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Mahalia grins, and my heart does a little flip at her smile. She leans in and plants a quick peck on my cheek, causing my face to flush with warmth. “Good boy,” she teases.
Well, shit. I almost drop to my knees right then and there. It’s no secret that I’m the omega of the pack, the one who usually gets bossed around and teased by the others. But Mahalia’s playful praise and affectionate gesture catch me off guard. Maybe, just maybe, this crazy situation is turning out better than I could have ever imagined. Everything that I’ve ever dreamed and fantasized about seems to be coming to life right in front of my very eyes. Who would have thought it?
I can’t help but smile back at her. “You know, Mahalia, you have a way of making even a year of homework sound like a tempting offer.”
She chuckles, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “Well, I have to keep you in line somehow, don’t I?”
“So, what about if I manage to get you A’s? Will that earn me a reward of any kind?”
She wiggles her eyebrows playfully at me. “Maybe it will.”
The atmosphere around us shifts, and I can sense a subtle change in Mahalia’s demeanor. Her eyes meet mine, and there’s an unmistakable hint of desire and longing in her gaze. It’s a moment that catches me off guard, but I find myself drawn to her, unable to resist the magnetic pull between us.
Leaning in, I close the gap between us, our lips inching closer, almost brushing. The anticipation of the kiss lingers in the air, and for a fleeting moment, it feels like time itself has slowed down. The world fades away, leaving only Mahalia and me in this shared, intimate moment.
But just as our lips are about to meet, an abrupt interruption shatters the spell. A loud noise echoes through the cavern, breaking our connection and snapping us back to reality. We pull away from each other, our hearts pounding, and turn to see what has disrupted our stolen moment of intimacy.
“What was that?” Mahalia gasps as she clings to me. “What is that?”
The Rift. Opening here. Oh my God.
My heart races as I hastily scan our surroundings, searching for any signs of impending danger. The cavern, once a sanctuary from the outside world, has become a potential portal for the horrors of the Rift.
“That’s it? That’s what it looks like?” Mahalia gushes with fear lacing her tone.
My breath catches in my throat as I watch the Rift take form. It isn’t like anything I have ever seen or imagined. A swirling vortex of unnatural colors and shapes, it seems to defy the very laws of reality. The edges of the Rift pulse with malevolence, a dark aura that radiates menace.
Before I can fully comprehend the magnitude of the situation, a nightmarish sight unfolds before me. From the chaotic heart of the Rift emerge grotesque and twisted creatures. They crawl and slither out of the tear in reality, their forms shifting and contorting as they solidify in our world.
I feel a surge of fear and adrenaline coursing through me as the monsters multiply. Their appearances are as diverse as they are disturbing, each one a nightmarish amalgamation of features, born from the emotions they have devoured in their own realm. They claw their way into our world with insatiable hunger, their eyes gleaming with a malevolent intelligence that chills me to the bone—makes me feel sick to my damn stomach.
I can’t seem to move my limbs as much as I want to. Fear has taken an icy hold of me and I can’t go anywhere. But I seem to be the only one…
My heart races as I watch Mahalia approach the monstrous creature with a pocketknife in hand. Panic surges through me; I haven’t explained anything about how these Rift creatures fight or how to defeat them. Before I can react, she charges toward the creature, and I cry out her name, shifting quickly into my wolf form to protect her. The fear lets me lose and I can finally react.
Mahalia, no! I want to scream at the top of my lungs. But I need to fight. My wolf form is more important.
But something incredible happens. Instead of attacking us, the monster retreats, slinking back into the Rift. Mahalia doesn’t even slow down, nor does she reach it. That monster seems afraid of her, wanting to escape her, and the other monsters follow her as the Rift starts to close up. It shakes and shudders, the strange light flowing out of it almost vanishing into nothingness.
I skid to a stop in front of her, my wolf form still bristling with protective instincts as I shift back into my human form so I can make sense of what the hell is going on around us. “Mahalia, are you all right?” I ask, my voice a mix of awe and concern. “What the hell just happened?”
She seems perfectly fine, though, and that’s impossible. I felt the soulless apathy that these creatures emit when I got near them, and Mahalia got far closer to the monster than I did. Yet she still has a very bright smile on her face as she nods at me.
I try to catch my breath. “That’s... incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it,” I say, still trying to process what just happened. “I don’t know what to say…”
Mahalia looks just as amazed as I feel. “I have no idea what just happened, but I’m glad it worked.” She turns to me. “We should probably let Professor Maddox know about this. He’d want to hear about it. The others too.”
I nod in agreement, my mind still reeling from the unexpected turn of events. The other wolves too. They are going to be very impressed by all of this. I mean, I don’t know if we’ll be able to explain it well, because that was insane, not something that any of the other teams told us about, but it seems like we have discovered something new. “You’re right. Let’s head back inside and tell him everything. Maybe one of them can shed some light on this.”
I need them too, because I am a little blown away by all of this. I can’t adjust to any of it. The monsters aren’t scared of humans, it’s always the other way around, but Mahalia has done something amazing. I don’t know what it’s going to mean for us, but I’m pretty sure that Maddox did the right thing in choosing her, even if that wasn’t his intention when he first brought her here. I don’t actually know what his original intention was, it was all very weird the way that he kidnapped her to bring her to the forbidden forest, but maybe he knew more than he was letting on. He might be a very wise man after all.
EIGHT
MAHALIA
Maddox, with his arms crossed, listens intently as Lars recounts the recent events with the Rift, his animated gestures and passionate storytelling making me out to be some kind of hero which is really embarrassing. I didn’t even think, I just acted and it seems to have worked.
“So there we were, Professor, right by the waterfall, and out of nowhere, this monstrous Rift creature emerges. It was ugly as sin, I tell you. But before I could even react, Mahalia here, without a second thought, charges at it with a pocketknife she had hidden away. She didn’t hesitate for a second!”
