Chapter 130

The Blood Moon estate looked completely different when I approached through the forest shadows. Guard towers sprouted from courtyards where I'd once played as a child. Razor wire replaced the elegant hedges my mother used to tend.

The air felt thick with a dark energy. Giana had been busy during my absence, transforming my childhood home into something unrecognizable.

The crystal Elsa had given me pulsed with dark warmth against my ribs where it rested inside my jacket. Each heartbeat seemed to synchronize with its rhythm, creating an uncomfortable harmony that felt wrong.

But she'd made a crucial miscalculation in her defenses. The security was designed to repel conventional military assault, not someone desperate enough to use forbidden magic for infiltration.

I pulled the crystal from my pocket with shaking hands. The moment my fingers made contact, dark energy wrapped around me like a living cloak. Light bent strangely around my form.

Shadows deepened where I stood, creating natural camouflage that made me practically invisible to normal senses. The enhancement came with a price I could feel immediately. Something essential inside me flickered and dimmed.

Moving through the outer perimeter felt disturbingly easy. Too easy, considering the elaborate security measures I could see everywhere. Either the guards had grown complacent or Giana truly hadn't expected another infiltration attempt.

Maybe she thought Kane and I were finished after our failed mission weeks ago. Maybe she believed her character assassination campaign had destroyed any remaining threat we posed.

She was wrong about one thing. I wasn't working with Kane anymore.

The crystal's power flowed through my muscles like liquid fire. Each step consumed another fragment of whatever made me human, but the enhanced speed and stealth were undeniable. I moved faster than any normal person could.

I knew these grounds better than anyone alive. Every hidden passage carved into the estate's ancient foundations during centuries of family occupation. Every secret route I'd used as a child to avoid my father's temper.

The guards were watching for external threats, not someone who'd memorized every shortcut during years of childhood exploration and family dysfunction.

Moving through the estate's interior felt like walking through a nightmare. Familiar rooms had been transformed into command centers. Elegant parlors now served as armories.

The warm family home of my childhood had become a fortress under Giana's control.

Passing near the dungeons, I heard screaming that made my blood run cold. I forced myself to look through a barred window even though every instinct told me to keep moving.

Raymond was personally torturing Timothy. One of the pack members who'd publicly defended me after everything collapsed with the council and our escape.

The sight made my stomach lurch and my heart break simultaneously.

Raymond held a silver blade with practiced precision, carving wounds designed to maximize agony. His movements were deliberate and cruel, nothing like the boy I'd grown up with.

"Tell me about Aurora's relationship with Kane," Raymond demanded with fevered intensity. "Every detail. Every time they were alone together."

Timothy spat blood but remained defiant despite the silver burns covering his arms. "She loved you," he gasped. "And you betrayed her. Broke her heart. Everybody could see that Kane was the one who helped her recover from that, the one who made her happy."

Raymond's face twisted with rage. He pressed the blade deeper, drawing another scream.

"Lies," Raymond snarled with obsessive fury. "She belongs to me. Kane was just a distraction from her true purpose as my Luna."

The magical conditioning had transformed my childhood friend into something monstrous. The corruption ran so deep that torture had become pleasure for him. Giana's influence had rewritten his personality.

I forced myself to keep moving before I did something foolish like attempt a rescue. The mission was larger than any individual. But guilt ate at my resolve anyway.

I navigated toward areas where magical energy pulsed strongest. Heavy security protected sections of the estate that practically radiated dark power. Following the energy signature led me deeper into the east wing.

Multiple guards maintained overlapping watch schedules with military precision. Their positioning suggested something extremely valuable waited inside the most heavily defended chamber.

Creating a distraction was simple enough. A small kitchen fire sent most guards rushing to contain the "emergency" while I disabled the remaining sentries quickly and silently.

The crystal's power made me faster and stronger than any normal person. But I felt it consuming essential pieces of my identity with each use. Like trading memories for temporary abilities.

The chamber door was warded with magic that made my teeth ache. Dark symbols carved into the wood pulsed with malevolent energy.

But when I pressed the crystal against the barrier, the wards dissolved like they were welcoming an old friend. That recognition disturbed me deeply.

Inside, I discovered a room that violated every natural law I understood.

Ancient symbols covered the walls in patterns that hurt to look at directly. The air itself felt corrupted by accumulated suffering from countless victims. At the chamber's center sat an altar of black stone that seemed to absorb light.

And mounted on that altar was the master artifact.

Its surface covered in shifting patterns that seemed to change whenever I looked at them directly. Dark energy flowed from it like a liquid shadow.

I approached carefully and pulled out the specialized tools Elsa had provided. The ritual components felt cold against my fingers. Dead things designed to channel life force into destruction.

But when I began the activation sequence, nothing worked as expected. The master artifact's defenses were far stronger than our intelligence had suggested.

That's when I heard the whispers.

Voices spoke directly into my mind with seductive intimacy. They knew my pain with surgical precision, each word chosen to cut deep into wounds that had never properly healed.

"Aurora," they called with honeyed sweetness. "Why struggle against the inevitable? Why carry such suffering when we can make it stop forever?"

I tried focusing on the ritual, but the whispers grew stronger. More insistent. Images flashed through my consciousness—Kane's betrayal at the council, Raymond's obsession, my friends' torture—each wound opened fresh and bleeding.

"Let us take the pain away," the voices continued with false compassion. "Accept our power and you'll never hurt again. Never feel abandoned. Never feel helpless watching those you love suffer."

My hands began trembling as I worked. The destruction sequence became harder to remember as the artifact fought back, trying to add me to its network of controlled minds.

"You could have Kane back," the voices promised with intimate knowledge of my deepest desires. "We could make him love you properly. Make him regret choosing fear over faith. Make him stay by your side forever."

The temptation nearly brought me to my knees. The voices offered everything I'd lost—love, security, an end to emotional agony. All I had to do was stop fighting and accept their embrace.

I found myself lowering my tools. My resistance crumbling under the weight of all my suffering and the promise of peace that felt so desperately appealing.

"Stop fighting what's natural," the voices crooned with false gentleness. "Stop carrying burdens that were never yours to bear. Let us make you strong instead of broken."

The master artifact pulsed with anticipation, sensing my wavering resolve. Dark tendrils of energy reached toward me like eager fingers, ready to wrap around my mind and add me to their collection.

That's when Giana's laughter echoed through the chamber.

"Aurora," she said with obvious satisfaction as she entered with predatory grace. "You've made this even easier than I hoped."

She looked radiant in the artifact's dark light. Her power was amplified by proximity to the network's central node. This was her element—corruption, manipulation, turning hope into despair with surgical precision.

"You should just give in," Giana continued, approaching with the confidence of someone who held all the advantages. "Stop fighting what's inevitable. You're outnumbered, outmatched, and completely alone."

The artifact's whispers intensified, trying to overwhelm my defenses while Giana's words hammered at my resolve. For the first time since beginning this mission, I seriously considered surrender.

Maybe they were right. Maybe fighting was pointless when I was so thoroughly defeated.

The magical influence washed over my mind like a tide, promising an end to all suffering if I just stopped resisting.

I felt my hands drop the ritual tools completely as the artifact's control began taking hold.