LUMA POV
Her mother looked at her like she was a stranger walking into the wrong hospital room.
Luma sat on the edge of the bed anyway, holding her mother's cold hand. The woman in front of her used to know her name. Used to braid her hair when she was little. Used to tell her she was brave. Now her mother's eyes were empty, searching for someone who wasn't there anymore.
"The weather's been nice," Luma said, trying to fill the silence that was slowly killing her. "I saw those flowers you like. The pink ones. They're blooming early this year."
Her mother stared at nothing.
Luma kept talking because stopping meant facing the truth. That her mother was gone. Not dead. But gone. The dementia had taken her piece by piece, day by day, until nothing was left but a shell that sometimes recognized the room but never recognized her daughter.
Twenty-six years old and this was what Luma had to show for her life. A mother who didn't know her. A job where nobody saw her. A future that looked exactly like her past: invisible, small, forgettable.
"I healed a warrior today," Luma whispered. "Bad burn on his arm. He didn't even say thank you when he left. But it's okay. I'm used to that."
Her mother's hand felt fragile. Like bird bones wrapped in skin. Luma wanted to cry but she'd already cried about this a hundred times. Tears didn't change anything. They never did.
When she stood to leave, her mother didn't look at her. Didn't say goodbye. Didn't ask her to stay.
By the time Luma got to her truck in the parking lot, the tears came anyway. She sat in the driver's seat for twenty minutes with her hands shaking, wondering if this was how her whole life would be. Being forgotten by the only person she loved. Being forgotten by everyone.
The next morning, Luma walked into Blackstone Pack headquarters before sunrise.
The building was an old warehouse downtown that the pack had converted into their guild. Healing chambers on the second floor. Training grounds in the basement. Pack offices somewhere she'd never been allowed to go. She took the stairs and kept her head down, moving through the hallways like she was trying not to be noticed. Because she was.
Invisibility was a skill she'd learned. Keep your eyes down. Don't talk unless asked. Do your job and disappear.
The healing chamber was already busy. Warriors came through with bruises and cuts and sometimes worse injuries. Luma worked on them one by one, using her magic to seal wounds and fix broken bones. Her hands glowed soft golden light when she healed. Sometimes warriors flinched away from that glow like it scared them. Like a healer's power was something to fear instead of something that saved their lives.
Nobody thanked her today either.
Around midday, some warriors were talking near her station. She tried not to listen but their voices were loud, excited.
"Drake collapsed in a meeting," one of them said. "I heard his whole body started shaking."
The other warrior laughed. "No way. Drake Ashford doesn't collapse. He's the strongest Alpha we've ever had."
"I'm telling you, he went down hard. James got him to the healing chamber."
Luma's hands stilled. She'd never met Drake Ashford in person. She'd seen him once from across a big room, tall and dark and powerful-looking. He was the kind of man who commanded attention without trying. The kind of man who would never notice someone like her.
Which was fine. Luma had learned not to want to be noticed.
But her chest felt tight anyway.
By noon, a message came through. All healers report to the main healing chamber immediately.
Luma's stomach dropped.
She'd never been called to the main chamber before. She was a background healer. A filler. They called the good healers for important cases. The ones who had training and reputation and people who respected them. Not her.
But the message had said all healers.
She climbed the stairs to the second floor and found four other healers already gathered outside the main chamber. Thomas was there, the oldest and best healer in the pack. He had white hair and tired eyes and more experience than Luma had been alive. He looked worried.
"What happened?" Luma asked quietly.
Thomas didn't answer her. He just said, "Curse. A bad one. Nothing I've tried is working."
A curse. That meant dark magic. That meant someone wanted the Alpha dead.
The door opened and a man came out. James Chen, she'd heard people call him. He looked panicked. His eyes moved across the gathered healers like he was looking for something. Someone specific. When his gaze passed over Luma, he barely seemed to register her.
"Thomas," James said. "Try again. Harder this time."
Thomas disappeared into the chamber.
The wait felt like forever. When Thomas came back out, his face was pale and his hands were shaking. He looked defeated.
"It's too strong," Thomas said. "I can't break it."
James nodded sharply and pointed at the next healer. Then the next. Then the next. One by one, they went in and came back broken. One by one, they failed.
Luma's heart was pounding so hard she thought it might break through her ribs.
Finally, only she was left.
James looked at the empty spot where the other healers had been. He looked at Luma like he was seeing her for the first time. Like he was surprised she was even there.
"You," he said. Not her name. Just you.
"Me?" Luma's voice came out small.
"Come on." James turned without waiting for her to follow.
Luma stood up on shaky legs and walked toward the chamber door. Her hands were trembling. Her mind was screaming that this was a mistake. That she couldn't do what the best healers in the pack couldn't do. That she was about to walk in there and fail in front of everyone.
But she walked anyway because you didn't say no to the Alpha's closest advisor.
The chamber doors opened and the first thing she saw was him.
Drake Ashford lay on the healing table in the center of the room, and he looked broken.
His shirt was torn. Dark veins spread across his bare chest like poison, moving under his skin like something alive. His whole body was trembling. Even broken and helpless, he was the most powerful thing she'd ever seen. Muscles built for war. Presence built to command. Alpha built to rule.
And he was dying.
"Try," James said behind her. Just one word. Like he was asking for a miracle.
Everyone in the room turned to look at Luma. Thomas stared at her like she was crazy for thinking she could help. The other warriors looked skeptical. Nobody believed in her.
Luma had gotten used to that too.
She walked toward Drake anyway. His eyes were barely open, rolling back like he was losing consciousness. He wouldn't remember her. Wouldn't even know she was here once he woke up. But that didn't matter.
She put her hands on his chest.
The moment her skin touched his skin, everything changed.
Her magic didn't just respond. It exploded.
Golden light burst from her hands so bright that James covered his eyes. It was brighter than it had ever been. Brighter than it should have been. Her power reached out and connected with the curse inside Drake's body like it was searching for it. Like it knew it.
Like it recognized the dark magic moving through him.
Luma's breath caught.
No.
This curse. This dark, ancient, angry curse. She knew it. Not the specific spell itself, but the signature. The way it felt. The way it moved. It smelled like someone she used to know. Someone she'd tried to forget.
Her father.
But it couldn't be.
Her father had been dead for four years.
Luma pushed the thought away and poured everything she had into Drake's body. Her hands burned. Her magic burned. She gave him everything she had and it still wasn't enough. The curse fought back, resisting, pushing against her healing light.
But her power pushed harder.
Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time stopped having meaning. There was only the curse and the healing and the desperate need to save this man she'd never met from something she'd always been afraid of.
When she finally pulled her hands away, she was collapsing.
James caught her as her knees gave out. She was shaking. Her entire body felt like it was made of ash. But the curse was smaller. Weaker. For the first time since Drake had fallen, his body stopped trembling so hard. His breathing steadied.
"What you just did," James whispered, staring at her with shock, "nobody could do that."
Luma didn't answer.
She couldn't tell him the truth.
She couldn't tell anyone that the moment she touched Drake's curse, she recognized it. That her magic had responded to dark magic like it had always belonged together. That she knew exactly what kind of power this was.
Because knowing meant admitting something she'd buried for years.
Something her father had done before he died.
Something that connected her to the curse that was killing the Alpha.
And as James carried her out of the chamber, her last thought before consciousness faded was a terrifying one.
If the Alpha discovered why her magic could heal him, he wouldn't see her as his savior.
He'd see her as a threat.