<h4>Chapter 107: Chapter 107: The True Trial</h4>


    The white light burst outward. Darian felt his brothers’ hands grip his tighter as the cave shook around them.


    When his eyes cleared, two identical women stood facing each other. Both looked like Luna Evelyn. Both had the same gentle eyes and knowing smile. "Which one is real?" Ronan yelled over ra’s screams.


    "Both," Elder Vera whispered. "And neither." The Maniptor wearing their mother’s face growled.


    "Clever old woman. But you’re toote. The childes now, and chaos has already won." "Has it?" Real Luna Evelyn stepped forward quietly. "Look at your kids, creature. Really look." Darian looked at his brothers. Kael’s ice skills weren’t wild anymore.


    They formed protective walls around ra instead of weapons against his family. Ronan’s berserker rage had cooled into focused power. And his own shadows moved to back his brothers instead of plotting against them.


    "We’re not fighting," he realized out loud. "Impossible!" The Maniptor shrieked. "The trials broke you! I saw your minds break!" "You saw what you wanted to see," Luna Evelyn said softly.


    "But trials don’t break ties. They reveal them." ra doubled over with another contraction. "The baby won’t wait for your family reunion!" Kael dropped to his knees beside her. "What do you need?" "All of you," she gasped.


    "The ceremony. We have to finish it now." Tobias opened the leather notebook with shaking hands. "The True Bonding needs absolute trust. No lies. No lies.


    No hidden goals." "Easy to say," Ronan mumbled. "Harder to do."


    "Then start," Luna Evelyn ordered. "Tell each other the truth you’ve been hiding." Darian’s stomach clenched. His deadliest secret. The one thing he’d never told anyone.


    "I’ll go first," Kael said suddenly. His voice cracked. "I brought the cor because I was scared. Not of ra cheating us. Of not being good enough for her." The silver cor fell from his shaking hands and shattered on the cave floor.


    "I’ve spent my whole life trying to be perfect. Trying to be worthy of being the next Alpha. But deep down, I know I’m not strong enough. Smart enough.


    Good enough." ra reached for his hand. "Kael, that’s not true." "It is." Tears froze on his face. "I was terrified that if I wasn’t perfect, you’d see the real me and leave." Ronan stepped closer. "Brother, you’ve carried all of us your whole life.


    How is that not strong enough?" "Your turn," Luna Evelyn said gently to Ronan. The berserker took a shaky breath.


    "I’m not just afraid of hurting people. I want to hurt them. Sometimes when I get angry, part of me likes the violence. Craves it." His fists clenched.


    "During the trial, when I saw all those people I’d ruined, I felt guilty. But I also felt... pleased. Like some dark part of me was finally free." "That’s why you think you’re a monster," Darian understood.


    "Not because of what you do, but because of what you feel." "Yeah." Ronan’s voice was barely a whisper. "How can I be a father when part of me likes destroying things?"


    "Because the other part of you fights that urge every single day," ra said strongly. "That’s not evil. That’s amazing." All eyes turned to Darian. His biggest secret.


    The one that could destroy everything. "I didn’t n to betray you because I wanted ra for myself," he said slowly. "I nned it because I was already nning to reject her."


    Silence filled the cave except for ra’s heavy breathing. "What?" she whispered. "I’ve seen the future. Pieces of it, anyway. In my dreams." Darian’s shadows writhed with his feelings.


    "I saw us as adults. I saw the child grown up. And I saw myself bing exactly like our father. Cold. Maniptive. Willing to give anything for power." He looked at his hands. "I was going to remove Kael and Ronan, then reject you.


    Make you hate me so much that you’d take the baby far away from me." "Darian," Ronan breathed.


    "I thought if I became the viin, you’d all be safe from what I might be." His voice broke. "I was trying to save you from me." Luna Evelyn smiled sadly.


    "And there it is. The real trial." "What do you mean?" Kael asked. "The visions you saw weren’t lies exactly. They were options. Futures that could happen if you let fear control your choices."


    The Maniptor hissed. "They will happen! Darkness always wins!" "Does it?" Luna Evelyn gestured at the three boys.


    "Look what they chose instead." Darian felt it then. The moment when everything clicked into ce. "We chose each other." "Even knowing our worst secrets," Kael added.


    "Even afraid of our darkest impulses," Ronan finished. "Even believing we weren’t worthy," they said together. ra’s scream cut through their discovery. "The baby’sing right now!"


    "The ritual!" Tobias shouted. "ce your hands on her belly! All three of you!" The brothers acted without hesitation. Their hands covered ra’s swollen stomach just as the strongest contraction yet hit her. "Now what?" Darian asked.


    "Now you choose," Luna Evelyn said. "ept the bond fully. All four of you linked. Or let it break and face whateveres alone."


    The Maniptor made onest desperate charge. "Choose chaos! Choose ss! Choose—" Three voices spoke at once, blocking out the creature’s words. "I choose love over fear," Kael said.


    "I choose family over vengeance," Ronan stated. "I choose trust over control," Darian ended. "And I choose all of you," ra gasped between contractions, "over everything else." Light burst from their joined hands.


    Not the harsh white light from before, but warm golden glow that felt likeing home. The Maniptor’s scream rang through the cave as the creature began to dissolve. "This isn’t possible! The forecast demands chaos!"


    "The prophecy," Elder Vera said with deep pleasure, "has been fulfilled." "What do you mean?" Ronan asked. "It never said the child would be born into chaos caused by division," Elder Vera stated. "It said the child would be born when chaos was conquered by unity." The fake Luna’s form crumbled totally, leaving only shadow and dust.


    "The trial isplete," the real Luna Evelyn dered. "You’ve showed that love can ovee any maniption. That trust can survive any test." But her smile faded as she looked at ra. "Nowes the real challenge."


    "What now?" Kael asked. "Now," Luna Evelyn said grimly, "we find out what kind of child is born from a bond this powerful." ra’s back rose as the final contraction hit. The golden light around their hands zed brighter than the sun. And something else started to glow in response.


    The original Alpha, still chained to the cave wall, startedughing again. But this time hisughing sounded different. Excited.


    Hungry. "Yes," he whispered. "Born in light but marked by dark. Perfect for my needs." "What’s he talking about?" Darian demanded. But before anyone could answer, ra gave one final push.


    The baby’s cry echoed through the cave, pure and strong. Only it wasn’t just one cry. It was two. "Twins," Tobias whispered. "The prophecy child has a twin." Luna Evelyn’s face went white.


    "That changes everything." "Why?" Ronan asked. "Because," the original Alpha said with vicious pleasure, "one child was meant to save the supernatural world.


    But two children born at once means one will save it..." His bright eyes gleamed in the darkness. "And one will destroy it all."