Page 77 of The Alpha Wolf’s Secret Baby Boy

Aoife blinks, as if only now remembering the world beyond this ritual.

“Go, Poppy…” she whispers, looking toward the forest. “May the Moon Goddess walk with you.”

My heart stops, but it’s from the sense of purpose rather than fear.

Heat surges beneath my skin, beginning in the center of my chest before racing through every vein in my body. The sensation is nothing like the poison that burned through me before.

This warmth is alive. Pure. It feels like sunlight pouring through my bones.

I instinctively look down.

My hands are glowing, streams of white-gold light weaving between my fingers like ribbons spun from liquid sunlight, spiraling around my wrists before disappearing beneath the sleeves of my robes. The ground beneath my bare feet begins to shimmer, tiny flowers blooming through the scorched earth surrounding the ritual circle.

Aoife gasps as the other sisters slowly fall to their knees.

I stare at my hands, yet nothing about this feels unfamiliar.

It feels…natural, as though I’ve spent my entire life forgetting something that has finally returned to me.

The Moon Goddess’s words echo through my mind.

“Remember who you are.”

“The Moon Goddess walks with me,” I declare before marching forward.

Another explosion shakes the clearing, followed by screams and howling.

My heart clenches.

“Damian…” I whisper as I trek further toward the tree line, not running, but walking with purpose, while all I can think about is reaching Damian and protecting Daniel from whatever is on those borders.

The world around me erupts into white-gold light, the clearing disappearing the way my surroundings disappeared in the trance, in the Moon Goddess’s plane of existence.

The forest blurs into ribbons of green. Wind rushes past my face before everything settles again, and I find myself standing in the middle of absolute chaos.

Smoke fills the air. Trees burn. The scent of blood is everywhere.

Nightclaw, other wolves, and some of the Golden Raven Sisters fight side by side against hooded figures whose corrupted magic tears through the battlefield in violent streaks of black and crimson.

Then I see him, and my heart nearly stops with sheer dread this time.

Damian.

He’s on his knees, phasing between werewolf and the human who’s trying to come forward, blood soaking the side of his shoulder where corrupted magic has carved deep into his flesh. Another witch lifts both hands toward him, black energy gathering into a spear sharp enough to finish what she’d started.

“No!”

The word tears from somewhere deep inside me, but doesn’t leave my lips. Instead, it pours out of me in thick ropes of white-gold magic that slow the dark witches down.

Every head on the battlefield turns, but another treacherous roar leaves my lips.

“You have trespassed long enough!”

Another powerful surge of magic explodes outwards, the white-gold light surging from my palm like a tidal wave.

It collides with the corrupted spell midair, and instead of exploding, the darkness simply dissolves. Erased. As though it never existed.

I push forward, spurred on by seeing Damian writhing in torment, giving it my all until the battlefield falls silent. The dark witches are gone, crawling into the shadows and disappearing until there is no threat left.