Rebirth of the Broken Luna A Second Chance at Luna's Heart novel Chapter 446

Chapter 446

SHAWN

I stood at the edge of the forest behind Alpha Xennis’s house, trying to process the fact that my entire life had changed in less than seventy two hours.

Three days ago, I’d been a runaway werewitch with no home, no family, and no future. A kid who’d spent his entire life hiding what he was, suppressing his magic, pretending to be a normal werewolf just to survive.

Now I was apparently being adopted by legendary territorial war veterans who’d decided I was worth keeping.

Ed overheard Silvia and Samuel talking that morning-not on purpose 1 just happened to be passing by the office when I heard my name mentioned. They were discussing lawyers, paperwork, making it official. Making me officially their son.

Which meant I’d be Xenois’s stepbrother.

Stepbrother. At seventeen years old, I’d suddenly have a twenty-six-year-old stepbrother who was also an alpha, who’d lost his sister five years ago, who probably had feelings about his parents adopting a random verewitch teenager.

We’d never really talked, Xenois and 1. Sure, he’d told me the kidnapping wasn’t my fault. He’d thanked me for helping with the rescue operation. But that wasn’t the same as bonding. That wasn’t the same as being family.

I didn’t even know if he wanted me in his family. What if he saw me as a replacement for Xena? What if every time he looked at me, he was reminded that his real sister was dead and his parents had chosen some random kid instead?

And it wasn’t just Xenois. If Silvia and Samuel adopted me, that made me an uncle. To three five-year-olds. Lake, Ollie, and Riley-these tiny, powerful, brilliant children who’d already been through more trauma than most adults experienced in a lifetime.

I didn’t feel like an uncle. I felt like a scared teenager who had no idea what he was doing.

What if I messed up? What if I said the wrong thing or set a bad example or accidentally taught them something inappropriate? Silvia and Samuel seemed to think teaching five-year-olds about poker and giving them rum was acceptable grandparenting, but I was pretty sure that

didn’t extend to me.

And worse-what if I lost control of my powers?

That thought kept me awake at night. My plasma blasts weren’t like Lake’s portals or Lyn’s gravity manipulation. They didn’t have a

learning curve or a practice mode. They were instant, devastating, and permanent.

When I hit someone with plasma, they disintegrated. Completely. No body, no bones, just ash and the lingering smell of burned ozone.

There was no do-over button. No “oops, I hit the wrong person, let me spawn them back to life.” It was blast first, dust second, regret

forever.

What if I got startled or angry or scared and accidentally fired at one of the kids? What if I was practicing and someone walked into range without me noticing? What if my control slipped for just one second and killed someone I cared about?

I couldn’t live with that. I barely lived with the nightwalkers I’d already killed during the rescue operation. They’d been enemies, actively trying to hurt people I was protecting, and I still saw their faces when I sed my eyes.

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Chapter 446

I needed to understand my powers. Needed to figure out my limits, m capacity, how the magic actually worked. Because right now, I was walking around like a loaded weapon with no safety and no instruction manual.

That’s why I’d come out here to the woods. Far enough from the hous that I wouldn’t accidentally hit anyone. Isolated enough that I could practice without an audience.

I’d been out here for maybe an hour, systematically firing plasma blasts at trees. Trying to gauge my energy reserves, testing different power levels, seeing if I could control the intensity or if it was always full force devastation.

So far, I’d discovered that I could fire at least forty-five blasts without feeling tired. That the energy didn’t seem to come from my life essence-I wasn’t getting weaker or more exhausted like I would from using physical stamina. And that controlling the intensity was nearly impossible. My blasts were either on or off. Full power or nothing.

Lake was so much cooler. Portal magic that could take you anywhere that could save lives, that had practical applications beyond just killing things. He was five years old and already more useful than I’d ever be.

And Lyn-god, Lyn was a star. Gravity manipulation that could incapacitate enemies without killing them, self-healing that meant he could survive injuries that would kill others. He was powerful and controlled and exactly the kind of werewitch people wrote legends about.

I was just a kid with a murder button.

I’d been around since the Andy situation. I’d watched from the sidelines as Samuel and Silvia had dealt with that crisis, had seen Xenois coordinate responses, had observed how this family functioned under pressure. But I’d never been looked at twice. Never been considered important or relevant or worth paying attention to.

Now suddenly I was being adopted into the family, and I had no idea how to handle it.

Would my mom be happy? Would she approve of me being taken in by werewolves, the very thing she’d spent her life protecting me from?

She’d died six months ago. Cancer. Quick and brutal and absolutely unfair. Her last words to me had been about staying safe, about hiding

my witch side, about surviving however I could.

Then she’d scented me one final time-covering me in her werewolf smell so I could pass as purely wolf for a while longer. It was the last

protection she could offer.

I’d run from her pack after she died. Run because I knew they’d discover what I was eventually, and then I’d be exiled or killed or worse. I’d

heard about Shadow City-a place where supernatural beings who didn’t fit anywhere else could find asylum. Nightwalkers, werewitches, fae, all

living together without the traditional pack hierarchy.

It had sounded perfect.

Instead, I’d arrived still carrying my mother’s scent, been mistaken for a trespassing werewolf, and nearly been burned alive by people who

hated wolves.

Then Xenois had saved me. Had rescued me without knowing what I really was, had brought me back to his territory, and I’d been too

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