Chapter 4: Forgotten Power
Nora's Point of View
Power ran through my body like lightning. I pulled my hand back from the window, staring at my palm where silver light still ran beneath the skin. The sensation was thrilling and frightening all at once.
Nothing ever came anywhere near this when I was Nora.
That was a long time ago when it was difficult to alter. My wolf was small and fragile compared to the remainder of my pack. I could barely mend surface injuries, not to mention the deeper ones that required the true touch of a Moon-blessed healer. They all told me I was defective, that my blood had been tainted in some way.
They were lying. Elena had prevented me from being strong.
I closed my eyes and further immersed myself in the energy within me. It exploded out hungrily, like a dammed river after centuries bursting free. Silver light streamed down my arms and pooled in my hands.
The old, faded scar on the palm of my hand where I used to fall when I was a child began to itch. I watched in amazement as the mark smoothed out, the skin evening out until not a single trace remained.
Elena's wolfsbane had done more than repressed my powers. It had eradicated them, keeping me from tapping into what was mine by blood.
A recollection flashed of the day Elena and I were both seven. I'd fallen from a tree and severely broken my arm. Elena'd bullied the rest of us into making her a special tea to lift my spirits. Within an hour, the bone had healed up incorrectly and had to be re-broken by the pack healer.
My body was already poisoned by her back then.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I moved away from the window. This meant I had to figure out what was going on if my skills were coming back. Because I could not keep up with what was going on, I did not want to accidentally blow my cover.
To let the silvery light flow easily, I put my hands out in front of me. Despite having been waiting forty years for permission to run, it did what I told it to do. Dark shadows appeared on the walls as the light got brighter.
And then came the light, followed by the other senses. I could feel the presence of all living creatures within the pack house. Kai's pounding heart two doors away. Elena's irritation pacing back and forth in her bedroom. The exhaustion of the night patrolman as he plodded his patrol.
But under that was something else. Something dark and tainted smoldering beneath Elena's natural wolf smell.
I focused on that sensation, attempting to identify what it was. The blackness writhed and twisted like a living thing, siphoning Elena's life and offering something back. Power, but at a cost.
Black magic. Elena was bound to something unnatural.
A searing pain cut through my head, and I gasped, destroying my focus. The silver light extinguished, plunging me into bitter, sudden darkness while I panted.
Someone was trying to drill into my mind.
I hurled mental defenses the way that my mother had taught me when I was a child, before she had died. The pressure against my mind increased for a moment and disappeared.
Elena. She'd been able to feel me using my powers and tried to intrude in my mind space so that she could figure out what I was doing.
I froze, barely breathing. Was she content with what she'd discovered to come up with her suspicions? Or was she just taking precautions about the newest wolf in her territory?
Footsteps along the hallway provided the answer. Careful, slow footsteps directly to my door.
I pushed underneath the bedclothes and pulled them up over my chin, trying to keep my breathing slow and my heart rate steady. When Elena knocked softly, I made sure I sounded dazed and confused.
"Aria? Okay, sweetie? I swear I felt something."
"That you felt something?" I growled, playing the sleep act up. "What are you talking about?"
"Moon magic. Someone was tapping Moon-given powers." Elena's voice was as sugary sweet as honey poisoned with sugar. "I'm very attuned to these shows, you see. It's the nature of my healing gift."
"I don't know anything about magic," I said, getting just the right combination of bewilderment into my tone. "I barely change at all."
There was a silence between us. I could practically hear Elena weighing my words against what she had endured.
"Of course," she said finally. "You've had such trauma. It can sometimes create zany dreams. Sleep tight, dear."
Her footsteps disappeared from me, but I knew that she wasn't convinced. Elena had always been smart. Too smart for her own good, and definitely too smart for mine.
I waited until I was sure she'd gone back to her room before sitting up once more. I this time only let a tiny trickle of my power, enough that I could keep it tuned in but hopefully not enough that Elena would feel it from all the way across the room.
The sensation was incredible. Each of my breaths was cleaner. Each of my heartbeats was more confident. That's the way I should've felt in my entire first life.
I tried to think through all the things that I'd gotten wrong with Marcus. All the things that he'd compared about me to other Lunas. All the things that he'd spoken perhaps Elena would be a good mate, because she was so much stronger.
Elena had mapped out every second of my failure.
My wolf churned restlessly beneath me, wanting to hunt. To run. To show the world what we were capable of. But I held her back. Not yet. We had to be strategic here.
If Elena had the budget of least idea of what I was actually able to do, she'd be moving fast. I'd had maybe a day or two before she did anything again.
I needed info. I needed friends. And I needed to know what precisely Elena'd been doing for the past decade.
The creak of floorboards quietly just outside my door. I paused, trying to listen. Someone was just outside my door, as quiet as I could barely hear his breathing.
Not Elena this time. The scent was different. Male. Familiar.
Kai.
I slipped out of bed and went quietly to the door. What was he doing there? Was he in with Elena? Had she sent him by to see what I was doing?
Or was it for some other reason that the Alpha just happened to be standing watch outside my door at three AM?
I leaned my ear against the door, trying my best to hear any sign of movement. Nothing. He simply stood there, silent as a statue.
Minutes ticked by. Still nothing.
At last I could hear him breathe, as if he'd made up his mind. His footfalls disappeared, but not to his room. He was heading downstairs instead.
Where was he going?
I opened the door enough to look out. The hallway was empty, but I heard something downstairs. Quiet footsteps. Quiet voices. Elena's laugh, quickly stifled.
They were having a meeting. Secretly, at three AM.
My stomach fell. Whatever it was that they were doing, Kai was in on it. The soft Alpha who'd become my safe haven was working with my assassin.
I should have known better than to trust any of them on this campus.
But as I hung in back of the railing and listened to the sound of muffled voices below, one sentence drifted up clear enough for me to hear.
Elena's cold, enraged tone: "I said it, the girl is not your concern. She's the very thing we need."
Kai's response was too soft to catch, but his tone was strained. His fury, even.
"She's ideal," Elena continued. "Young and healthy and totally in the dark as to what she's carrying. The ritual will take effect faster than we could have hoped."
My blood ran cold. They weren't going to steal my abilities.
They were going to offer me up as a sacrifice.
I closed the door and took a step back, my mind reeling. How long had I got? Hours? Days?
A new sound downstairs halted me.
Two sets of footfalls on the stairs. Elena and Kai, back from wherever they had been.
I leapt into bed and burrowed under the bedclothes, attempting to breathe naturally. The footsteps paused outside my room.
"She's sleeping," Kai's soft whisper.
"Good. We'll begin getting ready tomorrow. The sooner we begin, the better she'll be when the time comes."
"And you're certain it will work?"
"Trust me," Elena said to me, and I could hear the smile in her voice. "I've been getting ready for a very, very long time."
They left, and I heard their doors close behind them.
I lay in the darkness, the silver power pounding beneath my surface, and grinned.
Elena thought she was the hunter.
She had no idea she'd invited the dinner guest.