Chapter 72 Awakening in the Wrong World

Chapter 72 Awakening in the Wrong World
EPILOGUE : Awakening in the Wrong World

I wake up choking.

Air slams into my lungs like I have been drowning, and my body jerks upright with a gasp so sharp it hurts. My heart pounds violently against my ribs, wild and disoriented, as if it has been ripped from another life and shoved back into this one without warning.

For a moment, I don’t know where I am. Then I see the ceiling. Plain. White. Cracked faintly in the corner where the paint has been peeling for months. No stone arches. No moonlit altar. No scent of blood and snow.

Just my bedroom. My bed. My world. My hands fly to my stomach. Flat. Unmarked. No blood. No pain. No life growing beneath my skin. A sound breaks out of me before I can stop it. Half sob, half scream. I curl forward, clutching myself as if something has been ripped away so violently that my body still remembers the shape of it.

“Lucian,” I whisper. The name tastes like grief.

My sheets are tangled around my legs, my old hoodie twisted around my body. My phone lies face down beside my pillow. And pressed awkwardly against my cheek, my Kindle.

Still open. Still warm. I lift it with shaking hands. Blood Moon Requiem. The cover stares back at me like an accusation.

I laugh.

A broken, hysterical sound. “Of course,” I whisper hoarsely. “Of course it’s still here.”

It was just a book. Just words. Just fiction. But my chest caves in anyway. Because my heart remembers him. I remember the weight of Lucian’s body in my arms. The warmth of his breath. The way his voice cracked when he said my name. The blood soaking into the snow beneath us.

I slide down against the headboard, pressing the Kindle to my chest like it might burn me.

Was it a dream? 

Was it a hallucination?

Or was it something far worse?

Something real that the universe decided to erase.

Tears spill down my face without permission. Quiet ones at first. Then ugly, gasping sobs that leave my throat raw. I mourn like someone who has buried a lover no one else knows existed.

Eventually, exhaustion wins. Grief always does. Life continues because it doesn’t care if you are ready.

I go back to work. Graveyard shift. Headset on. Script memorized. Voice calm and polite while my soul drags itself behind me like something half-alive.

“Thank you for calling. How may I help you tonight?”

Customers complain about bills, about outages, about things that feel laughably small compared to watching someone die in your arms.

On my breaks, I stare at nothing.

At sunrise, I drive home as the world wakes up, watching light spill across the highway like it hasn’t committed some great betrayal.

I sleep during the day. Wake in the afternoon. FaceTime my parents in South Carolina, smiling just enough that they don’t ask questions I don’t know how to answer. My mother tells me I look tired. My father asks if I’m eating enough.

I lie.

I take my puppy for walks. She looks at me like I am her whole universe, tail wagging, unconditional love wrapped in fur and warmth. Sometimes I kneel in the grass and press my forehead to hers just to feel something solid and alive.

I eat.

I shower.

I repeat.

Life resumes its rhythm without asking for my consent.

Some days, I’m fine. Some days, the sound of wind through trees makes my chest ache so sharply I have to stop walking.

At night, I dream of snow. Of gold eyes. Of blood on white ground. I stop reading Blood Moon Requiem. The book stays on my shelf, spine untouched, like a grave I’m not brave enough to visit.

Until the invitation arrives. It’s an email from a coworker.

Hey! You like fantasy books, right? There’s a signing this weekend. Blood Moon Requiem’s author is in town. Thought you might want to come.

My fingers hover over the screen. My pulse spikes. No. Absolutely not. And yet. Something twists in my chest. A quiet, dangerous curiosity.

I don’t reply right away. I stare at the email for a long time. Then I say yes.

The bookstore is crowded. Warm. Smells like paper and coffee and excitement. I stand near the back at first, heart hammering, palms sweating as if I’m about to do something illegal instead of attend a signing.

And then I see him.

The world narrows.

Tall. Dark hair. Sharp jaw. Calm posture. A faint smile that feels too familiar, too cruel. Lucian Drevane. The author. Not an Alpha. Not a wolf. Just a man in a black coat, signing books with a practiced ease.

My knees threaten to give out.

This is ridiculous, I tell myself. He just looks like him. Lots of men look like characters they write.

I step forward when it’s my turn, movements stiff, unreal.

He looks up.

For half a second, something flickers in his eyes.

Then it’s gone.

“Hello,” he says pleasantly. “Who should I make it out to?”

My heart cracks a little.

He doesn’t know me.

Of course he doesn’t.

I swallow. “Keira.”

He pauses. Just a fraction. His pen stills.

Then he smiles again. “That’s a beautiful name.”

I nod, unable to speak. He signs the book. Hands it back.

“Thank you for coming.”

I take it. Turn away. Stupid, I think. Foolish. I actually believed—

A hand catches my wrist. I freeze.

He leans close, close enough that no one else can hear. His voice drops, no longer polite, no longer distant.

“Mine,” he whispers. My breath leaves my body. His lips brush my ear. “You’re always mine, Keira.” The world tilts.

And I realize, some stories don’t end. They just find another way to begin.