Chapter 189

Kayla

Darkness gave way to… fog?

I blinked, trying to focus, but the mist was so dense I could barely see my hand in front of my face. The pain in my abdomen was gone, replaced by an eerie numbness. I was no longer being cradled against Noah’s chest, but rather standing somewhere… new.

This wasn’t the Nightshade estate. This wasn’t the hospital. This was… somewhere else entirely.

I was standing in the middle of a forest, surrounded by towering trees whose tops disappeared into the swirling mist above. No sounds of the Revelry reached me here—no drums, no laughter, no howls. Just silence.

Was I dead?

“Hello?” I called, my voice sounding strange and muffled in the dense fog. “Is anyone there?”

For a long moment, there was no response, and I began to panic. I was dead. I had to be.

But then, faintly, I heard something.

“Follow my voice… Hurry!”

I froze, my heart stuttering in my chest. That voice—I knew that voice. I couldn’t place where or when I’d heard it before, but something about it felt deeply, profoundly familiar, like a memory from a thousand lifetimes ago.

Without questioning why, I began to move toward it, pushing through the thick fog. But my legs felt heavy, as if I were wading through mud rather than air. Each step was a struggle, requiring far more effort than it should have.

“I’m coming!” I called out, straining forward. “Where are you?”

No answer came this time. Instead, the silence was broken by other voices—whispers at first, then growing louder, surrounding me from all sides.

“Wolfless.”

The word sliced through me like a knife. I recognized the voice—one of the women from Nightshade who had never fully accepted me as their Luna.

“Worthless,” came another voice.

“Not fit to be a Luna,” whispered another.

“Can’t even carry a baby properly…”

With each cruel word, I felt a physical stab of pain, as if the voices were wielding knives against my flesh. I pressed forward, desperate to escape them, to reach the comforting voice that had called to me earlier. But the mud seemed to grow thicker, pulling at my legs, slowing me down.

“Better off alone.”

“No, no. Better off dead.”

“Much better.”

“Yes, much better.”

I stumbled, caught myself, kept going. The mud was up to my thighs now, sucking at my legs, trying to drag me down. And then I felt it—warmth seeping through the thin fabric of my ceremonial dress. I looked down and gasped in horror.

Blood. Bright red blood blooming outward from between my thighs, spreading across the pristine white of my dress.

“No,” I whimpered, pressing my hands against the spot, trying desperately to stop the flow. “No, please, not my baby. Not my baby!”

The mud pulled at me more insistently now, no longer just an impediment but a sentient thing. It rose higher, past my waist, up to my chest. And as it did, I saw that it wasn’t just wet soil, but hands—countless muddy hands reaching up from the ground, grasping at me, pulling me down.

I screamed, thrashing against their grip, but they were too many, too strong. The blood continued to flow, warm and sticky between my fingers, and with it, I felt my strength ebbing away. I was going to die here, in this strange foggy place, lose my baby, lose everything.

“Get away from her! She’s mine!”

The voice from before, but louder now, fiercer. I looked up, blinking away tears, and saw a shape emerging from the fog. As it drew closer, the mist seemed to part before it, revealing the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

A wolf—massive and powerful, with fur the same vibrant red as my own hair, so wild and thick it seemed to ripple like flames as she moved. Her eyes, a bright, piercing green that shone like emeralds in the dim light, fixed on me with unmistakable recognition.

My wolf.

The shadowy hands holding me recoiled as if burned just by her presence, retreating back into the ground. The voices that had tormented me faded away, replaced by a profound silence. The wolf approached, lowering her magnificent head to my level.

Without thinking, I reached out, tangling my fingers in her thick fur. She pulled, and I felt myself being lifted out of the mud that had nearly claimed me. With a final heave, I fell forward onto solid ground, gasping with relief.

The wolf was all around me then, circling, sniffing, licking my face with a warm, rough tongue. I wrapped my arms around her neck, burying my face in her fur, and she curled herself around me, her body warm and solid against mine.

“I’m here, Kayla,” she whispered. “I’ve always been here. It’s going to be okay…”

Sobs tore from my throat. “I’m miscarrying, aren’t I?” I choked out, clutching her tighter. “I’m going to lose my baby.” I pulled back just enough to look into those luminous green eyes. “Please emerge before that happens. Please.”

“I can’t. Not entirely.”

“W-Why…?”

“The Moon Goddess received your prayer tonight,” the wolf said softly. “All this time, she has held me by her side, for I am needed there. I am a special wolf, Kayla. I have aided the Moon Goddess in spirit, watching over Luporath.”

“Luporath?” I whispered, the name sending a shiver through me. “What do you mean?”

“I am the last descendent of the lost city of Luporath,” she explained. “And thus I am its protector. Every choice you have made, even crushing the compass bracelet to keep Luporath hidden, was guided by my spirit.”

I thought back to the moment I’d destroyed the compass, how it had felt like the only possible choice despite the consequences. I thought about the strange pull toward my mother’s diary. I thought about the urge I’d felt all those months ago to sneak into the basement of the guild hall, where I’d found Grace for the first time.

Was that all her influence? Had she been with me all along, guiding me without my knowledge?

“But why couldn’t you come to me sooner?” I asked. “Why leave me alone all these years?”

“It was not by choice,” the wolf said. “My task required immense concentration and power to ensure Luporath remained safe. I couldn’t yet manifest on the physical plane. I could only briefly visit you here and there, when I had the extra energy.”

Something in her words sparked a memory—moments throughout my life when I’d felt… different. Stronger. More connected to something wild and primal.

“Sometimes I felt you,” I murmured. “When I was able to manipulate the mate bond with Nicholas… when I healed from injuries that should have been fatal… when I held my own in combat despite having no wolf…”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “In those moments, I managed to connect with you briefly. But never completely.”

I looked down at my dress, at the blood still spreading across the fabric. “And now? Can you emerge fully now? Save my baby?”

“Not yet, Kayla. Not in the way you hope.”

My heart sank. “Then what—”

“I will absorb into your body now,” she explained. “I will lend you all of my strength so that both you and the baby can survive.”

“But I don’t understand. Why can’t you just—”

“Because you are dying, Kayla.”

My throat closed up.

“Where we are now is the spectral plane between life and death,” the wolf continued. “Your body is failing. The strain of carrying an Alpha pup without a wolf’s strength has pushed you to the brink.” She paused. “I must go dormant to keep you both alive.”

Tears streamed down my face as I processed her words. “For how long?”

“Until the baby is born. Then I will awaken again.”

I closed my eyes, trying to accept what she was telling me. After a lifetime of waiting for my wolf to emerge, I would still have to wait months longer. But at least now I knew she was real, that she existed, that I wasn’t broken or defective as I’d always feared.

“Before I go,” the wolf said, her voice growing fainter, “I want you to know one thing. Nicholas is our mate.” My breath caught as she added, “Everything is going to be okay, Kayla… Everything will be just as you wished for…”

The wolf began to dissolve, her form losing solidity, becoming transparent. Panic gripped me as I realized she was leaving.

“Wait! Don’t go! I still have so many questions—”

But it was too late. Her body faded completely, replaced by a swirl of glowing particles that surrounded me, then sank into my skin. Warmth spread throughout my body, starting at my core and radiating outward, filling me with a strength I’d never known before.

And then came the light—bright, blinding, obliterating everything in its path. The foggy forest, the mud, the blood, all of it washed away in that brilliant radiance. I squeezed my eyes shut against the glare and faded away.