Chapter 18 The Dreams Begin
POV: Mina (Age 17 - Three Weeks Until 18th Birthday)
I woke up gasping, my hands clutching at my chest like I was trying to hold something inside that was desperately trying to break free.
The dream clung to me, refusing to fade the way normal dreams did. It felt more like a memory surfacing from somewhere deep and ancient, from a time before I could speak, before the sealing spell, before everything went wrong.
Silver light everywhere. My mother's hands moving through the air, weaving patterns of power that made the world shimmer and bend. Her face was twisted with grief and determination as she looked down at two babies wrapped in silver cloth.
Us. Me and Rafe.
"This will hurt," her voice echoed through the vision, layered with magic and sorrow. "But it will save you. Stay hidden. Stay separated. When the seal breaks with the eighteenth moon, you will rise or fall together."
The vision shifted violently. Water rushing around me, cold and terrifying. Rafe's tiny hand reaching for mine across a splitting basket, our fingers almost touching before the spell tore us apart and sent us spinning in opposite directions.
Then another voice, deeper and more powerful than my mother's, resonated through everything. It didn't come from any visible source but seemed to echo from the moon itself, from the stars, from the very fabric of reality.
"The seal breaks with the moon. You will rise or fall together."
The Moon Goddess. Speaking words that felt like prophecy carved directly into my bones.
I jerked fully awake, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would crack my ribs. My dorm room was dark and quiet, Dante's soft snoring the only sound. I looked down at my hands and froze.
They were glowing.
Not brightly, not enough to light the room, but definitely glowing with a faint silver luminescence that pulsed in time with my heartbeat. As I watched, the forbidden arts moved through me unbidden, energy flowing through channels I'd spent years learning to control.
Except now I wasn't controlling it. It was controlling me.
I shoved my hands under my pillow and bit down hard on the fabric, forcing my breathing to slow. The glow faded gradually, taking several agonizing minutes to disappear completely.
This was the third time this week. The dreams were getting stronger, more vivid every night. And every time I woke up, my power was closer to the surface, harder to contain.
Three weeks until my eighteenth birthday. Three weeks until the seal broke completely.
I wasn't going to make it.
The dreams became a nightly occurrence after that.
Each one showed me fragments of the past. My mother casting the sealing spell, tears streaming down her face as she wove magic through two infants who couldn't understand what was being done to them. The basket splitting in the rapids. Rafe and I being carried in opposite directions by the current.
And always, always, that voice.
"The seal breaks with the moon. You will rise or fall together."
I started to dread sleep. Started drinking coffee late into the night, doing extra work for students, scrubbing labs until my hands bled, anything to stay awake and avoid the dreams.
But exhaustion always won eventually. And when it did, the visions were waiting.
Tonight's dream was different. More intense. More real.
I stood in a temple I'd never seen before, ancient and covered in murals of twin wolves under a full moon. My mother stood at an altar, her hands pressed against stone, silver light pouring from her palms into the rock itself.
"I'm hiding it where only you can find it," she whispered, though I knew she wasn't talking to me. She was talking to the babies she thought might never survive to hear her words. "Follow the Moonpath. Trust the bond, even when it burns. The three guardians will come."
Three guardians. The words echoed strangely, like they meant something important.
"They will be broken, cruel, but fated. They will betray you, protect you, and die for you. Only together can you restore what was broken."
The vision shifted again. This time I saw Rafe. Not as a baby, but as he'd been at fifteen, during one of our meetings in the temple. He was laughing silently at something I'd written, his silver-grey eyes bright with joy.
"We'll figure it out, sister," I heard his voice through our old bond, the connection that had died with him. "Two more years and we'll be whole. We'll complete the prophecy together."
The dream Rafe reached for my hand, and the moment our fingers touched, pain exploded through my chest.
I woke up screaming silently, my mouth open but no sound emerging, and realized with horror that my entire body was glowing now. Not just my hands. Silver light poured from my skin, so bright it lit up the entire dorm room.
"What the hell?" Dante's sleepy voice cut through my panic.
I shoved the blanket over myself, trying to hide the glow, but it was too late. Dante had sat up and was staring at me with wide, confused eyes.
"Sterling? What's wrong with you? Are you sick?"
The glow was fading already, my power retreating back beneath my skin like it had never been there. But Dante had seen it. I knew he had.
I grabbed my notepad with shaking hands.
Bad dream. Sorry for waking you.
Dante squinted at me suspiciously. "Dude, you were glowing. Like, actually glowing. What the fuck was that?"
Reflection from my phone. I was checking messages.
It was a terrible lie. My phone was across the room on my desk, nowhere near me.
But Dante was too tired to push. He flopped back down on his bed with a grunt. "Whatever, man. Just keep it down. Some of us need sleep."
I waited until his breathing evened out again, then carefully got out of bed and locked myself in the bathroom. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, watching my hands tremble.
This was getting worse. Much worse.
During the day, I was losing control in smaller ways. When a student had shoved me in the hallway yesterday, a textbook had flown off a nearby shelf and hit him in the head without me touching it. When Logan had cornered me during training and pushed me too hard, the lights in the gym had flickered violently.
And my scent. The suppressants weren't working anymore. I could smell it myself now, the sweet feminine scent bleeding through despite taking double doses. It was only a matter of time before someone else noticed.
Someone like the Elite Trio, who were watching me more closely than ever.
Something inside me was waking up. Something that had been dormant for eighteen years.
My wolf.
I could feel it stirring beneath my skin, trying to emerge, pressing against the seal that had held it captive since birth. The sensation was excruciating. Like having something alive trapped inside my chest, clawing and fighting to break free.
Every full moon made it worse. Last night, I'd bitten down on my pillow so hard I'd drawn blood, trying not to scream as my wolf threw itself against the seal over and over again.
It wanted out. Needed out. And soon, the seal wouldn't be strong enough to stop it.
I started carrying a leather strap in my pocket, something I could bite down on when the pain got too bad. Started making excuses to be alone during the worst episodes, claiming stomach issues or headaches that required isolation.
But the Trio noticed anyway. They noticed everything.
I felt their eyes on me constantly now. In classes, during training, in the dining hall. All three of them watched me with an intensity that made my skin crawl.
Through fleeting expressions I caught on their faces, I could see they were as disturbed by their obsession as I was. Jax's ice-blue eyes would track me across a room, and he'd look away with visible disgust at himself. Logan would catch himself staring and curse under his breath. Asher's calculated gaze would find me, and he'd frown like he couldn't figure out a puzzle.
They didn't understand why they couldn't leave me alone. Why their wolves were fixated on the mute Sterling heir who fought wrong and smelled strange.
But I understood. The bond was forming, pulling them toward me even though the seal hadn't broken yet.
In three weeks, when I turned eighteen and shifted for the first time, that bond would snap into place completely.
And then they'd know. They'd all know.
I was in Advanced Combat Theory when it happened.
The class was boring, just lectures about historical battles and strategic planning. I was sitting in the back row, taking notes on autopilot while my mind drifted.
I was thinking about Rafe. About the temple where I'd buried him. About whether the grave was still undisturbed or if scavengers had found it. About whether I'd ever get to visit it again or if this mission would kill me first.
The grief hit me without warning, sharp and overwhelming.
I felt my power surge in response to the emotion, felt it rising up through my chest like a wave I couldn't control. I shoved it down desperately, trying to force it back, but I was exhausted from too many sleepless nights and too many close calls.
The student next to me chose that exact moment to shove my notepad off the desk.
"Oops," he said with a smirk. "Clumsy Sterling can't even keep track of his stuff."
I turned to look at him, anger flashing through me before I could stop it.
And my eyes flashed silver.
Just for a split second. Just long enough for the light to reflect off my irises in a way that was absolutely, definitely, completely wrong for a normal wolf.
Across the room, I heard Logan's sharp intake of breath.
"What the fuck was that?"
Every head in the classroom turned toward him. Logan was staring at me with wide eyes, his entire body tense like he was about to spring out of his chair.
The professor looked annoyed. "Mr. Steele, if you have a question, please raise your hand."
"I saw—" Logan started, still staring at me. "His eyes just—"
Jax, who was sitting two rows ahead, turned around and looked directly at me. His ice-blue eyes narrowed with sharp focus, studying my face like he was trying to read a text written in a language he'd almost forgotten.
Asher, near the windows, had gone completely still. His dark eyes were locked on mine, calculating and intense.
I grabbed my notepad and wrote quickly, holding it up for the professor to see.
Feel sick. May I be excused?
The professor waved me away with barely a glance. "Go to the infirmary if you need to."
I stood and walked toward the door, keeping my head down, my hands steady despite the panic screaming through my mind. I could feel three sets of eyes following my every movement.
The moment I was out in the hallway, I ran.
Not toward the infirmary. Toward my dorm room, toward somewhere I could lock the door and try to figure out what the hell had just happened.
My eyes had flashed silver. In front of witnesses. In front of Logan.
The secret was unraveling faster than I could control it. My power was breaking through the seal, my wolf was trying to emerge, and I had less than three weeks before everything came crashing down.
I made it to my room and locked the door behind me, then sank down against it with my head in my hands.
Through the wood, I heard footsteps approaching in the hallway. Multiple sets. Moving fast.
"Which room?"
Logan's voice, sharp and demanding.
"Third floor, end of the hall." Asher's voice, calm but intent. "He went into his dorm."
"We need answers." Jax's voice, cold and controlled. "Now."
The footsteps stopped outside my door.
Then someone knocked. Hard.
"Sterling." Jax's voice was right on the other side of the wood. "Open the door. We need to talk."
I pressed my back harder against the door and said nothing. Couldn't say anything even if I'd wanted to.
"We saw your eyes," Logan said, his voice rough. "Silver. Like..." He trailed off, but I knew what he was going to say. Like Oracle magic. Like something that shouldn't exist in a normal wolf.
"We're not leaving until you explain," Asher added quietly. "We can stay out here all night if we have to."
Through the bond that was forming between us, the bond I could feel growing stronger every day, I felt their determination. Their obsession. Their desperate need to understand what I was.
Three weeks. I just needed to last three more weeks.
Then the seal would break. The truth would come out. And everything would change forever.
But first, I had to get through this moment.
I looked down at my hands and watched them start to glow silver again, the power responding to my stress and fear.
The seal was breaking. Whether I was ready or not.
And the Elite Trio was not going to let this go.