Page 5 of Moon Cursed

“That message was for the council,” I bit out. “I want them to know their secret is out, and someone is working to stop them!”

“Stop them from doing what?”

“From taking the omega babies born from every new powered clan and selling their powers to the old generation. Invisibility? One million dollars? Transmutation and the power to turn a rock into a diamond? Five million,” I cried, lips twisting. “But oh no, is that not enough for you? Want the power of the six and a dab of immortality to go with it? That’ll be twenty million dollars.

“That’s how much our children will be worth, Badr. Twenty million! And that’s only after each one of the council gets our children and their abilities for free. That’s their fuckingdestiny! To be rich and powerful until the end of time.”

“But they can’t do that. They can’t just—just— Sell and murder babies! All of Wolf Nation would revolt!”

“This is what I’m trying to tell you!” I burst out. “It does happen! Itwillhappen if someone doesn’t stop it. Do you want to know what was going to happen that night after the ceremony? After we all mated before the eyes of the clans?

“The council was going to ‘surprise’ us with a bonding gift. A new home for all seven of us to live together. But that home—”

“—was going to be a prison,” he finished, face draining of color.

I nodded. “They want to breed me, Badr. Like a fucking animal. They’re going to strap me down, load me with fertility drugs, shoot me up with your, Paxton’s, Edric’s, Orion’s, and Nyx’s sperm over and over again, year after year, until they’ve gotten as many children out of me as they can.

“And then that fucking soul stealer will tear the souls out of our babies, and give them to anyone who pays.”

Badr was shaking his head, eyes huge and wild. “People would fight. We would fight! We wouldn’t let them do that to you, or our kids—”

“You’d be dead,” I dropped. “Once they’ve milked you of sperm, they won’t need you anymore. Every single one of you would’ve been killed so you can’t do exactly that. Fight to save me. And as for all of Wolf Nation rising up to save omega children? Ha!” I barked, making him laugh. “No one gives a shit about omegas,alpha. Do you know the kind of horrible things that are done to themnowand no one does a thing about it?

“Do you know how many omega girls Mason raped before he ever got his hands on Nia? Do you know how many of them reported it? And do you know what punishment he faced?”

Badr gave me a long, nauseated look. “None.”

“But,” I continued, sighing, “let me be fair. Not every alpha or beta is a soulless psychopath who’d sit idly by while innocent babies were sacrificed. Especially when their own babies are on the line. As you know, an alpha can give birth to an omega, and an omega can give birth to an alpha. This is a fight that affects everyone.

“Eventually, word of Project Destiny would get out and many would join the omegas in their fight to stop it. Marches, protests, lawsuits, even violence,” I admitted. “But that’s why the shadow is so scarily smart.”

“What do you mean?”

I didn’t have to look back on history. This was the only civil conversation Badr and I ever had. And it was happening from my own grave.

“I don’t have exact dates or anything, but sometime in the near future, vampire kings are going to be murdered one by one—by a werewolf.”

His brows crumpled. “Vampire kings murdered by one of us? That’s insane. It’s one thing to mix it up with the dead leech peasants, but going after their kings means war.”

I looked him dead in the eye. “Exactly.”

Badr frowned at me... then understanding dawned. “By the gods,” he whispered. “The shadow person. They do it. They kill the kings and frame us. Causing a war.”

“An inter-dominion war,” I pressed. “One that the mundanes get dragged into in a big way. They’re not like they were before. With all their cameras and satellites and surveillance. There’s no fucking way they miss a bunch of legendary creatures attacking and slaughtering each other on their streets.

“And when they find out we’re real, and dangerous, they panic and start hunting us down and killing us, so then we start killing them!” I cried, throat burning. “Of course, when mundane blood starts spilling, the fae enter the war, and we haveneverbeen a match for the fae.

“It’s a slaughter, Badr. It’s the end of the shifter wolvesandthe vampires unless...”

Badr nodded slow, lips pale. “Unless they don’t fight us as we are now. We’re not a match for the faenow. But a bunch of immortal super wolves who are invisible, travel through fire, are powered by the sun, suck the living water out of their enemies, and can turn fae armor into a prison of burning iron...” He shook his head. “That’s an army that can’t be stopped.”

“Exactly. Once the vampires declare war, the alpha council becomes the war council. Centuries ago, we enacted laws that give the war council unprecedented power. The power to do whatever it takes to protect the werewolf race. On that day, they put into law that every firstborn omega of the new generation must be sacrificed to the great cause of saving Wolf Nation.”

“Sacrifice the few to save the many.” He dropped back, gazing dully at the sky. “Of course that makes sense to my son-of-a-bitch father.”

“And all the while, they’ll be getting rich off that math,” I spat. “They’ll charge money to buy the soulsandthey’ll charge parents money tosavetheir babies’ souls. When the dust clears and the war is won, the alpha councilmembers Sunella, Cygnus, Liliya, Denis, Elijah, Jabari, and Hakim will rule forever as rich, powerful, immortal kings and queens of every dominion.”

I pinned him with a look. “Are you hearing me? They’ll be rulers of the fucking earth, Badr. Do you see now why they weren’t about to let a young, moral, idealistic guy like Castor Tahan get in their way?”

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