bound. Savior of the goddamn world.
When the fuck did I stop being just Elowen?
“I don’t want to be this right now,” I whisper sobbed, my lips trembling as I braced my hands on the sink. “I just want one fucking night to be me. I want to dance. I want to eat, drink, and fuck until I forget there's a war coming.”
"You are still you, little wolf," Lyssira murmured in my mind, gentle but fierce. "But even goddesses break, and you are allowed to fall apart."
That’s when they came in, all of my mates.
Lachlan was first, always sensing my unraveling before I could even scream. Daxon next, his storm grey eyes blazing as he stormed to me, yanking a towel around my shaking form like I was something precious he had to protect. Ashrian, silent but deadly, strode forward, his hands cupping my face as if grounding me would stop the storm.
And Bram… fuck. That massive grizzly of a man knelt beside me like a boulder against the tide and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. “You don’t have to carry it alone, Elowen,” he rumbled, his voice low against my back. “We’ll bleed with you. Stand with you. Fight with you.”
“I’m not okay,” I choked. “I’m not okay. I...I need my mom. I need someone to fucking tell me I’m gonna survive this.”
I stared into the mirror, at the glowing mark of the Earth Goddess above my heart, and collapsed to my knees like my bones had just given up.
I caught a view of the man meat on display in the mirror just then, and I smiled like a chesire cat. I needed to seal the bond with Bram, and soon. He' was eyeing me like a juicy raw steak he wanted to devour, and I fucking loved it.
And that’s when the world dropped out from under me. Blackness. Cold stars. A voice like honey and starlight whispered my name.
“Elowen.”
I saw her...Aerilaya...my mother. Radiant even in the dim glow of a dungeon cell. Her face twisted in sorrow and rage, her fingers clutched at invisible walls.
“Listen, my daughter,” she begged, and then the Star Goddess rose behind her like a supernova...Elanithra, cloaked in galaxies and dreams.
“You are in danger,” they said in one voice. “Montana. Four days. The hunters are coming. They plan to strike at the portal. It is a trap.”
Flashes hit me like lightning, rows of soldiers with silver tipped weapons, vampire mutations crawling like rabid dogs, a general chewing a cigar while shouting commands. Blood. Fire. Screams. The portal drenched in crimson.
“You must not go unguarded. Tell them. Warn them. Build the temples. We will aid you.”
And then I was falling. I hit the bed with a gasp that tore my throat raw.
“Elowen!” Daxon’s voice boomed, panic laced through it.
“She’s burning up!” Ashrian growled from the door.
“Get the robe...get the bed ready, fuck, Lachlan, she’s seizing!”
“No,” I rasped. “I saw them. My mother. The Star Goddess. We’re walking into a trap.”
I blacked out again as hands carried me, voices frantically calling my name. But the warning had been delivered. Hell was coming. And I wasn’t gonna let it take us without a fight.
Bram Thundermaw POV
I’ve seen shit most people wouldn’t believe. Combat zones where bullets never stopped, bear shifters gutted mid shift, friends blown apart by magical landmines… But none of it, none of it, compared to the fucking terror that grabbed me by the throat the moment Elowen dropped like a stone in front of me.
One second she was standing at the mirror, radiant and vulnerable, and talking about wanting to eat, drink, dance, and fuck like a normal person for one goddamn night.
The next, her body locked up like she’d been hit by a lightning bolt. Her eyes rolled white. Magic cracked off her skin like a livewire snapping loose. Her knees buckled, and I was there, catching her before she hit the stone.
“Elowen!” I roared, hitting the ground hard with her limp body in my arms.
I could barely breathe. She was glowing, faintly, but wrong. The way her power moved…it wasn’t her doing this. It was someone else. Something else.
Daxon swore behind me. Ash was across the room in a blur, eyes glowing, scanning for threats. Lachlan’s magic flared to life, his voice low and panicked in that thick Scottish burr as he chanted a diagnostic spell.
But none of it mattered. All I could see was her, unmoving. Unresponsive. My heart thundered so loud I thought I might shift right there from the sheer force of it.
“Rend them,” a deep growl echoed in my head.
“Break their bones. Spill their blood.”
“Karkon,” I muttered under my breath, my bear's name like a war drum behind my ribs. “Stay with me.”
“They try to take her again, and I will devour them,” Karkon snarled, pacing like a caged beast inside me. “She is ours. The gods marked her, yes, but so will we.”
“I know,” I breathed, tightening my arms around her. “I fucking know.”
I pressed my lips to her temple. Her skin was cold and burning all at once, like she was caught between two worlds.
“She’s mine, Karkon.” “Ours.” He snarled.
“I’ll burn the goddamn world to keep her safe. I’ll level kingdoms. I’ll rip through the Aegis line by line, face by face, if they so much as look her direction again.” I spoke in my mind furiously.
“Swear it.” He retorted.
“I swear it on blood and bone.”
Elowen jerked in my arms then...just a twitch, a gasp, like she was surfacing from something deep and ancient. Her lips moved, and the words were shaky, soft.
“Montana… trap… My mother…”
Lachlan went still. “The portal. They’re going to ambush her at the fae portal…”
I stood, lifting her like she weighed nothing, and turned to the others. “She’s seen something. The gods gave her a vision.”
Ashrian nodded grimly, and Daxon’s hands curled into fists.
“We prep now,” I said, my voice raw with fury. “We don’t wait for them to come. We meet them in blood and flame.”
Because they didn’t just pick a fight with a goddess.
They picked a fight with a massive pissed off grizzly bear who has a taste for blood. Bring it on fuckers.