Rebirth of the Broken Luna A Second Chance at Luna's Heart novel Chapter 456

Chapter 456

XENOIS

I hadn’t planned to visit Xena’s grave today. But after lunch, after watching Shawn try so hard to fit into a family he didn’t quite believe wanted him, I felt the pull to come here. To the place where my sister rested, where I could talk to her without anyone else listening.

The cemetery was quiet, tucked away on pack lands in a grove that had always been reserved for fallen pack members. Xena’s headstone was simple-she would have hated anything ostentatious. Just her name, her dates, and the words “Beloved daughter, sister, and pack member.”

Five years. She’d been gone five years, and sometimes it still felt like yesterday that I’d gotten the call. That I’d found her body. That my world had shattered into pieces I was still trying to put back together.

I knelt beside the grave, brushing away leaves that had accumulated since my last visit.

“Hey, Xena,” I said quietly. “Sorry it’s been a few weeks. Things have been… complicated. There’s a lot I need to tell you.”

I’d started this habit after she died-coming here to talk to her, updating her on pack business and family drama like she was still alive to hear it. My therapist said it was a healthy coping mechanism. Lumina said it was sweet. I just knew it made me feel less alone.

“Mom and Dad got kidnapped,” I started. “By a nightwalker named Jerome who blamed them for things they did during the territorial wars. We mounted a rescue operation-it was dramatic and dangerous and everyone survived, which feels like a miracle. Mom nearly died from internal bleeding, but she’s recovering now. Being as impossible as ever.”

I paused, running my fingers over the carved letters of her name.

“And they’re adopting someone. A seventeen-year-old werewitch named Shawn. He’s been through hell-lost his mother, lived on the streets, has these incredibly powerful plasma abilities he doesn’t know how to control. Mom and Dad took him in, and now they’re making

it official. Which means I’m getting a stepbrother.”

Saying it out loud made it feel more real somehow.

“I know what you’d say if you were here. You’d tell me to stop overthinking it, to give the kid a chance, to remember what it felt like

when we were young and trying to figure out where we fit. You were always better at accepting people than I was. Always saw the

potential in others before they saw it in themselves.”

I heard footsteps behind me and turned, expecting to see Lumina or one of the kids.

Instead, I saw my mother.

Silvia Blackwood stood at the edge of the grove, looking smaller and more fragile than I’d ever seen her. She was still recovering, still moving carefully because of her injuries. But it wasn’t the physical damage that made her seem diminished-it was something in her

1/3

A/N: Rest in peace Xena Catalina Zara Blackwood.

Born February 14, 2000. Died February 14, 2020

The whole reason all this started.

Dead from the start, still haunting the narrative.

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