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Then, a new pain – sharp, devastating – as teeth sink into my neck. My life force drains away, leaving me feeling weightless, detached. Eziah’s scream rings out, filled with raw agony and despair. My vision darkens, not with unconsciousness, but with the looming figure of Satish, his face a mask of triumph and cruelty. My blood coats his lips, and runs down his chest.
Nova and Shadow are silent now, their presence fading with each labored beat of my heart. As the darkness envelops me, I'm lost in a sea of fractured memories – the traumas endured by my wolves, their sacrifices, their pain and my own.
“This is why we couldn't merge,” Shadow’s voice is a whimper in my head, laden with resignation. “We have nothing good to balance out the bad.” Acceptance of our end fills her tone.
In the midst of the chaos, my world narrows down to the agony coursing through my veins, the electricity tearing through every nerve. Lorelei's twisted delight in my pain is a distant echo as my mind spirals into despair.
“Shadow? Nova?” I plead, feeling the mate bond with Eziah fray and snap. The loss is a physical ache, a void where warmth once resided. “I don't want to die!” I whisper, my voice barely audible over the sound of fighting.
“No Temperance, it's time to let go!” Nova's voice is a fading whisper in my consciousness, resigned to the end.
“There is nothing left to fight for!” Shadow agrees, her tone heavy with centuries of pain.
But then, piercing through the fog of my despair, Eziah's anguished cry reaches me, igniting a spark within the depths of my soul.
“He is!” I gasp, realization dawning on me. Eziah is my reason to fight! My beacon in the darkness.
“You may not have anyone worth fighting for! But I…I have him!” I declare, pushing back against the encroaching darkness with newfound determination.
As Shadow and Nova's tormented memories flood through me, I latch onto the one source of light in my life – Eziah. His presence, luminous as it outshines the shadows.
“You asked what a shadow is?!” I growl, my voice a blend of Shadow’s darkness and Nova’s dim light.
“The darkness that destroys light,” Shadow echoes within me, her voice a ghostly whisper.
“And what of Nova?!” I ask Shadow.
“Nova means light, but we have none,” Nova admits, her voice faint.
“Wrong!” I counter, my voice a defiant roar. “You see only shadows, but I've seen light! I won't let you take him from me!!” I scream when my existence breaks.
ChapterOne Hundred Four
Eziah
The moment we reach the old mine, we step into a war zone. Uncle Andrei is being attacked from every direction, his entire body drenched in blood with Reaper Wolves spilling out from everywhere when the mindlink opens up. His voice flitting through all our heads.
“They can't step into the mine! It is man made!” he growls, and it takes me a second to see what he means when I see the ominous eyes within the tree line. Andrei is trying to get them close enough to the forest for the were-bears to help, only now he is cornered and outnumbered. Kyan and Dominic step out of a portal next to me, my mother coming out of another.
Four mines we ended up searching before finding this one, unable to get the exact coordinates from Uncle Andrei because he's been distracted. Dominic growls and immediately starts running toward Andrei to help.
“Fuck sake! Send her back, Kyan!” I hear Casen snarl, turning to see Casen step through with the open portal, with Rose forcing herself through.
“My daughter is in there!” Rose says.
Casen grabs Rose's face in his hands. “I know, but you're wasting time. I'll get her back!” Casen kisses her, shoving her through, and Kyan is quick to close it. Peering around, I try to figure out which warehouse. I've tried reaching Temperance but have been unable to, yet I feel she is alive.
“We need to get the were-bears down here,” Kyan mumbles beside me before rushing off as more and more come out from everywhere and nowhere. There are hundreds. “Find the bunker! We'll get there as soon as possible!” Kyan yells out over his shoulder.
I turn to Casen, “You check that one with my father. I will go to this one,” I point out when suddenly an explosion goes off, tossing us back. The wind is knocked out of me and I sit up to find the gas bottles up the side exploded, Reaper Wolves are on fire, screaming as they run blindly directly into the path of the were-bears. “Kyan, we need them down here!” his father yells out over the chaos.
“Fucking working on it!” Kyan snarls, and his clothes shred as Kaif comes forward. Jumping to my feet, I run for the first warehouse, but the entry is immediately blocked, and I spot them coming out of elevators and stairwells when suddenly the ground starts shaking. They all stop momentarily, peering past me uncertain. I cast a glance over my shoulder to see Kaif when I realize what he is doing. The were-bears can't come down here because it's no longer a forest. Yet as black ghostly trees start sprouting from the ground, I figure out what he's doing. He's creating a forest for them.
My mother, noticing him, drops to the ground, her hands digging into the earth while my father Mateo and my uncle shield her as she starts bleeding her magic into the earth, giving it life. Trees and plants emerge from the ground, and the place shakes like an earthquake. I’m momentarily mesmerized, transfixed by the beauty amid the chaos when suddenly, I’m tackled.
Wolves tear into me, and Malachi shifts, his teeth tearing through them as he fights back when they start getting ripped off me. I find Maddox in my father's form, flinging them off like they're merely children.
“Go! I will be right behind you!” Maddox orders, and I take off for the stairs, leaving my father to hold them back while I slip into the stairwell, only the moment it opens I am ambushed by more.
