Chapter 107 The rift
The creature did not wait.
It lunged.
Kane threw himself sideways but not fast enough.
The creature’s form hit him like a wall of pressure, not solid, not smoke, something between the two that had no name. He went down hard on the cracked stone.
Aria did not hesitate.
Silver light tore from both hands in a single concentrated line. It struck the creature’s center mass.
“No!” Amanda screamed.
Black veins split across the ridge stone in every direction.
Then the creature was gone.
The silence that followed was total.
Then Amanda’s voice cut across the ridge.
“What did you do?”
Aria turned.
Amanda was staring at the space where the creature had been. Her composure was gone. Her hands were at her sides and shaking.
“What did you do?” she said again.
“It was going to hurt him,” Aria said.
“I had it,” Amanda snapped. “It was not going to attack. I had it under control.”
“You did not have it,” Aria replied. Her voice was calm and certain. “It lunged at Kane. That is not control.”
Amanda turned back to Aria. “You had no right.”
Aria looked at her steadily. “Kane is my mate. You have no ground to stand on telling me what I had the right to do. Especially when you brought that thing on our territory.”
Amanda opened her mouth.
Kane pushed himself up from the stone. His hands were shaking and he did not let anyone see that.
“You have been in our lives for a short time,” Aria said. “And in that time there has not been a single quiet moment. The beach house. The antidote. The creature.” She looked at her. “There is always something. And it always comes back to you.”
Jacob shifted but did not speak.
“We have been patient,” Aria continued. “We have given you room because we did not have enough information to do anything else. But that ends now.”
Amanda looked between them.
“How did you escape?” Kane asked. “When you were being held. You couldn’t have done it yourself.”
Amanda was quiet for a long moment.
“Alexander,” she said.
No one spoke.
Jacob moved to her side.
Marcus came up from the tree line. He looked at the black veins across the stone, at the split standing stone, at Kane. He did not speak.
Devon stood near the outer stones and said nothing.
“He offered to help me if I summoned the creature. I had almost everything I needed. But the creature requires more than a summoning. It requires a tether. Something to hold it once it arrives.” She paused. “I did not have enough power to hold that tether alone.”
“Which was why you wanted mine,” Aria said.
“Yes. But after you had us captured, I knew you giving me your magic was a long shot so I took his offer.”
“At what cost?” Kane asked.
Amanda said nothing.
“Amanda.”
Her jaw tightened. “He wanted the creature. Not to control it directly. He knew he could not do that. He wanted me to control it. And to direct it where he told me.”
“And you agreed,” Kane said.
“I agreed to listen to his terms,” she said. “That is not the same thing.”
“It is close enough.”
She looked at him steadily. “I was not going to honor it. I never intended to. I needed his power to complete the tether. Once the creature was stable I would have broken from him.”
“And instead the tether broke and the creature aligned to Kane and Alexander walked away with information,” Aria said.
Amanda’s expression tightened but she did not argue with that.
Kane studied her. “What does he want it for?”
“He did not tell me everything,” she said.
“What did he tell you?”
She was quiet long enough that Kane knew she was deciding how much to give.
“He called it a key,” she said at last. “Something that could open access to the old channels directly. Not through ritual. Not through bloodlines or runes. Directly. Whoever holds the creature holds the channels.”
Aria looked at Kane. He could see her thinking through what that meant. For the twins. For the pack. For everything they had built.
“And now he knows it responds to Kane,” Marcus said quietly from the tree line.
No one answered that because there was nothing useful to say about it yet.
Kane looked at Amanda. “Do you think it will come back?”
“Yes.”
“And when it does, you cannot hold it without Alexander’s power.”
“No,” she said.
“Then what are you offering?” Kane asked. “Because you are still here. You could have left with him. You did not. So what do you want?”
Amanda looked at him. Then at Aria.
Jacob watched her from a few steps back. Whatever he was thinking, he kept it behind his eyes.
“I want to finish what I started,” Amanda said. “Without him.”
Aria’s voice was careful. “You came to us originally because you wanted my power to hold the tether. That is still what you need.”
“Yes,” Amanda said.
“So nothing has changed,” Kane said. “Except now Alexander knows what the creature responds to. And you are asking us to trust you after you made a deal with him behind our backs.”
Amanda met his gaze. “I made a deal to survive. You would have done the same.”
“I would not have brought that thing onto our territory. Neither would I have gone back on my word without talking to you,” Kane said.
The silence that followed had weight to it.
Jacob looked at Amanda. “Tell them the rest.”
Amanda looked at him sharply.
“Tell them,” he said again.
Amanda looked back at Kane and Aria. Something shifted in her expression. The look of someone setting down something heavy they have been carrying too long.
She exhaled once.
“He created Moon Fever to force the Moon Healer into the open. When that did not give him what he needed, he began searching for something older. Something that would let him bypass bloodline limits entirely.”
Aria went still.
“The creature,” she said.
“Yes. He does not want to control it. He wants to use it to force the old channels open. Not through ritual. Not through bloodlines. Not through lunar timing. Directly. Whoever holds the creature holds the channels.”
Kane felt the pieces sliding into place. “And when they are forced open, he can draw from them. All of them. Every line that connects to that power.”
Aria’s hand slowly curled into a fist. “Including mine.”
“And the twins,” Marcus added quietly.
Silence fell.
Kane’s jaw tightened. “Why did it align to me?”
Amanda did not hesitate.
“Because the channels do not just run through healers,” she said. “They anchor through Alpha lines. Old Alpha lines. Yours. Your children are the first perfect convergence of Alpha and Moon Healer strength in centuries.”
The cold settled in.
“And now he knows the creature responds to you,” Amanda said. “I know how he thinks. I know what point he will target first. The closest crossing. The one that reacted when the creature aligned to you.”
Aria’s voice was steady. “And if he reaches it?”
Amanda did not soften it. “He will not need ritual. He will not need consent. He will not need blood willingly given.”
The implication was clear.
“And when the channels are forced open,” Amanda continued, “every bloodline tied to them reacts. Including your children. If he pushes hard enough, he could trigger their power early. Before they are ready.”
Aria’s breath caught.
Kane stepped closer. His voice turned cold. “Over my dead body.”
“You should have come to us,” he said.
“You had us captured,” Amanda replied quietly. “I did not trust that you would listen.”
The silence that followed carried weight.
Kane looked at her for a long moment. “What are you offering?” he asked.
Amanda met his gaze without flinching.
“I know the crossing he will target. I know the sequence he will use. And I know how to stop it.” She paused. “But I cannot do it alone.”
Aria looked at Kane. He looked back at her.
Amanda waited.
“That,” she said, “is why I need your help.”