Chapter 429: Chapter 429

Xander “So, what happens if she doesn’t wake up?” I asked Stella.

“We don’t have time to keep messing around with this s hit,” Mason spat. “Stella, if you expect us not to fight you, then you have to tell us what we can do.”

“Gabriela could come back here at any second,”

Zane said quietly. “If she sees Lanie like this,won’t the High Council also see it? How will we be able to explain it to her without revealing everything?”

“This is a pretty terrible time for the Moon Goddess to put her in a f ucking coma,” I said with my fists clenched. I waited for lightning or something to strike me for my blasphemy.

I almost welcomed it. At least that would be something I could understand.

Something I could hate the Goddess for.

“She’s not in a coma. She’s walking in the world between,” Stella said after a moment. Her expression shadowed. “She’s having trouble returning.”

I growled. My wolf paced. He wanted to leap out of my skin. I wanted to let him. If I was my wolf, I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.

No. I shook away that cowardice. An Alpha didn’t run. Not from a fight. Not from trouble.

And not from this.

“I was going to leave her as long as the Goddess wanted her, but…” Stella hesitated. Her shoulders bowed, and her head hung. “I’m sorry, fathers. I’m sorry for how hard this all is.”

Her head went up. Her eyes blazed with a swirl of colors, finally settling on a brilliant gold rimmed with silver. I’d never seen anything like it, and the sight had my blood running cold. I’d known our daughter was powerful, but in this moment, she didn’t look…human.

“I will go alone,” Stella said. “I will go to Standard to the High Council and let them take me. If they have me, they’ll leave everyone else alone!”

Mason went to her at once and gathered her against his chest. “Never. I will never allow that, Stella, so you can stop with that nonsense right now.”

“Have you seen what happens if you do that?”

Zane asked quietly.

“It doesn’t matter. We won’t let her face them alone,” Mason snapped back at him.

My brother had been there for Stella’s first moments in this life. He’d been her father before either me or our Beta. She clung to him now, her face against his chest, while he stroked her hair. I couldn’t see those strange and wild eyes anymore. Right now, she looked like a scared young woman seeking comfort from her father.

Which was exactly who she was. My heart twisted. She was our daughter, and there was no way we were ever going to let her face danger without us at her back.

“Stella, what happens if you go alone?” I asked, not because I didn’t know, but because I wanted to force her to say it out loud.

If she had to admit the future she saw along this path, I hoped she’d realize she couldn’t take it. I even sent up a prayer and an apology to the Moon Goddess. I begged her to take care of our Luna…and also our Celestial.

Stella shook her head against Mason’s chest,but then, after a few seconds, lifted her face.

Tears streaked it. Her silver and gold eyes had faded to their normal color, but I would never forget the sight of them.

“If I go there alone…”

“She dies, that’s what happens,” Mason snapped.

“She’s a Celestial,” I said quietly, holding her gaze with my own. “They wouldn’t kill her.

They’d find a way to use her, and that would be worse.”

“You’d be safe… Brightsky would be safe…”

“For how long?” I challenged her.

“For as long as I made them!” she cried. “Id make sure. I wouldn’t do what they want unless they swore not to hurt anyone here!”

“They’d use you to destroy everything else,Stella. What are our lives worth if the rest of the world suffers?

How could we ever live knowing that we were only safe because everyone else wasn’t?” I asked her.

Her expression twisted, and she pulled out of Mason’s arms. She turned her back to us. Her head again.

Mason spoke next. “You might have every power ever known. You may be able to change the tides control the weather and whatever other talents exist that I don’t even know about. But none of that mean have to do any of this alone. Ever.”

Stella heaved a sobbing gasp and faced us. “I want to make you all proud-”

“You do!” Mason assured her. “Always.”

Zane hugged her, then stepped back. “Of all the possible paths you can see, which is the one with the best outcome? Is it still leaving the twins behind with Gabriela while we take you someplace else and lure the High Council there?”

“Yes,” Stella said. “Many paths and many outcomes, but that is still the best one. I’ll go to the world.

between and bring Mother home.”