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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

ZURI

“A sister of the Moon Goddess.” The words tumbled out of my mouth, feeling so foreign yet so right.

This explained so much: my visions , my power, and my strength that I had found here. But I still had so many unanswered questions.

“How can this be?” I whispered. “Why me? Why now?”

Out of all the wolves that could’ve been chosen, out of all the wolves who had been conceived the same day that I was, why had I been the one? I hadn’t been from any special bloodline and certainly shouldn’t have been the first pick.

“Why you?” Shivani asked. “We will never know why our sister’s spirit chose your body, but she must’ve seen the strength inside you to withstand even the harshest blows—emotional, verbal, and physical.”

Ifa nodded. “She definitely did.”

I glanced between the sisters, who stared at me in complete awe, like I was the most beautiful being that they had ever seen. Like I was something mystical and almost unreal. But I was just Zuri.

“I’m nothing special,” I said.

The sisters threw their heads back and giggled with each other, grabbing on to each other’s hands for support and wiping tears of laughter from their eyes. When they finally settled down to small chuckles, they smiled at me.

“Oh, child, you have so much to learn about your powers and your history,” Ifa said.

“If you could only see the past,” Shivani said, “you’d know that you are the most special out of all of us. You’ve protected the werewolf species from hundreds of enemies, during thousands of battles, from envious gods and goddesses. The wolves wouldn’t have survived without you.”

Warmth bubbled in my belly, and I … I didn’t know how to feel. Had all that really happened? I, or more like my spirit, had saved the werewolf species? And I was here to save them again from Derrit and the monsters who supported him.

“Why now? Why haven’t I had this power since birth?” I asked.

“Honestly,” the sisters said together, “we don’t know.”

“But I felt something special inside you materialize once you met Stone,” Ifa said.

“So, why do you want me to have pups? Will they help defeat him?”

“Usually, when a she-wolf is pregnant, her body becomes stronger to prepare for the child. Her powers are somewhat … magnified. So, we believe that it will be the same for you. Your powers will become stronger than they are now.”

“And”—Ifa giggled—“I can’t wait to be an aunt!”

Shivani playfully waved her hand in dismissal. “Don’t listen to her.”

“Oh, come on,” Ifa said, rolling her eyes. “We’ve sat up talking to the stars about how much we want to have a bigger family that is one of our own, just like our wolves and our creations do.”

After leaning against Ifa’s shoulder and intertwining their fingers, Shivani smiled softly at me. “We do want to add more to our family. It has only been us three sisters for thousands of years. You’re the first one of us who can get pregnant.”

“How do you know I can get pregnant?” I asked. “If all of you haven’t been able to …”

“Because you’re the first one of us to be able to have a mate,” Ifa said.

“You naughty rule breaker,” Shivani said.

A small laugh left my mouth, my uneasiness subsiding and turning into … something light, something easy, something comfortable. And the feeling of having been with them forever seemed to make me happy.

For so long, I had been without anyone who truly cared for me. It was so refreshing to know that I would have Ifa and Shivani for years and years and years to come. No matter what. They were my family, and they’d been alone too.

“How did your past sister … die?” I whispered.

The girls looked at each other and frowned.

“Ifa and I have been here since the beginning of time, along with many of the other gods and goddesses. We usually live forever, but after millennia of taking the brunt of the pain away from the wolves, all the hurt and torture they bore, our sister took from them so they wouldn’t hurt anymore. She had been sick for a while.”

Ifa cleared her throat. “And then a child of dark magic was born.”

“Derrit,” I whispered.

“Yes, and she vowed to rid the world of him. She told us that she had visions of destruction if he lived.”

“We begged her not to go.” Ifa sniffled, a tear running down her cheek.

“She wasn’t strong enough.”

“But she was too stubborn, and she left in the early morning while we slept.”

“She left,” Shivani whispered, hanging her head, “and never came back.”

The girls paused for a moment until Ifa tightened her hold on Shivani’s hand and stepped forward.

“We later found out that she had traveled to kill the baby in order to protect wolves for generations to come. She should’ve waited for us to aid her, but Shivani knew that her power of death couldn’t stop magic that dark. ”

“It’s said that as soon as our sister touched the baby, she crumbled to pieces.”

“I’m sorry about your sister, but …” I started. Nerves bubbled in my stomach, twisting at my insides as the worries played through my mind on repeat. “What if that happens to me too? What if we can’t kill him?”

“You can,” the sisters said in unison.

“You have the power of protection inside you, and once you start training regularly, your body will remember everything that happened to her in the past. Your body will remember the battles she fought, the weapons she used, and the protection that she did.”

“Besides, our sister was much weaker from years of tear on her body.”

While I seemed to be the only chance for the wolves, especially if the last sister had died, I had to fight. But all I could seem to think about was Stone.

Would I not age while he did? Would I have to see my mate die one day? And what about our pups? Would they be immortal too?

“You still have questions,” Shivani noted. “Please ask.”

“I’m not sure if I want to know the answers.”

“If you don’t ask now, you will surely learn the answers later.”

I gulped down my fear. “What will happen to Stone?”

“Stone?” Shivani said. “You mean …”

“In eighty years, when I’m supposed to be on my deathbed, what will happen to him?”

Shivani paused, then looked at Ifa. “Can you do anything for her?”

Ifa paused and dropped her gaze to the ground. “I can’t make mates immortal.”

“That means … he’ll die?”

They answered me in silence.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I needed to find Stone.