Chapter 268

Agnes

The weeks following the destruction of the Lunaris Stone passed in a blur.

Elemental Enterprises, of course, was immediately shut down by the authorities. Every known international law enforcement agency descended on Richard’s territory, working alongside Richard and us to document the crimes and identify the victims.

It was so much worse than we initially thought. The facility had housed over three thousand elementals, many of whom had been there for years.

Some had been born into captivity, never knowing a life outside those stone walls. Others had been lured to the area under false pretenses—job offers, vacation packages, hiking trips.

Henry and Krystal, for example, had been lured out drinking with a man who claimed to have a business proposition for them. He had drugged them, and when they woke up, they were locked in a cell far beneath the earth.

And all those missing persons cases in Richard’s territory over the years? They weren’t accidents or animal attacks as everyone had been led to believe. They were abductions. My stepmother and her associates had been systematically hunting elementals, collecting them like toys.

The news made international headlines within hours. Television stations interrupted regular programming to report on what they were calling “the discovery of the century.” Newspapers ran front-page spreads with headlines like “SECRET UNDERGROUND FACILITY DISCOVERED: THOUSANDS HELD CAPTIVE” and “ELEMENTAL POWERS REAL: WORLD REACTS TO SHOCKING REVELATION.”

Overnight, Elijah, Thea, and I became unwilling celebrities. News vans camped outside our estate, reporters shouting questions whenever we dared to step outside. Our phones rang constantly with interview requests from major networks.

Even letters poured in by the hundreds—some from grateful families of rescued elementals, others simply from fans.

Then came the awards and the ceremonies. Richard presented all three of us with medals for our“extraordinary service.” The International Association of Pack Alphas gave us their highest honor for “courage in the face of unprecedented danger.”

There was even talk of a movie deal at one point, which Elijah promptly shut down with legal threats.

Through it all, we tried to maintain some semblance of normalcy for Thea’s sake. She returned to school, albeit with enhanced security. The other children treated her like a superhero, which she both enjoyed and found overwhelming. At night, she often crawled into our bed, plagued by nightmares of the facility and what might have happened if we had failed.

My physical recovery was slower than I would have liked, even with my wolf. The concussion from hitting my head on the stone floor left me with headaches and occasional vertigo for weeks.

But it was my hand and arm that bore the worst of it. The damage from channeling so much fire power had been severe—third-degree burns that extended from my fingertips almost to my elbow.

The doctors said I was lucky not to lose the hand entirely. Even my wolf’s healing abilities couldn’t fully repair the damage. After multiple surgeries and skin grafts, I was left with a network of scars that wrapped around my palm and up my forearm. They would fade somewhat with time, the doctors assured me, but they would never disappear completely.

A permanent reminder of what we had faced. What we had sacrificed.

By the third month after the incident, life had begun to settle into a new routine. The media frenzy died down as other stories took precedence. The facility was being dismantled, the underground complex filled in and sealed.

My stepmother awaited trial in a maximum-security prison, charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment, human experimentation, and a host of other crimes. Ava was facing her own set of charges for her willing participation in her mother’s schemes.

Richard, for his part, visited us often, bringing updates on the ongoing investigations and showering Thea, the daughter he and Elise never got to have, with gifts. He had changed since the incident—strangely more jovial, like a doting grandfather.

The discovery that such atrocities had been occurring in his territory, atrocities that had led to the torture and death of his own wife, had shaken him deeply, but he had chosen to channel that pain into a new lease on life. He quickly became a staple of our family, even providing Elijah with the guidance and support now that James would have once provided.

On Elijah’s suggestion, we did something we had never done before: we started attending family therapy sessions. He found a therapist who specialized in family trauma, a woman named Tess.

Initially, I resisted. The thought of sharing my pain with a stranger when I had spent so many years being treated like a madwoman for my trauma scared the hell out of me. But Elijah was persistent, reminding me that we all carried burdens that were too heavy to bear alone.

And so, twice a week, we sat on the sofa with a woman jotting things down in a notebook and just… talked. About Olivia stealing Thea as an infant. About the curse that had suppressed my wolf. About the years I spent believing my daughter was dead and the years Thea spent suffering Olivia’s abuse. About Elijah’s grief and guilt over failing to protect both of us.

To my surprise, it helped. Not immediately, and not without pain—there were sessions where all three of us left emotionally drained, barely able to speak on the drive home. But slowly, session by session, we began to heal. To understand each other better. To forgive ourselves and each other for things that had never truly been our fault to begin with.

Thea’s nightmares became less frequent. Elijah’s shoulders lost some of their tension. My own anger, the smoldering rage that had been my constant companion for so long, began to cool.

But amidst all this progress, there was one loss I couldn’t seem to make peace with: my fire was gone.

The destruction of the Lunaris Stone had released a wave of energy that neutralized all elemental abilities within a mile radius. The scientists studying the phenomenon believed the effect was permanent, possibly even genetic. Considering the fact that my stepmother had collected so many of the world’s elementals in one place, it was likely the gene that had been wiped out in a single moment.

For most of the rescued elementals, this was a blessing. They had been abducted and imprisoned because of abilities they had never asked for, powers that had marked them as targets. The loss of those powers meant they could return to normal lives without fear of being hunted again.

But for me, the absence left a strange hollowness in my palms.

When my fire had first manifested, I had been terrified of it. I had hidden it away, built a safe room to contain it, feared what it might do to those I loved if I lost control. I should have been relieved to be rid of it.

Instead, I found myself missing it. The warmth that had lived beneath my skin, the power that had flowed through my veins—it had become a part of me, as much as my wolf. It was a companion, in a way.

Which was why, six months after the destruction of the stone, I found myself standing in the basement safe room late one night when everyone else was asleep. The walls still bore the scorch marks from my secret practice sessions, black streaks against the metal where my fire had licked and burned.

I held up my scarred palm, staring at the web of red lines that mapped the skin. I closed my eyes, reaching inward, searching for that spark that had once ignited so easily.

Nothing.

I tried again, concentrating harder, imagining the heat building in my core, flowing up through my chest, down my arm, into my palm. I could almost feel it, almost taste the smoke on my tongue.

But when I opened my eyes, my hand remained empty. No flame, not even the faintest ember. My skin was still cool and unresponsive.

My fire was gone, extinguished along with the stone. And no matter how much I yearned for it, no matter how desperately I reached for that lost part of myself, it would never return.

A soft sound from the doorway made me turn. Elijah was standing there, leaning against the door frame with his hands tucked into his pockets. How long he had been watching me, I couldn’t say, but his eyes were soft and understanding.

Without a word, he crossed the room to me. He took my scarred hand in his, lifting it to his lips to press gentle kisses against the damaged skin.

“You still have that fire, Agnes,” he said softly, and his words made my vision blur with tears. “Only now, it exists solely in your heart. And that makes it all the more beautiful, don’t you think?”