326
Lucy
Peter's breath hitched, rasping, and shallow, then deepened into a cough that wracked his battered body. His eyelids fluttered, eyelids so pale they were almost luminous in the dim torchlight. He struggled to get up, leaning on his Spear and on Michelle. The light pulsing through the Spear rippled over his skin. He let out a soft sigh and stumbled a little.
“Peter?”
“I... It’s gone.”
“What?” Michelle gasped as his hair started to change, losing the gray color and growing dark. His face turned younger until I was sure that he was all of twenty-something. He grew a bit taller, too, bigger until his shirt strained against his chest and his buttons popped. He flushed.
“Well… that’s not…” He cleared his throat as Michelle smiled up at him.
“So this is what you looked like in your youth?”
He scoffed. “I’m much younger than you think.”
He grunted, pressing a hand to his side. “Wish the Spear would heal the wound, though.”
I winced. “Sorry… it’s a cursed dagger.”
“Vicious,” he said. “I… I certainly hope this means my brothers are free of it, too.”
“Brothers?” I asked.
He smirked. “You’ll get a chance to meet them, I’m sure… Hopefully before the wedding.”
He forced himself to stand up. “Now, how do we—”
He broke off. I heard the sound, but he moved before I could speak. A hulking figure of bloodied fur and sharp teeth burst from the darkness. A werewolf with eyes filled with light. Peter swung around and let the Spear go flying. It tore from his grasp, and a streak of silver light cut through the air. It met the werewolf in its chest, the impact resounding like a muffled thunderclap. The beast howled, a sound that ripped through the cavern before collapsing. Its eyes went dull, and it slowly began to shift into the form of a man. He was dead.
"We need to get out of here," Peter rasped, his voice strained. "Now."
The Spear came back to him. Michelle helped Peter down the tunnel. The darkness seemed lighter, with the Spear lighting the way. I couldn’t say how long we’d been walking, just that we still were. Then, a sliver of light, faint yet beckoning, glimmered ahead. We stumbled towards it and found ourselves before a massive stone door etched with ancient runes that pulsed with a dim, ethereal glow.
“Easy,” Michele whispered, lowering Peter to the ground. She ripped a strip of her dress to bind Peter's wound, using it to hold a wad of his shirt against the wound. “I really wish Duke was here…”
“Yeah,” I said, looking around. My gaze snagged on a flash of moonlight reflecting from the wall. I approached it, frowning as I looked inside. I almost drew back, but I couldn’t move once I saw it.
The crystal necklace glinted with light, beckoning me. I tried to resist it. My whole body shook with the need to pick it up. I wrapped my fingers around the pendant, gripping it so hard my knuckles turned white. And then, I squeezed, channeling every ounce of defiance I possessed. Maybe I could break it. I tried channeling magic into it, to crush it, but it didn’t shatter in my hand. It didn't even crack. A wave of despair washed over me. That wasn’t going to work.
So what would?
“Nothing,” I heard her say. Her voice chilled me."Put it on."
I shook my head, resisting as much as I could. It was like watching my body from outside. My hands shook, lifting it from the space it was in to put it on. No matter how hard I tried to resist, I lifted it, ready to slip it on. My eyes burned.
I didn’t want this.
I wasn’t going to be her puppet, her vessel. She couldn’t do whatever she wanted with my body.
No.
The necklace bounced away from me, seemingly repelled.
“Pick it up,” Selene snarled. I bent down to do so and tried again, but the same thing happened.
She snarled, and I picked it up again.
“What is this?” Selene shrieked.
It didn’t matter what it was. I couldn’t put it on. Relief washed through me. I turned back to them and smiled. Maybe it had been Eve or Delilah. Maybe it was Allison. Whoever it was, it didn’t matter.
“Is that what I think it is?” Peter asked.
I nodded. “The ritual is starting. We have to stop her.”
Peter was pale. “That woman… who sent the wolf to kill me.”
I frowned and looked at him. “The wolf?”
“In my vision… I killed it.”
I smiled. “So… you must be Odin.”
He blinked, and then he chuckled. “I guess so.”
“Her name is Selene, and she’s the creator of the werewolf virus,” I said. “She’s planned to use the Awakening to revive herself, and this…” I held up the necklace. “Is part of how she’s been doing so all these years.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
I looked over at him. “Can you cure Michelle?”
He blinked and looked at Michelle. He nodded, cradling her against him. The Spear turned into a staff, and he touched the silver head of the Staff against her chest. Light pulsed, bathing the chamber in an ethereal glow, and brilliant gold light floated out of her.
She let out a soft, relieved sigh, and her hair took on a golden tone. Peter snickered.
“I suppose you’ll have to deal with being a blonde again.”
“No!” She wailed. “I’m dying it the first chance I get!”
“All of it?”
She flushed. “Peter!”
He chuckled and looked at me. “I suppose you know what you’re doing?”
I winced. “A little.”
He nodded.
"Get going," Peter leaned back and pulled out a phone. "I'll call for backup."
I nodded. “Look after each other.”
She nodded. “Good luck.”
I headed back down the tunnel. I could see a young woman in my mind, running down this same corridor. She looked like Delilah. I followed the path she took through the darkness, trusting the dim light and the specter I was following. The tunnel twisted and turned.
Suddenly, the path slanted up like a steep slope. I dug my fingers into the earth and clung to the stone, pulling me up as the sight of the moonlit night grew clearer. I pushed the debris aside, dragging myself up through the opening until I could breathe the clear air, but I had no idea where I was. I pushed and wiggled out of the opening before pitching head-first down the steep incline until I landed at a stone archway that could have once been a door.
A vision flashed through my mind of a grand, multi-level house tucked in the towering pines and carved out of the mountain that had once been here.
I was at the White Moon Estate. I shivered, placing my hand on the overgrown stone.
I was home. My eyes stung. Then, something pricked my senses. I smelled something odd, and I heard chanting that sent a chill through me. I got up and crept toward the sound. Every rustle of leaves, every chirp of a startled bird, sent prickles of anticipation down my spine. I was close. I could feel it. The closer I grew, the faster my heart raced.
The chanting, rhythmic and guttural, grew louder. I weaved through the shadows.
There was nothing but rubble and overgrown stone around me. The scent of pine was strong, along with the lingering scent of burned wood and damp earth. The building that had once been here had long since been destroyed.
I wondered if Lucian ever planned to rebuild the original Estate again or if the new house would always be the forever new home of the White Moon Pack. Beyond the destruction, I saw them: the robed figures seated around a circle of pulsating crimson light. Ancient runes glowed and floated in the air above a raised stone platform, atop which lay a silver chalice at the head of what looked to be an altar. I squinted, and my eyes landed on the body lying on the altar, seemingly unmoving. She was the woman who had attended the Festival with Oren. Was she still alive?
The drawings on the ground matched up with the ritual I found in the library.
I shook my head, wondering why such a book was just on the general shelves in the first place and hating it.
I recognized a few of the women as members of Hecate; one of them had been in the session where I was tested. A few others were from the Academy. My stomach turned. How far did Selene’s reach go?
I hoped that if we all got out of this, we’d be able to find them all and punish them.
“So glad you could make it, Lucy.”
My heart lurched, and a force yanked me from where I was, pulling me into the air.
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