Chapter 212: Chapter 212

Violet

The pen moved across the tablet in smooth, confident strokes. I could feel the design taking shape beneath my hand, could sense that whatever was emerging had a rightness to it that all my previous attempts had lacked.

When I finally opened my eyes to see what I'd created, my breath caught in my throat.

It was a wolf. Snarling, powerful, captured mid-motion with its head thrown back.

But that wasn't the only thing I drew. Thorns surrounded it, wrapping around its body like a cage or a crown.

Sharp, wicked thorns that looked like they could draw blood. And woven between the thorns were what looked like claws, curved and deadly, creating a frame around the wolf's form.

It was beautiful and striking, the kind of design that would translate perfectly into jewelry for the alphas.

It was also completely unlike anything I'd ever designed before.

I stared at my sketch, trying to remember the moment I'd decided to draw this specific image, trying to recall choosing to create a snarling wolf, to add the thorns, to incorporate the claw-like elements.

But I couldn't remember making any of those choices. It was like my hand had moved independent of my conscious mind, creating something I had no memory of planning.

A shiver ran down my spine.

The design felt familiar in a way that made no sense. It was almost like I'd seen it before, though I knew I hadn't, like it meant something important, though I couldn't say what exactly.

I saved the file with shaking hands and tried to start something new, a simple pendant for a change.

But my hand wouldn't cooperate. The pen moved across the tablet, and when I looked down, there it was again. A variation on the first design, but unmistakably the same core elements of the wolf, thorn and claws.

By lunch, I had seventeen variations of the same design. I could already imagine that some would work better as pendants, others as bracelets or rings or larger statement pieces.

I pushed away from my desk, my heart racing. This was wrong. I didn't draw the same image over and over like I was possessed.

The word made me freeze.

Possessed.

No. That was ridiculous. I was stressed, that was all.

I told myself I was stressed from the forced job change, from seeing Elijah again, from the emotional whiplash of the past few weeks. My subconscious was just fixating on an image, probably something I'd seen somewhere and internalized without realizing it.

That was all this was. Stress and exhaustion was making me act strangely.

I grabbed my tablet and started a new sketch, determined to create something different. Anything different.

My hand moved, and I watched carefully this time, making sure I was conscious of every choice. A simple circle for the base.

This was going to be a modern, minimalist design. Nothing like the wolf and thorns.

Except my hand was adding details to the circle now. Small marks around the edge. Decorative elements that would add visual interest.

When I zoomed in to see them more clearly, my blood ran cold.

They weren't decorative elements. They were symbols. The same symbols I'd seen carved into the frame of the mirror at Ironcrest Manor. They were ancient-looking marks that I didn't recognize but somehow knew were significant.

My hand kept moving, adding more symbols, weaving them into the design without any input from my conscious mind.

The pen glided across the tablet like it was being guided by invisible strings, creating intricate patterns of symbols I'd only seen once, weeks ago, in a room I'd been warned never to enter.

I watched in horror as my hand continued to work, unable to stop it, unable to do anything except witness my own loss of control.

More symbols appeared. Then the thorns started creeping in at the edges. Then the wolf began to take shape in the center.

"No," I whispered, my free hand coming up to grab my wrist, physically trying to stop the movement. "Stop. Stop it."

But my hand kept drawing. Kept adding symbols and thorns and the snarling wolf until the design was complete.

A gasp tore from my throat and I dropped the stylus like it had burned me. It clattered against the desk, rolling across the smooth surface before falling to the floor.

I slammed my laptop shut, then my tablet, then stood up so fast my chair rolled backward and hit the wall. My hands were shaking, my breath coming too fast, panic rising in my chest like a physical thing.

I needed to get some sleep or maybe visit the doctor.

I grabbed my bag and practically ran from my office, ignoring the concerned looks from colleagues I passed in the hallway.

The drive home was a blur. I probably shouldn't have been behind the wheel given my state of mind, but I needed to move, needed to do something physical and normal and grounding.

When I finally made it home, I went straight to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face before staring at my reflection in the mirror.

I hoped to find some sign that I was losing my mind, that something fundamental had broken inside me.

But I looked normal. Tired, pale, and stressed but normal.

"It's just exhaustion," I told my reflection firmly. "You're overworked and stressed and your brain is playing tricks on you. That's all this is."

My reflection didn't look convinced.

I forced myself to eat something or mom would pester me and finally crawled into bed.

Somehow I was walking through Ironcrest Manor again, my feet carrying me down familiar corridors without any conscious direction. Everything was slightly off, slightly wrong, like a memory filtered through fog.

The mirror pulled at me, drew me forward with invisible strings. I tried to resist, tried to turn away, but my body wouldn't obey, just like my hand with the drawings.

The mirror gleamed in moonlight that shouldn't exist indoors. And in the reflection, somebody was waiting for me.

The woman I'd glimpsed before. But she appeared clearer and more solid now.

I could see her features, the sharp angles of her face, the wild tangle of dark hair, the eyes that burned with something between rage and sorrow.

She was beautiful and terrible, and she was looking directly at me.

Her lips moved, speaking words I couldn't hear but somehow understood. Symbols flashed around her in the mirror, the same ones my hand had drawn. The wolf appeared, snarling at her feet. Thorns wrapped around her arms like shackles.

Then the scene shifted and I was seeing something else. A memory that couldn't be mine because I'd never lived it.