Triple Moon Rising: An Omega's Destiny
Chapter 68: The New Normal

Chapter 68: The New Normal

Lily POV

I tried to shift into my wolf form and nothing happened.

Standing in the middle of the forest area where I used to run every morning, I closed my eyes and reached for that familiar feeling deep inside me. The place where my wolf lived, where the wild part of me had always been waiting.

Empty.

It was like grabbing for a light switch in a dark room and finding nothing but air. My dog - the part of me that had been there since birth - was just gone.

"Come on," I whispered to myself, trying again. I focused harder, pushing with everything I had left. My body trembled with effort, but I stayed annoyingly human.

A twig snapped behind me. I spun around to find Caleb watching from the tree line, his face full of hope and pain.

"I felt you trying to shift," he said quietly. "Through the pack bond."

"The pack bond still works?" I asked, surprised by the silence in my own voice.

He nodded, stepping closer carefully like I might run away. "Some of it. I can feel when you’re in trouble or using a lot of energy. But everything else..." He swallowed hard. "Everything personal is gone."

I studied his face - the boy who used to make my heart race just by smiling at me. Now he looked like a stranger who happened to know my name.

"Do you remember anything?" he asked frantically. "About us? About how we felt?"

I tried to think back to our time together. I could remember events like watching a movie about someone else’s life. I remembered him holding my hand, but not how it felt. I remembered him saying he loved me, but the words had no sense.

"I remember that you were important," I said finally. "But it’s like remembering a fact from a book. Two plus two makes four. The sky is blue. Caleb used to matter to me."

He flinched like I’d hit him.

"I’m sorry," I added, though I wasn’t sure why. Sorry was supposed to be a feeling, but I couldn’t feel it anymore.

"Don’t apologize for being hurt," he said. "This isn’t your fault."

But it was, wasn’t it? I’d chosen to accept the Shadow Beast. I’d made the choice that led to this emptiness. The question was whether I’d make the same choice again.

Looking at Caleb’s broken face, I honestly didn’t know.

"The pack wants you to come home," he said. "Alpha Marcus thinks being around familiar things might help you heal."

Home. Another word that used to mean something. Now it was just a place where people expected me to be someone I couldn’t remember being.

"What if I don’t want to heal?" I asked.

Caleb’s eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"What if this is better?" I gestured to myself. "No pain. No fear. No messy feelings making me do stupid things. Maybe this is who I was supposed to be all along."

"You don’t mean that."

"Don’t I?" I tilted my head, studying him. "You’re hurting right now because you still love someone who doesn’t exist anymore. Isn’t that proof that feelings just cause suffering?"

"Emotions also cause joy," he claimed. "And hope. And love."

"I wouldn’t know," I said simply.

We stood there in quiet for a moment. A bird chirped somewhere above us, and I realized I couldn’t even enjoy that simple sound anymore. Everything felt muted, like someone had turned down the noise on the entire world.

"The shadow creatures are gone," Caleb said finally.

"They’re not gone. They’re waiting."

"For what?"

I looked at him, and for a second I almost felt something. Almost. "For me to decide what I want to do with them."

Fear flickered across his face. "Lily, whatever you’re thinking—"

"I’m thinking that maybe the old way of doing things wasn’t working," I interrupted. "Maybe the pack needs someone who can make hard choices without being weak."

"Love isn’t weakness."

"Isn’t it?" I asked. "Love made you follow me out here even though you know I might hurt you. Love made me give everything to save people who barely knew my name. How is that strength?"

Caleb stepped closer, his hands reaching out before stopping himself. "Because caring about others is what makes us human. Without it, we’re just animals."

"Or gods," I said quietly.

The words hung in the air between us like a threat. I hadn’t meant to say them out loud, but they felt true. Without feelings to hold me back, without fear or doubt or love to cloud my judgment, I could be something more than human. Something that could reshape the world according to science instead of feelings.

"You’re scaring me," Caleb whispered.

"Good," I said. "Fear keeps you alive."

I turned to walk away, but his voice stopped me.

"The prophecy," he called out. "Elder Iris found more about the Triple Moon Bearer. You need to hear this."

Despite myself, I stopped. Information was useful, even if I couldn’t care about it correctly.

"What prophecy?"

"The one about the cycle. About Triple Moon Bearers becoming the very evil they were meant to fight." His voice shook. "Lily, you’re not the first. This has happened before."

I turned back to face him, and something cold settled in my chest. Not a feeling - emotions were beyond me now. Just a cold, logical knowledge.

"How many others?" I asked.

"Dozens," he whispered. "Over thousands of years. They all started as heroes. They all saved their people. And they all..."

"Became monsters," I finished.

He nodded, tears running down his face.

I should have felt something about that. Horror, maybe. Or desire to fight against my fate. Instead, I felt only interest.

"Did any of them try to break the cycle?" I asked.

"One," Caleb said. "Three hundred years ago. She tried to kill herself to stop it from happening."

"And?"

"She survived. The Triple Moon power wouldn’t let her die. She became Morrigan instead. " The name hit me like a physical blow. Morrigan - the ancient witch who had stolen wolf bonds for ages. The enemy we’d just beaten.

"I’m going to become her," I said, and it wasn’t a question.

"Not if we can find another way," Caleb said desperately. "Not if you choose to fight it."

But as I stood there in the empty forest, feeling nothing but cold logic, I realized something terrible.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to fight it anymore.

"What if becoming a monster is the only way to protect the people I used to love?" I asked.

Before Caleb could answer, a new voice spoke from the darkness.

"Then you’re already halfway there, child."

We both spun around to see a figure appearing from behind the trees. An old woman with wild white hair and eyes that glowed with familiar darkness.

Morrigan stepped into the clearing, very much living, and smiled at me with something like motherly pride.

"Hello, daughter," she said. "It’s time we talked."