The Certificate of Adoption hung in a cheap plastic frame above our tiny kitchen table. It was the most beautiful thing I owned.
Five years had passed since I found Flynn shivering in that dark Manhattan alley. Five years of double shifts at the diner, scraping together rent, and building a life from scratch. He was no longer a terrified, scrawny ten-year-old. Today, he was fifteen. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and fiercely protective of me.
Sometimes, that protectiveness scared me. Last month, a drunk customer grabbed my wrist at the diner. Flynn had been waiting in a booth for my shift to end. Before I could even blink, Flynn had the man pinned to the floor. A low, vibrating growl had ripped from my son's chest—a sound so primal it made the diner windows rattle. His eyes had flashed that strange, molten gold again.
I spent hours teaching him breathing exercises, convinced it was just trauma from his days on the streets. "Control the temper, Flynn," I would tell him, holding his face in my hands. "Don't let the anger win."
He would lean into my palm, his breathing slowing, the gold fading back to warm brown. We were broken pieces that fit perfectly together. I didn't have a past, and he didn't have a family. Together, we had built an unconditional love that finally quieted the phantom ache in my chest.
"Make a wish," I said, setting a grocery-store chocolate cake on the table. Fifteen uneven candles flickered, casting warm shadows across Flynn's smiling face.
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.
Before he could blow them out, the flames turned icy blue.
The air in our small apartment plummeted to freezing. Frost crept across the windows in jagged webs. Flynn jumped back, his chair scraping violently against the linoleum. He shoved me behind him, his chest rumbling with that deep, unnatural growl.
*System Alert: Dimensional Collapse Imminent.*
The glowing blue text materialized in the center of our kitchen, hovering over the cake like a ghost. My breath hitched. My stomach dropped into a bottomless void. I hadn't seen those floating letters in five years. I had convinced myself they were a hallucination, a byproduct of a fever dream I couldn't fully remember.
"Mom?" Flynn's voice cracked. "What is that?"
*Emergency Protocol Initiated,* the text shifted, the blue light pulsing frantically. *Morgan Bryant. True Luna. You must return. The Lycan Realm is destabilizing.*
"I don't know what you're talking about," I whispered, my hands trembling as I gripped the back of Flynn's shirt. "Leave us alone."
*Time dilation critical. Five human years elapsed. One hundred years elapsed in the Lycan Realm. The King has succumbed to madness. Pack alliances have crumbled. Without the True Luna's anchor, the realm will collapse.*
The words "The King" sent a spike of white-hot agony through my skull. A flash of black eyes. A bared neck. A shattered bond. I gasped, pressing a hand to my collarbone.
*If the Lycan Realm falls, the dimensional tear will consume this sector of the human world. Flynn Gardner will not survive the merge. Return, or he dies.*
"No!" I screamed. I didn't care about a broken realm. I didn't care about a mad King whose face was a blur of pain in my mind. But I looked at Flynn. He was staring at the glowing text, his fists clenched, his golden eyes wide with a terrifying recognition, as if his blood understood the words even if his mind didn't.
The wall of our kitchen dissolved.
Where the peeling floral wallpaper used to be, a swirling vortex of silver and blue energy tore open. The smell of ozone, rotting pine, and damp earth flooded the apartment.
*Awaiting compliance. 10... 9... 8...*
"Mom, what do we do?" Flynn asked, not backing away, but stepping closer to the tear.
"We survive," I said. My voice was eerily calm. The maternal instinct to protect my son overrode the primal terror of the blue light. I reached out and grabbed his hand, intertwining our fingers. "Stay close to me. Do not let go."
We stepped through the portal.
The transition felt like being plunged into ice water. The hum of New York City vanished, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence. My cheap sneakers sank into thick, gray mud.
I blinked against the gloom. We weren't in a palace. We stood in the ruins of a massive courtyard. Shattered stone pillars jutted from the earth like broken ribs. The trees surrounding us were twisted and leafless, draped in sickly gray moss. The sky above was the color of a bruised plum, devoid of a sun or moon.
Snap.
The sound of a breaking twig echoed like a gunshot.
From the shadows of the dead trees, figures emerged. They moved on all fours before rising onto two legs. They were men, but barely. Their skin was pulled tight over their ribs, their clothes reduced to filthy rags. Their eyes were wild, hollow, and glowing with a desperate hunger. Guards.
Flynn stepped in front of me, barring his teeth.
The closest guard raised a rusted spear, his nostrils flaring. He took a menacing step forward, ready to strike. But then he stopped.
He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding. The confusion on his gaunt, dirt-streaked face was instant. He looked at my face, his eyes widening in pure shock, then he sniffed the air again. He dropped his spear. It clattered against the stones.
He recognized my face. But to him, I smelled like absolutely nothing.
